The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi 7/10

      First thing I have to say about this book is that it's fun. It's not challenging, and it doesn't have any complex plot points or heavy intergalactic political points; which are generally the hard parts about getting into a sci-fi novel. If you can follow Star Wars you can follow this.
     The part of this book that really shines is the dialogue. The characters are all funny and witty to read. Almost everybody gets a badass one-liner that made me chuckle.
      The setting centers around this thing called 'the flow,' that ties together a series of planets and is the main way trade between planets occur. It's like the silk road meets melange from Dune. It ends up really being able to ground the book in the plausibility of the developments of guilds in the book where the different places where the flow reaches.
     It had everything I want from a book like it except a strong ending. I'm aware that it's the first piece in the series, but there was very little growth in the main character at the end, and I hope that the rest of the series does better on that one point.