I got advanced access to this book by NetGalley.

I come to this book being a pretty big fan of its predecessor, The Cruel Stars. I'm not going to say that the Shattered Skies is a bad book, but it struggles under a lot of weight. Some of that is being the second book in the series, some of it is struggling with its characters(and some running jokes), and some of it is fitting way too much book into this book.

The book starts off very fast, with not a lot of interconnecting tissue to the previous book and that is good in some ways, but then I had to do some work to re-connect myself to the world of the Cruel Stars. I, as a reader, like to be immersed in the world that I reading about, and this took me out of the world way to much.

While I appreciate the concept of the Strum, and I really like the way the author starts to actually tell some of the story of the Strum, when they would get referred to as "Space Nazis", I once again was getting pulled out of the story. I get it, I get the pain the character that references Space Nazis is in, but after a while, it just gets jarring to read.

Finally, there are parts of the book that definitely are setting up for the next book, but really, they don't add anything to The Shattered Skies. Those lines, specifically talking about backups, could easy be in book three. I'm going to forget they were there by book three.

There are certainly parts of this book that drew me in, parts that I had to keep turning page after page, which makes it a shame that I got pulled out of the story as much as I did.

I am looking forward to book three

CHICAGO (RNS) — With a roll of the dice, John Scalzi sealed his fate.

At his appearance in late October at the American Writers Museum in Chicago, the best-selling author, newspaper columnist and social media maven tossed a 10-sided die to determine what he would speak about that evening.

Sometimes it’s explaining the meaning of life. Sometimes it’s how he wrote his latest science-fiction novel, “The Consuming Fire,” in two weeks.

Sometimes it’s even preaching. During an appearance at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Fort Collins, Colo., to talk about his new book, Scalzi, a self-described agnostic, preached on Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount from the book of Matthew.

It’s a passage that speaks to him — because it asks why we do what we do.

“Even as an agnostic, to ignore the wisdom of religious teaching, to ignore the fact that so many people are religious, just doesn’t make sense,” he told Religion News Service.

Religion doesn’t just show up in Scalzi’s book tours. It also plays a role in many of his books — which look at themes like reincarnation, predestination and the role of overzealous missionaries, along with examining the good and evil that religion can do in the universe.

And that’s not unique to Scalzi.

Please find the link to the rest of our coverage at Religion News Service below.

I love John Scalzi’s novels and have given them five-star reviews all around. So when THE CONSUMING FIRE came out, I was excited and couldn’t wait to read it.

I read it.

Not excited anymore.

Unfortunately, the book disappointed me a bit. For being Scalzi, this story is heavy on exposition, and has a million difficult-to-track characters. Of course, not all the novels can be home runs, but all his previous books felt like that. So his previous stories spoiled me, and I was used to greatness.

Overall, a good, exposition-heavy story with a lot of characters.

It starts off slow and kind of dense, but once the action begins, it's hard to resist the story as it drives forward. It reads as a true epic, one that makes you feel the world really has been reshaped as you read it. Would recommend.

A great beginning to the Second book in the series.

Characters seem inline with those of the first book and the plot is moving along at a good pace.

Leaves you wanting more.

In book two of Scalzi's newest space saga, the confederation of systems known as the Interdependency is under threat of being isolated from each other as their method of travel and communication is slowly collapsing. Emperox Grayland II has more than enough to do as she tries unconventional methods to hold the systems together, and the ongoing attempts to dethrone her aren't helping. As Scalzi moves between the emperox, her enemies, the mathematicians searching for a solution (or at least more clarity), and the gloriously foul-mouthed merchant Kiva Lagos, more discoveries lead to more questions. - Adrian Liang, Amazon Book Review

I’ve been waiting to read this book and it did not disappoint. John Scalzi has continued his series about the Interdependency, a huge conglomeration of humans in the future who have been cut off from Earth but are now part of a nation ruled by the Emperox. In the last book, we are introduced to the newest ruler Grayland II who has become the Emperox quite unexpectedly. Of course the many companies that form the backbone of the Interdependency assume that she is a ruler made to be influenced by them. Grayland II does feel unequal to the job of Emperox especially when the main phenomena that holds the nation together, the Flow [which is how the nation is able to travel between the vast distances of their holdings], is starting to collapse.
In this book the Emperox seeks to convince her subjects that the collapse of the Flow is real and it must be planned for if the Interpendency is to survive. Unfortunately many of her nobles are more interested in keeping things stable for themselves — and their vast holdings and profits. As with all of John Scalzi’s books, this one keeps you reading and waiting for the next book in the series.

