The Consuming Fire is the second book in John Scalzi’s The Interdependency space opera trilogy. I wasn’t terribly impressed with the first book in the series, The Collapsing Empire, but then again, I am generally ambivalent about Scalzi’s work. I do think Old Man’s War and Redshirts are his best books by far, and some of his other stuff is just not very good at all (looking at you, Lock In!)
With Scalzi's recent press tour surrounding the release of the third and final book in the trilogy, The Last Emperox, I was reminded of the books’ existence and happily, Kindle copies were readily available at one of my local libraries.
The good news is that the best parts of The Collapsing Empire, are in its sequel, namely lots of snarky commentary, snappy pacing and sympathetic characters (Emperox Grayland II, Lord Marce Claremont and Lady Kiva Lagos). There’s also a ridiculously convoluted plot with internecine palace intrigue taken to the extreme, but clearly points are being made about the nature of elites and concomitant corruption.
I appreciate the difficulty of what Scalzi is trying to do here. He is combining humor with social commentary in the context of a putative space opera about advanced human civilization with near-magical transport methods and an extremely mercantilist society.
I don’t know if I am just in a different place/mindset than I was when I read the first book, but I quite enjoyed the second book. I connected with Marce, Cardenia and Kiva in The Consuming Fire strongly enough that I was invested in what happened to them for the entirety of the book and I am also quite curious to find out what will happen to them next in The Last Emperox. That, at its most basic form, is a description of a successful book. Additionally, there are some interesting developments in The Consuming Fire about the existential threat to human society caused by the imminent collapse of The Flow, the multidimensional space through which most interplanetary travel occurs.
Overall, The Consuming Fire is a very strong sequel to The Collapsing Empire, and an excellent and amusing space opera book in it’s own right.
Title: The Consuming Fire.
Author: John Scalzi.
Paperback: 304 pages.
Publisher: Tor Books.
Date Published: October 16, 2018.
Date Read: August 14, 2020.
OVERALL GRADE: A-/B+ (3.5/4.0).
PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: B+.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A-.
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