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The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison

1 review

thevampiremars's review

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emotional hopeful tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I suppose I’ll start with a note on this book’s use of language: I found the grammar easy to understand, but the vocabulary not so much – unwieldy words like “Nazhmorhathvereise” and “Untheileneise’meire” disrupted my reading, and there are a lot of characters with confusingly similar names. The worldbuilding could have done with a little more depth, I think, though I do appreciate the steampunk flavour (clocks are a recurrent motif, and airships are prominent too). The story is largely confined to imperial palaces, so we don’t get to see the intricacies of everyday life in the Ethuveraz – rather, we learn about court etiquette and the inner workings of the government, which isn’t for everyone.
Maia, the protagonist, is by far the most fleshed-out character. He doesn’t have a lot of influence on the direction of the plot but, at the same time, his thoughts and feelings are the focus of the story. This book is something of a Maia character study.

I’ve seen other reviewers both fawningly and disparagingly call Maia a cinnamon roll who can do no wrong, but I don’t read him that way at all. In fact, Maia can be pretty awful at times. He crashes a funeral to make a point, with little to no regard for the mourners he’s intruding on. He bullies a messenger boy and then feels bad about it, not because he hurt the boy’s feelings but because doing so made him look bad. He has absolutely zero sympathy for a girl who, in his words, “let herself be bullied” and actually punishes her for it. Truly awful. But, in a way, these flaws make him a more compelling character. Maia is a young man struggling not only with unexpected responsibilities, but also with his past. For years he had been the victim of severe abuse, but now he has a great deal of power and doesn’t know what to do with it. The instincts he developed in order to survive and cope aren’t fit for this new situation he finds himself in, and so he ends up lashing out simply because he can, and fretting over others’ opinions of him because he fears their judgement. He straddles the line between being likeable and unlikeable, but I can’t say he isn’t sympathetic.
And while I’m discussing Maia’s moral failings, I would be remiss not to mention the fact that he’s an emperor with dozens of servants tending to his every need while, in the background, children die in workhouses. Which brings me to this book’s politics.

Here we see that common fantasy trope that all the world needs is a Good Monarch™ to set things straight, unlike those Bad Monarchs who do evil. The good are good and the bad are bad, and power in the hands of a good man can only be a good thing. Blah blah blah. I don’t buy it. And there are characters in the book who don’t buy it either.
One of the major antagonistic forces is a group of radicals – terrorists – who assassinated the previous emperor and now have their sights set on Maia. They are motivated by an ideal called “Universal Ascendance” wherein “no man holds power over any other,” which is apparently “a cloud-fancy” at odds with human nature (or elf/goblin nature, I guess). The less radical adherents of this ideology believe in the perpetual accumulation of power which thereby facilitates ascension to godhood (a real-world analogue could be capitalism, perhaps?) but of course it’s the leftists who are wicked and insane. I’m not saying they’re right to plant bombs but they are right to oppose the emperor.
Towards the end of the book the threat is declared over simply because it’s time to wrap things up. It’s a pretty clumsy conclusion that doesn’t make any sense in-universe. But I suppose it’s not important. Like I said, this is an exploration of Maia’s character more than anything else. The plot (if you can call it that) is secondary.

Considering I’ve spent so long picking apart The Goblin Emperor’s flaws and shortcomings, you may be surprised to hear that I did enjoy the book. It’s well-written, it’s compelling, and though there are some aspects which irked me, it’s a good book overall. Though the story isn’t great and the political assertions are dubious, I appreciate Maia so much I can’t bear to give this book a low rating. I probably won’t read the rest of the trilogy, but I don’t regret reading this. 
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