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My first Scalzi book - and really enjoyed it. Delightful well written science fiction book set in the future in a time when humanity is spread out across space and can travel between planets using "the flow".

I liked how this universe was entirely designed around one huge natural resource (the flow). The entire balance of power was created because the people who controlled the most valuable planet (Hub) started out as armed toll collectors. And from there they shared power with anyone who could contest them, and thus created lots of other Houses and Guilds. With this power dynamic established, the book then delves into the question of what happens if the main natural resource should change.

One other thing that I liked even though it was minor to the book was how the emperox's all had all themselves recorded for their entire lives - all neurological happenings in their brains. This lets you create an AI against that dataset that let's you sort of recreate their personality. This idea is interesting, though I think if it did exist it would be much more transformative than it was represented in the book. However makes you wonder if people aren't already starting to do things like this.