Book Log 2017 #37: The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi

People from Earth have made their way out into the universe, using something called "The Flow" to make the jump between star systems that would normally be unreachable in a human time scale. After a thousand years of colonization, this has created an empire where trading is handled by noble houses and the state religion celebrates the empire and the Flow as divinely inspired.

Which is all well and good until a scientist determines that the Flow may be collapsing, which would cut off the systems from each other, likely leading to the end of civilization on all but the homeworld, which is the only planet in the empire that supports life on its surface. This information is provided to the new (and not particularly well prepared) emperox, who has to figure out how to handle this information while also fending off the machinations of the nobles (including some in her own house) who would like to seize the throne for themselves.

I really enjoyed this book, both as traditional science fiction and for the ways in which it mirrors our current struggles on Earth (think of the Flow representing climate change, for example).