The Goblin Emperor

Despiertas y plaf te toca encabezar un imperio, tú el cuarto hijo, el relegado, cuasi-exiliado. Nadie esperaba que te tocaría, cualquiera de los otros iba antes, pero así es cuando se mueren todos en un accidente.

Por lo tanto todo es duda y sorpresa, pero cual diplomático japonés te toca ocultar todo estado emocional, ser ilegible conviene a los intereses del imperio. No ayuda que tienes orejas, pues eres un goblin, una raza más oscura de elfo.

En esto ayuda tu inocencia: el imperio no te interesa más que como estructura de poder para ayudar a tu gente. Pronto se nota que no eres como el previo emperador, como los previos: tienes otra sensibilidad, te interesas por todos.

Es que tu guardián hasta ayer era tu primo que te odiaba y maltrataba. Por eso tu capacidad refinada de sentir el dolor ajeno. Por eso serás otro tipo de emperador, nomás tienes que creertela.

En este punto la novela nos ha impulsado a reflexiones interesantes, acerca de El Poder, de los vínculos entre monoteiso y monarquía, de la vida interior y cómo se gobierna como se es.

¡Y apenas va construyendo el mundo! De ahí vienen como tres diferentes puntos de inflexión, cada uno complica la trama, arrecia la crisis, acelera la narrativa. Todo aderezado con dos o tres sub-tramas que construyen al personaje central y a sus cuates y a sus adversarios.

Ahora que trato de reconstruirlos en mi mente me doy cuenta de que cada arco narrativo va trenzado con los demás, justo como se peinaría una elfa cantante de ópera.

En suma: recomendable fantasía para lectores receptivos.

I’ve put off reading Addison’s Goblin Emperor a long time; I had heard it was lovely, but also disjointed and inconclusive. It’s taken the book’s inclusion in a list of Becky Chamberesque “novels where people are nice to each other” for me to finally take the plunge, and the only thing I regret is I didn’t do so much earlier.

I can see how people have a hard time adjusting to this novel: the intricate, Elven steampunk world it builds and the high stakes court setting seem to promise things the novel never tries to hold itself to. Instead, we are treated to the story of a young man who, motherless at an early age, despised by his cold and all powerful father who banished him to the shticks at the hands of a violently abusive tutor, finds himself on the throne. Faced with the barely hidden contempt of the court, ridiculed for his mixed ethnic origin, alienated from simple social contact by his exalted position, the new emperor slowly, quietly turns things around by repaying contempt with empathy, hate with forgiveness, coldness with kindness.

If you do not like your Fantasy to suggest people might not be unconditional products of the world they live in; if you prefer characters to have no moral autonomy; if, simply put, the idea that people, even the most powerful ones, might aspire to do better, is one you disagree with, stay away from the Goblin Emperor. I, for one, know that, of the things I heard about the novel, only “lovely” is true, and that is selling it short.

To be clear this was a re-read because I was planning to get into 'Witness for the Dead' soon. Now, I know I read this but when I did it must not have made a clear impression and would have been in a period when I was not logging reading to Goodreads. This book has extremely positive reviews and word of mouth that I kept banging into, adding to my confusion as to why I did not have a strong recollection of it.
Let me just state right now this is deserving of all it's praise and is an outstanding book. Why I do not recall that impression from the previous read I have no idea.
It is a simple premise, what happens when a gentle soul is thrust into feudal power. Unlike most fantasy this book is not interested in long (and often tedious) discourses about the world or magic systems or whatever. It focuses down on the characters and the fact that the world is different is merely stage dressing.
It is also to its credit that it is not bloated as many fantasy works are. There is no intent to make this a multi book tale with the inevitable padding that goes along with that. It's tight, taut in places and has a nice feeling of completion.
I very much recommend this book. To anyone.

I'm going to repeat what almost every other reviewer has already said: This is a great book, and it does some things really well, including staying away from the "grimdark" genre. There is hardly any action, most of the book takes place inside a palace, there are elves and goblins, and no one is inherently bad.

I finished Farseer trilogy recently, and it gets quite dark at times, and has some entirely evil characters (their motivations might be explained later, but they appear entirely evil for no reason for most of the book). On the other hand, here the characters are all trying their best to do good.

Not just personal good, which is what you expect from the characters (like in A Song of Ice and Fire), but "Good" in general. And navigating this labyrinth is our main character. There are a lot of excellent character studies in the book, and the author does a really good job of having us understand the motivations of every character.

5/5, would read again.

Reread Notes [2021]: Did a re-read in anticipation of the sequel ([b:The Witness for the Dead|41302953|The Witness for the Dead (The Goblin Emperor, #2)|Katherine Addison|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1603852509l/41302953.SY75.jpg|64512163]). Still love everything I loved the first time. I was more confused with names this time around, not sure why. But it gets better towards the last third. The sequel's out, but not in India so far, so I have to wait a bit more. Knowing that Celeher is the protagonist in the sequel, I did search for hints, but only found that the ending of Celeher's arc in the first book sets him up somewhat for the sequel. I also really loved the ending this time, very poignant.