The Collapsing Empire was one of my favourite NetGalley finds – so much fun to read, and introducing me to an author I immediately wished to read more from. The story was intriguing, too: in the far future, humanity has spread throughout the stars by means of wormhole-like ‘flow’ paths between planets and habitats that would otherwise take months, years, or longer to travel between. Long cut off from Earth after the collapse of that particular flow, it seems as if other, depended-upon trade routes are also starting to disappear.

Following on from that, we once again join Emperox Grayland II now dealing with what could be the biggest upcoming disaster in any Emperox’s rule. First hurdle: convincing anyone else that the threat is real. Meanwhile, power struggles between ruling houses continue, taking more deadly and downright nasty twists. And on the end of a newly-opened flow, it could be that a long-cut off scion of humanity may not have been destroyed when their link to civilisation was…

I didn’t find CF quite as much fun as CE, but it was still a thoroughly enjoyable read. Lady Kiva is a bit more reigned in this time, although still a lot of fun. Cardenia is coming into her own. However, the scale of the story takes precedence over characterisation a little. There’s also a bit of ‘middle-book’ syndrome, in that this needs both the preceding and – omg, I have to wait HOW long!?! – sequel.

Still, a very recommended book/series. Even if one bit just made me think ‘Brexit in space’ – argh!! ;)

The Consuming Fire by John Scalzi is the superb follow-up to The Collapsing Empire. It goes something like this: in the far, FAR future, the Interdependency keeps humanity united, and distant habitats are interconnected via the Flow (the extra-dimensional, wormhole-esque field that allows travelling between systems). The Emperox runs everything, although the Merchant Houses are actually the ones running the show in many ways (and moving the money). But we learned that the Flow is collapsing and parts of the universe will be cut from one another. The newly instated Emperox Cardenia is one of the few that actually believe the scientists about this. How exactly is Cardenia going to 1) convince the Houses, the Church, and the People that this is actually happening and 2) keep the precarious power she has so she can do some good with it for a change? AND THEN THERE ARE THE TWISTS, including the secrets that have been kept for a thousand years and all the backstabbing and conniving plots to unseat the Emperox. And lots and lots of super great scenes with my favourite serial swearer and reluctant hero, Lady Kiva. I already loved The Collapsing Empire but the sequel was even better: hitting the high notes with twist after twist keeping the plot going without missing out on developing the characters and relationships.

"The Consuming Fire" is a worthy follow-up to "The Collapsing Empire," full of Scalzi's characteristic wit and memorable characters. If you enjoyed the first book, TCF will delight and entertain. There's a little too much exposition at the beginning, perhaps for the benefit of those who haven't read the first book in the series, but once that business is taken care of, the book is Scalzi at his sardonic best.

The Consuming Fire is the sequel to The Collapsing Empire both by John Scalzi. Scalzi is a true master at writing easy to understand science fiction while still keeping a deep level of complexity. The only downfall I can find about this book is netgalley only had a chapter sampler and not the whole book. For more in depth thoughts click the included link.

I ended up borrowing the novel from the library as I knew I would want to read the whole novel. It was a great novel too, can't wait for book #3.

Loved the preview! I bought the book and am reading it now. Will post a full review to goodreads. Loving it so far, Scalzi is such a great storyteller and this setting is rich, with compelling characters. Except for the one-dimensional villains; I wouldn’t mind seeing a little more nuance in the Nohamapetans..

Yup, this remains my favorite Scalzi series ... by quite the margin! I do wish I'd done the smart thing, gone back, and re-read the first book in the series before diving into this second installment—but even so, the book does a fairly good job of hinting at past events in such a way as to catch a person up ... eventually. The book starts somewhat slow, but by the time I hit the middle I was starting to screech "What?! WHAAAAAT?" on a regular basis. Scalzi pulls some really fun moves in this second installment in the second half, including a number of twists that I wasn't expecting, and the usual handful that I was—and which were well-executed.

Most readers that I know of come to Scalzi because he has a pleasantly accessible voice and balances that with a good dollop of plot development and characterization without letting any one element weigh the recipe down. Sometimes, in other series, he has come off as vaguely flippant, but here his voice serves the greater work of the book as a whole.

