schneefink (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
schneefink) wrote2020-05-09 06:40 pm
schneefink) wrote2020-05-09 06:40 pm
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The Interdependency, by John Scalzi
I had a lot of fun reading these books, and I finished the trilogy in three days. But I should probably stop thinking about the ending, because the more I do the more frustrated I am with it. I did love some aspects, but others, not so much.
Let's start with: if one of the main characters commits suicide by proxy, that should a) not come as a complete surprise to the reader who's been following her for three books in close third person PoV, and b) have a better reason, because wtf.
Literally the explanation she gives for why her death would "stop it all. All the conspiracies and plots and nonsense" is "I think I've made it clear that secrets are not something that can be kept from me. And I released enough of everybody's secrets that they'll be too busy dealing with their own problems for a while to make any problems for Kiva." She could have done that while still alive! All she had to do was convince Rachela, and I'm pretty sure she needed Rachela's agreement anyway to upload herself the way she did, so it wouldn't be a large step. Or why not use her own electronic copy, that must have already existed before her body was destroyed. Rachela's abilities are immensely powerful, the fact that no other emperox found out about them because they didn't think to ask was already a stretch, and now that Cardenia has she could have come up with a way to use them that didn't require her own death. Why would she so easily resign herself to that? She was in love! And I didn't get the impression that she was so frustrated or feeling hopeless that suicide was among the options she'd consider, which is a bad sign since she's one of the main characters. (I found her hard to connect to from the beginning, without being able to put my finger on why.)
And then she talks Marce into going on a one-way mission to Earth, despite the fact that his unique knowledge about Flow physics would be enormously helpful in the next few years and decades for the Interdependency, because staying without being able to be with her would hurt him. Well maybe you shouldn't have killed yourself then.
Cardenia tells Chenevert "Promise that one day you'll come back. That he'll come back."
"Oh, Cardenia," Chenevert said. "Why would you worry about such a thing? However long it takes, I will always bring him home."
(Which gave me an unexpected amount of Cardenia/Marce&Chenevert feelings.) So the plan is for them to find technology on Earth so that Marce can be "uploaded" too and then return if one day in the future they find a way back? That seems like a very risky move.
I also facepalmed when I found out that Nadashe Nohamapetan (which, btw, is an awesome name) was thrown into prison on End. Yes, she lost all of her supporters and so did her family, but she did already escape from prison once, and it just seems like an unnecessary risk.
Speaking of the Nohamapetans! After book 1, I expected Ghreni Nohamapetan and the conflict on End to play a much bigger role going forward than it did, which was almost none. Book 2 ended with Count Claremont making Ghreni an offer to cooperate. At the beginning of book 3 we find out that Ghreni declined; I quote: Ghreni didn't take the count up on this offer for, uuuuuhhhhhh, reasons, and instead disappeared the count. This is one of the worst examples of lampshading I've come across. We're probably meant to assume that it was because he was just so arrogant he thought he could handle himself, but so far while Ghreni is arrogant he's also been presented as a cunning political operator, and this was not that. (I'm disappointed we didn't see more of Vrenna Claremont btw.)
In general the scope of the trilogy was not quite was I expected. I thought it would be mostly about, well, the collapse of the Interdependency and what would come next etc – which, to be fair, would be a massively broader scope, so maybe those were misguided expectations from the start. Instead it was mostly about the political struggles happening in front of the background of the imminent collapse, and even there it was mostly focused on the nobles and guilds, with only some attention paid to the church and parliament and the population. Not that such a slow demise isn't realistic…
In the end Cardenia's main political enemy is neutralized, but she also destroyed the entire monopoly-based economical system (as an aside, which was never discussed before or after, which, uh), threw all the nobles and guilds etc. into disarray, and there are only vague ideas about how millions or billions might maybe be saved. I do not envy poor Kiva.
Kiva ending up as emperox was a fun development, and I enjoyed it too much to care about how well that is going to work out.
Let's start with: if one of the main characters commits suicide by proxy, that should a) not come as a complete surprise to the reader who's been following her for three books in close third person PoV, and b) have a better reason, because wtf.
Literally the explanation she gives for why her death would "stop it all. All the conspiracies and plots and nonsense" is "I think I've made it clear that secrets are not something that can be kept from me. And I released enough of everybody's secrets that they'll be too busy dealing with their own problems for a while to make any problems for Kiva." She could have done that while still alive! All she had to do was convince Rachela, and I'm pretty sure she needed Rachela's agreement anyway to upload herself the way she did, so it wouldn't be a large step. Or why not use her own electronic copy, that must have already existed before her body was destroyed. Rachela's abilities are immensely powerful, the fact that no other emperox found out about them because they didn't think to ask was already a stretch, and now that Cardenia has she could have come up with a way to use them that didn't require her own death. Why would she so easily resign herself to that? She was in love! And I didn't get the impression that she was so frustrated or feeling hopeless that suicide was among the options she'd consider, which is a bad sign since she's one of the main characters. (I found her hard to connect to from the beginning, without being able to put my finger on why.)
And then she talks Marce into going on a one-way mission to Earth, despite the fact that his unique knowledge about Flow physics would be enormously helpful in the next few years and decades for the Interdependency, because staying without being able to be with her would hurt him. Well maybe you shouldn't have killed yourself then.
Cardenia tells Chenevert "Promise that one day you'll come back. That he'll come back."
"Oh, Cardenia," Chenevert said. "Why would you worry about such a thing? However long it takes, I will always bring him home."
(Which gave me an unexpected amount of Cardenia/Marce&Chenevert feelings.) So the plan is for them to find technology on Earth so that Marce can be "uploaded" too and then return if one day in the future they find a way back? That seems like a very risky move.
I also facepalmed when I found out that Nadashe Nohamapetan (which, btw, is an awesome name) was thrown into prison on End. Yes, she lost all of her supporters and so did her family, but she did already escape from prison once, and it just seems like an unnecessary risk.
Speaking of the Nohamapetans! After book 1, I expected Ghreni Nohamapetan and the conflict on End to play a much bigger role going forward than it did, which was almost none. Book 2 ended with Count Claremont making Ghreni an offer to cooperate. At the beginning of book 3 we find out that Ghreni declined; I quote: Ghreni didn't take the count up on this offer for, uuuuuhhhhhh, reasons, and instead disappeared the count. This is one of the worst examples of lampshading I've come across. We're probably meant to assume that it was because he was just so arrogant he thought he could handle himself, but so far while Ghreni is arrogant he's also been presented as a cunning political operator, and this was not that. (I'm disappointed we didn't see more of Vrenna Claremont btw.)
In general the scope of the trilogy was not quite was I expected. I thought it would be mostly about, well, the collapse of the Interdependency and what would come next etc – which, to be fair, would be a massively broader scope, so maybe those were misguided expectations from the start. Instead it was mostly about the political struggles happening in front of the background of the imminent collapse, and even there it was mostly focused on the nobles and guilds, with only some attention paid to the church and parliament and the population. Not that such a slow demise isn't realistic…
In the end Cardenia's main political enemy is neutralized, but she also destroyed the entire monopoly-based economical system (as an aside, which was never discussed before or after, which, uh), threw all the nobles and guilds etc. into disarray, and there are only vague ideas about how millions or billions might maybe be saved. I do not envy poor Kiva.
Kiva ending up as emperox was a fun development, and I enjoyed it too much to care about how well that is going to work out.