The Collapsing Empire: A Catastrophe Is Just Another Political Ploy

John Scalzi's latest novel "The Collapsing Empire" is another complex political space opera, in the best sense of the term. Although it has spaceships and battles and Imperial guards and all that, it's really about people and organizations reacting when scientists discover an impending catastrophe. The catastrophe itself doesn't fully manifest by the end of this novel but that's almost beside the point, as our protagonists struggle more against competing plans to turn this to advantage than against the problem itself.
The lead is an Everyman (female) thrust by circumstance into greatness and getting by, mostly by letting the professionals around her Do Their Job. I'm not sure that she makes any decisions other than to prioritize the safety of humanity, which is after all Her Job.
The liveliest character is a Merchant Prince(ss) in the role of a young Nicholas van Rijn (more profane and less restrained) whose firmly established sense of priorities includes working hard and partying harder. After one rather violent crisis she woos a survivor who objects that how can they get together after she was prepared to sacrifice him; she replies why complain about something that didn't happen, and let's get busy.
Never before have I seen a plot point hinge on whether a political faction relied upon a scientific paper that was not properly peer reviewed. Ha!
Scalzi is a master of his craft and if you expected a story that runs solidly and urgently from an explosive opening to a climactic world altering ending, you got it BUT it's obviously the beginning of a series - it sets up several problems and then doesn't resolve them. The very last spoken line points to an unwritten story to follow (or else is the author's prank.)
Don't leave readers hanging , brother Scalzi. Let's see the sequel soon!