The Consuming Fire by John Scalzi

Published by Tor Books on October 16, 2018

The Consuming Fire is the second novel in John Scalzi’s Interdependency trilogy. The Collapsing Empire introduces key characters and sets up the trilogy’s framework. The habitats of the Interdependency are facing a crisis as the Flow streams that link them begin to disappear. The habitats truly are interdependent, with the possible exception of the planet End, resulting in the likely death of their inhabitants when they are cut off from their trade partners.

The Consuming Fire is more satisfying than the first installment because, having established the premise, Scalzi is free to do something with it. In addition to developing a solid plot based on political conspiracies, Scalzi uses the book to teach an allegorical lesson. The collapsing flow streams pose an existential threat, but the members of the power structure — industrialists, religious leaders, and politicians — refuse to consider the long-term implications of that threat because they are only concerned about their short-term goals: acquiring and maintaining wealth and power. They are more interested in propping up the stock market than in acknowledging a threat that will make their stocks meaningless in a few years. They are happy to let the next generation worry about the consequences of their greed. Does that remind anyone of, for example, global warming?

The story fills in more background about how the Interdependency came into being. It’s a clever story involving the manipulation of the superstitious with religious visions and prophesies that were faked by the first emperox. The visions were “meant as parables to help a divided humanity understand the need for a new ethical system that focused on cooperation and interdependency.” The current emperox, Grayland II (f/k/a Cardenia), uses the same trick to control the empire’s citizens in a time of crisis.

The plot follows a grand scheme to overthrow Cardenia that brings together the House of Nohamapetan (which tried to assassinate Cardenia in the first novel) and disloyal elements of her own house (the House of Wu). The few people who are on Cardenia’s side include Kiva, whose house is at odds with Nohamapetan, and Cardenia's lover, the mathematician Marce Claremont, who remains focused on the imminent collapse of the flow streams and the deaths that will follow if humans cannot make their way to End, a planet that is now under the inconvenient control of the House of Nohamapetan.

In a critical subplot, Marce discovers that older flow streams are temporarily reopening, including one that leads to a lost system. Marce travels there with a small team to learn what they can about survival strategies, only to discover that a few plucky humans are still alive, 800 years after their orbital habitats were cut off from supplies. More importantly, he finds a ship from a forgotten system of planets that is operated by a captain whose consciousness was downloaded into the ship’s operating system.

Scalzi combines action with intrigue in a fast-moving novel that suggests important lessons without becoming preachy. Cardenia continues to develop as a character, growing into a role as emperox that she didn’t want, using her wits and marshalling her toughness to take on political opponents who view her as weak and naïve. I look forward to seeing how Cardenia gets the empire out of the mess its short-sighted industrialists and politicians have created.

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