The Last Emperox

Loved the series, great characters and good humor. Book 3 was a good conclusion, but it a bit short. Really only 200 pages of new material here, rather lengthy intro of 50 pages was largely a review of the first two books. Would have liked more than one chapter with the two (kind of) AI's Jiyi and Chenevert getting to know each other.

Does Kiva Lagos remind anyone else of Ro Laren from STTNG a little?

So, 4 stars 'cos it's Scalzi and, if you like Scalzi, you won't be disappointed (although personally I find, particularly in more recent books, the witty patter is getting to be a little tiresome; this predates that however). On the other hand, the ending of this does feel a little rushed and it does require a literal deus ex machina to provide a solution (of sorts; it does feel like Scalzi reached a point with the whole Flows Collapsing thread and just threw his hands up in the air and said 'Fuck it!'). So, good but not great.

I really enjoyed the clever ending for this series. I think Grayland becoming an AI in the end was a masterstroke, and I loved to see her enemies shamed and outdone. I am glad that the relationship that she had with Marce did not stop the author giving her a ruthless death.

The writing can be a bit filthy in more ways than one, which I don't always enjoy, but at least there is a realism there that reminds us that Scalzi writes about humans and not just about concepts and plot points.

Entertaining story but the level of incompetence required by the government for the antagonist's plans to move forward makes it difficult to suspend disbelief and enjoy the story.

What an amazing awesome book, amazing finish to an amazing trilogy ...

Superbe conclusion à une superbe trilogie! Beaucoup de revirements que je n'ai pas venus venir, surtout la fin. Cette fin qui est un peu douce-amère. Pas apocalyptique, mais pas conte de fée non plus. Avec un deux es machina (littéralement!) que plusieurs n'ont sûrement pas apprécié, mais moi j'ai aimé.

L'épilogue par contre est du pur humour Scalzi!

Satisfying conclusion to the trilogy.

3.5 stars rounded up because this was so much fun!

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.

John Scalzi's The Last Emperox is a fitting, if somewhat unsatisfying, conclusion to the Interdependency trilogy. This series has not been my favorite set of his books. That said, The Last Emperox - like the rest of the series and many of Scalzi's books - has tons of humor (crude and otherwise) alongside interesting sci-fi concepts and political intrigue. This whole series has had major Dune vibes, and frankly I didn't love Dune when I listened to it and have yet to listen to the sequel. So ultimately I was not inherently predisposed to like this series, or this book. I did enjoy both, but I was disappointed that the ending felt a bit rushed. Scalzi created situations that seemed too easy or implausible, and I wasn't thrilled with how the book proceeded after the major twist toward the end. I might give the whole series another listen, but for now I'd give this book and the whole series 4.5/5.

Scalzi's Interdependency series seems very odd to me. I quite enjoyed the first book ([b:The Collapsing Empire 30078567 The Collapsing Empire (The Interdependency, #1) John Scalzi https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1464097677l/30078567.SY75.jpg 50498420]), and I really liked the second book ([b:The Consuming Fire 34942741 The Consuming Fire (The Interdependency, #2) John Scalzi https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1518468399l/34942741.SY75.jpg 56211540]). This, the third book, was good but surprisingly perhaps the weakest of the three – an honor usually taken by the middle book in a trilogy. Go figure. Serious spoiler ahead, I'm not kidding! ... Perhaps I feel like that because I was chafing right from the beginning of the book for Grayland II to solve her biggest problem by busting the monopolies. Spreading their intellectual property to all the inhabited systems would have greatly reduced the danger of massive deaths. Of course that would have required a totally different story. (And, the last Emperox actually did bust them toward the end anyway, so ... meh.)But still it was a solid ending to a good tale. And of course it being Scalzi, there is a lot of great dialog.3.5 stars rounded up.

A really wonderful conclusion to the story. Although I would have wished everyone made it out alive in the end, it felt like the right way to take the plot. I wish we could have another book though; I feel there's another story to be told about Marce's journey to Earth, and I'd love to see that.

The conclusion to this series was unexpected and I think I liked that. There were parts that genuinely caught me off guard.

Fun fun fun - Scalzi wrapped this trilogy up in a satisfying manner. Overall, interesting characters living in interesting times and in a believable universe. Yeah, good job Mr. Scalzi.

Overall: I was disappointed. I know Mr Scalzi is highly regarded in SF circles and I really wanted to like this, but I couldn't get past the fact that this book was utterly predictable. That may be a plus to some, but I was left wondering why I had put in the time to finish it.

Book 2 had some really cool ideas and some surprises, so I was hoping that book 3 would be the same. This was not so. Book 3 went right back to the linear plotline from Book 1, broadcasting any plot points well in advance.

Character 1: “Hey we have X that does Y.”
Character 2: “We have a problem because we need to do Y. Woe is us!”
Character 3: “SHOCK! We could use X to do Y!”
Lagos: “F F F F F F F F ....”
Nohamapetan: “Wha hahahahaha!” (mustache twirl)

Lets have a long discussion about death and how you can become an AI. Do you think she's going to....BOOM!...Yep she's dead, what's the betting she'll be back as a Rimmer-style hologram to do some grandstanding at the crowning, just like she did at that last big gathering? Yep there she is. What a surprise.

The ending left everything open and was followed by a note from the author saying that this was a trilogy, so I guess I'll never get closure from the cool ideas he just left there.

I would much have preferred it if the Lagos and Nohamapetan chapters of this series had been left out. This would have reduced this series to one decent sized book with two interesting and likable characters and we could look forward to finding out what happens next in a sequel, perhaps those shoals that move as they decay could be enlarged, directed and used as effective warp drives? Imagine the communications reopening with the other unions of humanity, what impact would that have? What state would they be in? Would the personality-recording technology have become common or have created an immortal nobility as hinted at? Robots produced by Wu are mentioned, would one of the other unions have developed humaniform robots one could load a personality into? Would Marce and Cardenia get their happily ever after with a robo-Cardenia? If only.

Feels a bit lighter than the previous two but still provides a satisfying ending to the story.
This book almost should have been a novella, in terms of how much story there is to tell, so it sometimes feels a bit repetitive, but it's still a very quick and fun read and a perfect closing to a great trilogy

I really enjoyed this series, and I hope it will spawn spin offs (or a Douglas Adams' like “five book” trilogy.) Full of thoughtful ideas and snappy dialog I can safely say that Kiva Lagos is now one of my top five fictional characters of all time.

This was so good I was a little upset when it ended because there was no more to be had. John Sclazi writes in such an easy to read manner that the words just fly by. There were some surprising developments. I think I love Kiva Lagos. The character is hyper-sexual and incredibly foul-mouthed, but she's very true to life, I think.

The timing of this book couldn't have been better. Either from a standpoint of needing some new Scalzi to read or how well it accidentally ties into the pandemic.