Booklog 67/2020: Katherine Addison: The Goblin Emperor

This is all internal court politics, and not much action, but it draws you in and keeps you there. Maia, fourth and youngest son of the emperor is so out of favour with his father that, after his mother dies, he is sent off to distant, impoverished Edonomee to be raised by his cousin/guardian, Setheris, also out of favour, and a cruel, careless tutor. The title might lead you to believe this is about an emperor of the goblins, but no. Maia's a half-goblin in a country of elves, forever set apart by his dark skin and orange eyes. His mother was a political bride from the goblin court who died when he was eight. Skip ahead ten years in the wilderness. Maia is eighteen when a courier arrives to inform him that his father and older brothers have been killed in an airship crash – he is now emperor of the Ethuveraz. He is crowned Edrehasivar VII, but the court is huge and confusing, and he has no friends. Who can he trust? How does he take the power that should be his from Chavar, an overbearing chancellor? He must secure the succession, but how can he choose a wife when he's hardly ever spoken to a woman? How does he become a good emperor? All these questions and more keep the book lively and interesting. There's a murder-mystery happening at one remove because the emperor himself can't do the investigating. Maia is a shy, diffident, but sympathetic character. The worldbuilding is interesting. A few reviews have mentioned steampunk aspects, but this is not true steampunk, even allowing for the presence of airships and a quiet industrial revolution going on in the background.

The one drawback to reading is the amount and complexity of names which are multi-syllabic and hard to pronounce. There are changes according to rank and gender and sometimes you don't realise that the person being referred to is actually someone you already met but is now being referred to by a title. I confess I skipped over most of them, recognising them but not pronouncing them in my head as I went. Alcethmeret, Hezhetthoreisei, Untheileneise Court, nohecharei, Osmerrem Berenaran, Berenadeise, Untheileneise'meire – and that's just a very small sample. Before the story starts there is a glossary which takes up page after page, which is useless on a kindle because you can't keep flicking back to it, and indeed, if you did, it would only pull you out of the story. The glossary contains close to 400 proper names. Ouch. This is a four star story with one star deducted for the complicated names.

 

 

 

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