Tuesday, May 19, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Consuming Fire by John Scalzi



NOTE:  This book was reviewed based upon an e-ARC provided by the publisher on NetGalley in exchange for a review.  I give my word that did not affect the content of this review in any way.

The Consuming Fire is the second book in John Scalzi's Interdependency Trilogy, which began with The Collapsing Empire back in 2017.  I've read a a good deal of Scalzi, although most of it was before I started reviewing on this blog, and mainly have found him enjoyable if not special - all of his books tend to have a few fun characters, some strong witty dialogue, and good solid execution, but little of them stand out when all is said and done.  Back in 2017, I read The Collapsing Empire, and found it similar, except my main complaint was that the book's ending was unsatisfying, occurring well before any of the title's "Collapse" actually started to happen.  Having read quite a bit of other works I enjoyed more I never came around to continuing the series until now, thanks to the publisher granting me a copy on NetGalley.

And well, The Consuming Fire is fine - again excellently crafted, with occasional moments of humor - but I just didn't really find myself caring enough about any of it by the end of the book.  It's possible some of that is from not reading The Collapsing Empire more recently, but given my experiences reading other series - I don't think so: I just didn't really care for any of the main characters that much at this point to be that invested in continuing reading.  Again it's well done - if you want a SciFi story of scheming conspirators trying to overthrow a leader at a time of likely existential crisis, this is your series - but I guess without me having greater investment in the characters, it's not for me.


---------------------------------------------------Plot Summary------------------------------------------------------
Cardenia Wu, now Emperox Grayland II, has survived two assassination attempts and now only has the troubling task of convincing the rest of the powers of the Interdependency that the Empire is on the verge of collapse - with the hyperspace-like travel routes known as the Flow collapsing, it will take only a coordinated effort to save everyone.

But the other powers in the Interdependency do not trust the new Emperox and would rather make a play for the throne than cooperate, which would require them to take losses....and for what?  And these forces will be more careful than the last in their scheme to take out the Emperox....for good.

Meanwhile, Marce Claremont, the lord and scientist whose father discovered the Flow's collapse, discovers a new wrinkle in the Flow's collapse, suggesting new outcomes and pathways are possible.  But his exploration of same will be dangerous, especially when others discover how close he is to the Emperox, but it might reveal some truths that could save them all.....
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Like the first book in this series, we really are focused upon the three main characters: Cardenia/Grayland, Marce, and Kiva Lagos, the hyper-swearing former smuggling ship captain noble now in nominal charge of the bad guy Nohamapetan's finances (see last book).  Of course, here we also constantly shift between perspectives of side players  and some major antagonists (far more than the first book did based upon my quick reskimming of it) as things are going on, to get a more general picture of what everyone really believes is happening.

On one hand, this is executed fairly well, with enough craft that the plot keeps moving and never drags, with surprises generally well set up along the way and characters generally acting in-character.  It's mainly a story about a bunch of asshole nobles/corporate big heads being too short sighted and greedy to care about a long term apocalypse - and not very long term honestly - and instead plotting against the one power trying to make long term sacrifices: a plot idea that anyone today will have a hard time finding unrealistic.  If you want scifi political conspiracy fiction, well this is what you sort of have here.  And Marce's own side mission to a long lost planet is itself interesting, even if it doesn't have a huge payoff in this book but might in the future.  These things work fine.

But the constant shifting of perspectives doesn't work fine to build up any of the characters in a way that actually made me really care about them.  We spend more time with the antagonists and side characters than Cardenia and Kiva for example, some of whom get disposed of before they actually manage to do anything - seriously, at least one major new antagonist is introduced and is then promptly shoved aside by older ones before they actually add anything....and it's not like I particularly found the new antagonists interesting, but at least they were new!.  Cardenia is awkward in her romantic attraction to Marce, but that's solved at the end of book 1 and there's no conflict there, and she has no other character arc.  Marce has at least a science arc of discovery but again, it doesn't really excite me that much or build his own character.  And whereas Kiva's swearing reckless behavior in the first book was a lot of fun, she's doesn't actually do anything other than swear and have sex in this book, with all of her plot developments more or less happening to her than being the result of anything she actually does.

Basically when I started this series, I was hoping for a book or series featuring the struggle to reunite the empire as it's about to face an existential threat and with antagonists who aim to twist the chaos for their own goals.  Instead, we get all of the latter and basically none of the former, and the antagonists are just repetitive in their ambitions and methods - I could literally start a counter for # of assassination attempts being plotted/carried out in this book as a joke, and if I made it a drinking game, I'd get quite drunk.  Which you know, could be fine, but I'd probably have to care more about the characters and I didn't here.  Maybe if I read The Collapsing Empire right before this one I'd have cared more, but even the middle book in a series should have some interesting character development and uh, I don't really see any here.
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