(no subject)

[seekingferret]

The Last Emperox by John Scalzi


I finished the series out of pure dogged stubbornness. It was just as bad as the other two, maybe worse. I just... at some level I don't understand what Scalzi's project was. I don't understand the kind of story he was trying to tell.

There's been this massive tonal mismatch from page 1 of the first book, where Scalzi is writing this apparently massive interplanetary epic, the tale of the fall of an Empire, in the breeziest, most dismissively casual tone possible. I'm not inherently opposed to that idea, but if you play a game like that there has to be a reason. I have no idea what the reason is?! Honestly this may be the reason I kept reading, I was desperately curious if in reaching the end I'd figure out why Scalzi made the terrible choices he did. But they just seem to be terrible choices. The effect of Scalzi's language is that nothing that happens, no matter how significant to the plot, seems consequential.

That may in fact be sort of the point. Certainly Scalzi doesn't seem to care if you're invested in the plot: The title of this book is a massive spoiler for the most significant plot event of the story. Since we all know I don't mind posting spoilers, let me just say it: The Last Emperox is the story of the Emperox, who is the most central character in the trilogy and the most likely character of any in this thinly characterized mess to have earned any attachment from fans, being assassinated. Why the hell would you title the book The Last Emperox? Do you just not want any of your narrative capital to pay off?

Maybe? In his post-novel author's note, Scalzi suggests that the writing game he was trying to play was What if I wrote a story in which the Empire's doom was foretold on page one, and nothing could be done to avoid that. I guess in that story, the plot itself doesn't matter, what's important is how characters react to the plot. Except I don't care about any of the characters. One of the major characters, who becomes even more important in the final book of the trilogy, has a significant character trait: every sentence she says includes the word fuck. There is not a lot of depth to any of these characters, that is to say. Scalzi tries to use tricks of stock character creation to disguise this, by giving his characters tics in place of emotions, but he doesn't pull it off very well.

Scalzi has written lots of good books! He's made me care a lot about Chris in Lock In, and John in Old Man's War, and a bunch of the redshirts in Redshirts. I find it baffling and frankly infuriating how much weaker this book is compared to those, how little thought seems to have gone into constructing an effective story here.

Comments

[sophia_sol]

Everything he does with these books is SO shallow! He could have done interesting things with the story he was trying to tell, and I guess he just chose not to! Baffling.

[cahn]

Heh, I actually read all of these and found them so forgettable I never said anything about the latter two! I thought of them as like movie popcorn -- the first one wasn't good, but still sort of enjoyable anyway. By the third, one is starting to feel a little sick and wondering why the heck one is still munching anyway.

I also thought it was weird how all three books have the same plot: conspiracy against Emperox, Emperox character realizes it and works against it. One time was reasonably fun; three times was "oh, it's this again."

[princessofgeeks]

I got through book 1 but did not want to read the other two. It struck me that he had an awesome premise about the nature of spacetime plus an allegory about how people can put their heads in the sand about climate change indefinitely, and some interesting Cassandras -- but he did not have the time, energy or writing chops to pull it all off.

that one character who said FUCK all the time bored me to tears. They weren't edgy, just annoying.

He's contracted to churn out books and maybe that is not going to be a good thing for his writing quality.

Lock In remains my favorite of his books by far -- that and the sequel. I didn't like Redshirts because I hate manipulative metafiction that fucks with the fourth wall that much. It makes me feel so manipulated that i can't even enjoy the artifice.

[kerithwyn]

Ohhh, yeah, thanks for reminding me that I have these in my reading queue and haven't read past the first one. And at this rate never might, because the first did not impress.

Loooooved Lock In, though, and OMW. I like his breezy writing style. But the first book felt lazy and it sounds like the rest aren't any better.