The Last Emperox

Phil in SF reviewed Last Emperox by John Scalzi

I knew this would be awful

2 stars

I knew this would be awful. I was not wrong.

It's the same damn problem as the previous book in the series. Every character is too damn clever for their own good. Most characters are paper-thin schemers. The whole basis of the story is just predicting whether an incident will be a double cross or a triple cross or a quadruple cross. "Aha! I anticipated you would double cross so I have taken the liberty of triple crossing you!" Then there is the nature of some of the artificial intelligences that are characters. Specifically that these AI characters pepper every conversation with meta-discussion on the nature of their existence. "I, an AI, am sorry for your loss. Am I actually sorry or am I just programmed to say that? We must discuss the nature of this at every utterance of a pleasantry."

This series, particularly the second and third books, …

I knew this would be awful. I was not wrong.

It's the same damn problem as the previous book in the series. Every character is too damn clever for their own good. Most characters are paper-thin schemers. The whole basis of the story is just predicting whether an incident will be a double cross or a triple cross or a quadruple cross. "Aha! I anticipated you would double cross so I have taken the liberty of triple crossing you!" Then there is the nature of some of the artificial intelligences that are characters. Specifically that these AI characters pepper every conversation with meta-discussion on the nature of their existence. "I, an AI, am sorry for your loss. Am I actually sorry or am I just programmed to say that? We must discuss the nature of this at every utterance of a pleasantry."

This series, particularly the second and third books, have been so tedious.

Niko reviewed Last Emperox by John Scalzi

Review of 'Last Emperox' on 'Storygraph'

4 stars

Plodding plodding plodding and then WHOOOOSH suddenly the end of the Interdependency is upon us! I was gripped enough to need to know what happened next, but there's something about Scalzi's writing that sometimes makes his books feel... flat? Like fanfiction? I dunno. Anyway, this was fun.

Tak! reviewed The Last Emperox by John Scalzi (The Interdependency, #3)

4 stars

A very good conclusion to a very good trilogy.

Much like the previous installment, I found the wrapup extremely satisfying but a touch unrealistically neat.

Martin Kopischke reviewed The Last Emperox by John Scalzi (The Interdependency, #3)

One review fits all

3 stars

This is very much just one part of a three-part novel, which I find difficult to review in isolation. Because this site works best when people review the things they read, however, I will be adding the same review to all volumes.

John Scalzi is a nice guy writing nice SF novels.

You could almost leave it at that, really. For the sake of context, I will add a few more details to this assessment. This, like all of his novels I have read, is smoothly plotted and written, entirely unsurprising in its cliffhangers and ultimate resolution, and contains exactly one original idea. This being said, it’s an entertaining read if, at times, a bit too glib to my taste (I don’t think Scalzi has ever seen a witty repartee he didn’t like). If what you want from your SF is what I just described, you could do a lot …

This is very much just one part of a three-part novel, which I find difficult to review in isolation. Because this site works best when people review the things they read, however, I will be adding the same review to all volumes.

John Scalzi is a nice guy writing nice SF novels.

You could almost leave it at that, really. For the sake of context, I will add a few more details to this assessment. This, like all of his novels I have read, is smoothly plotted and written, entirely unsurprising in its cliffhangers and ultimate resolution, and contains exactly one original idea. This being said, it’s an entertaining read if, at times, a bit too glib to my taste (I don’t think Scalzi has ever seen a witty repartee he didn’t like). If what you want from your SF is what I just described, you could do a lot worse than the Interdependency series.

settingshadow reviewed The Last Emperox by John Scalzi (The Interdependency, #3)

Review of 'The Last Emperox' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Overall, I enjoyed the Interdependency trilogy, but I think this was the weakest of the three: about 100 pages are devoted to recapping the first two books. It also feels like the conclusion is a bit too neat and a bit too fantasy fulfillment -- the billionaire ruler who's just in it for herself is shown up, the climate change crisis, err, disruption of the flow is able to be mitigated so that everyone is saved and this actually is a nice salve to 2020, but it's not as deep and challenging reading as I wanted. Everything is wrapped up so neatly that it feels almost like fanfic, although it was satisfying and fun reading.