And yes, it's very very gay. THREE CHEERS FOR GAYS (done well, who don't get buried, who rule the universe, and etc. and etc.).

This initial excerpt was fun and exciting, and it made me excited to purchase the full novel when it became available.

The first book felt very immediate with the crisis of the Flow upon us, but this book--after the first of the flows collapsing, and other long-dormant flows opening--had the time to reveal some new information and uncover a very old secret. The characters are still a highlight of this series and I was particularly happy to see Kiva back and doing what she does best.

This extract includes the first 6 chapters of The Consuming Fire, sequel to The Collapsing Empire, which I have unfortunately not had an opportunity to read - and one should definitely read them in order.

However, this excerpt has made me want to read both books. As always, John Scalzi entertains with satire, action, and Macchiavellian plots., as the young Emperox of the House of Wu tries to save her empire from dissolution by exploiting the 'visions' on which her family's rule was founded.

In his second Interdependency novel, John Scalzi picks up the threads he left dangling at the end of The Collapsing Empire: Kiva Lagos settles into her role as custodian of the House of Nohamapetan only to get a front-row seat to its matriarch’s treachery; Marce Claremont makes a stunning discovery (or re-discovery) while studying the collapse of the Flow streams; and Grayland II uses every tool at her disposal to consolidate power and convince the masses that the Flow collapse is real and urgent.
This sequel comes out of the gate swinging, with Scalzi’s crunchy humor and hyper-efficient prose delivering a raucous mini-epic of a prologue that sets up Grayland II’s use of her position as leader of the Interdependency Church to advance her agenda. Scalzi is at his best when he offers a heady but digestible mix of action, humor and philosophical inquiry, and his opening salvo delivers all three in spades. The rest of The Consuming Fire offers plenty of the first two but seems willing to leave us hanging with the questions it poses about the confluence of church and state and the role both play in civic life. Perhaps the problem is that it spends all its capital on the lives of the governing elite while the lives of the governed are little more than a blurry rabble taking up space in the background.
There are a lot of great action scenes and character moments in The Consuming Fire, and it has a “less talk more rock” edge over its annotative predecessor. Two books in, the Interdependency is entertaining enough to satisfy Scalzi’s fans; here's hoping some of its still dormant seeds will germinate in the next book.

John Scalzi continues the Interdependency Sequence in The Consuming Fire as vicious conspiracies interfere with the Emperox Greyland II's efforts to prepare the Interdependency for the collapse of the Flow which allows travel between planets of the empire. Well plotted and filled with action; an excellent hard science fiction adventure.

This is an interesting series for a variety of reasons. Dystopian sci fi where corporate greed is rampant and unchecked is a familiar trope in epic science fiction – but the Interdependency was stitched together to try and smooth out the destructive cycles of boom and bust that afflict a capitalist system. Now the Flow, a sort of super-highway of extra-dimensionality that allows far-flung star systems to trade with each other, is beginning to fail, the scrabble for power is intensifying. The corporate wheeler-dealers are magnificently cynical and greedy and everyone has plenty of snark, with the exception of Grayland II, who seems genuinely sweet.

Like many epic science fiction stories, Scalzi has passages of semi-omniscience where he tells the reader what is going on, rather than depicting the whole situation from the viewpoint of one of his cast of characters. This keeps the pace going and allows the reader to know some of the finer points that Scalzi thinks is important – and he makes this info-dumps enjoyable by the dry tongue-in-cheek tone he adopts. His characters are vivid, with some almost parodies in their desperation for more power, more leverage, more anything-they-can-get. I am intrigued by others, like Kiva, who I haven’t yet worked out is on the side of the angels, or simply out for what she can get. But be warned, she swears up a storm so if extensive use of the f-word offends you, then this is one to avoid.

Epic sci fi isn’t my favourite sub-genre – too much telling me what I should think… too much earnestness from the protagonists… too many powerful, entitled male characters… And I’m loving the fact that Scalzi has upended every single one of those peeves. His politically dynamic and feisty female characters are a pleasant change. His snarky tone and trick of understating the terrible consequences if the Interdependency fractures at the same time the Flow fails gives this book an almost urban fantasy feel. Will I be getting the next book? Oh yes.
9/10