TBR Challenge review: The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison (narrated by Kyle McCarley)
01/19/2016
This month's TBR Challenge theme is We Love Short Shorts! (category romance, short stories, novella etc.)
My #TBRChallenge book is pretty much the exact opposite of short and sweet. I read/listened to the Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison. The hardcover was 446 pages and the excellent audiobook 16 1/2 hours long. I've had it in my TBR for about a year. Although I had hear a lot positive buzz for this book I remained very ignorant about the plot. I had not idea where the book the was going for most of the time I was reading.
The Goblin Emperor is the story of Maia, the youngest, almost-forgotten ill-favored half-goblin son of the Elvish Emperor. When the Emperor and his three older sons are killed in an airship accident, Maia is summoned from the remote corner of the empire he had been stashed in with his abusive guardian after his mother died. The story was not at all what I expected, as it is decidedly low on action and adventure. The narrative is introspective taking it is sweet-time building up to a climax and the resolution was quiet and subtle.
Maia is disruption personified, his 1/2 goblin heritage, his experience with marginalization and his lack of familiarity with the ways things are usually handled makes him open to unconventional solutions and sympathetic to those who are most commonly marginalized in that world. Overwhelmed, unprepared & isolated, Maia draws on the principles his mother instilled in him and the instincts he honed learning to dodge his abuser to learn to negotiate the court and untangle its many intrigues and plots in order to become a worthy ruler and surround himself by capable and trustworthy people. The Deep POV was exhausting at times, and I wished we had the opportunity to see more of the life and spaces inhabited by the people Maia champions. I resented how little we saw women in the first 2/3 of the book even though there are good narrative reasons for it.
The world-building is intricate and immersive but occasionally info-dumpy. I loved that language, and I am incredibly thankful for the audiobook narration for providing me with the correct and melodious pronunciations for the long made-up words and titles that recur throughout the novel. Some of the words still keep resurfacing in my mind like mini earworms days after I finished reading and listening to the book (Michen'theileian...Alcethmeret...Untheileneuse'meire) .
I found the world incredibly interesting and I would love to see more of it. I was particularly intrigued by the mentions of Maia's unconventional Goblin aunts and I would love to read more books set in this world, as I have feel I have invested a lot of time getting to know its culture, religion and language. I felt like Addison was setting up for a larger-wider story and I hope that promise is fulfilled at some point, hopefully with a queer, poor, or female protagonist, whose world is wider thanks to Maia's efforts and rule.