I feel like Empire was a good read, but I would have enjoyed it more without the scifi elements which felt a bit forced. As he showed with the secondary sequels to Ender's Game (the Shadow Series--arguably my favorite series of novels ever written), Card is a brilliant author of political intrigue. He did obvious research to get the feel of a military personnel based novel, and do it well.
Liberal media, gentle but brilliant politicians, a view of the US army that was nothing short of ideal. Within the first few chapters, there is an absurd and successful assassination of the President and Vice President that was planned by Rube, the protagonist. He was assigned through the arm to create a way that terrorists would dismantle our government, assuming others would take his plan and figure out how to defend against it, instead it was passed on to some group of terrorists. The political conspiracy that follows is almost get-out-a-paper-and-map-it-out worthy. Seriously.
After the assassination, Rube and his new assistant Cole have to face the newly emerged Progressive Restoration movement that has used ridiculous mechs and hovercycles to take over New York City. They have to find the center of the Progressive movement (which is leftist and then some).
Honestly the political overtones in this novel are exhausting. Up until the crazy, War-Of-The-World-esque "mechs" that were introduced in NYC, I thought this was a brilliant novel, full of intrigue and army playing the media. Sadly, it becomes over evident that Card was approached to write this novel as a backdrop to a modern civil war kind of video game. Even the home base of the Progressive movement is set inside a mountain base that reads like a game would play--choppy and predictable.
So, honestly, this book gets a 2.5 out of 5 stars ( * * 1/2) which, for me reading Orson Scott Card is disappointing because I really love him. The first half gets an easy 4.5, but the rest pulls it down.
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