Review: The Goblin Emperor

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"The Goblin Emperor" is a magnificently grandiose, intricately crafted, and dense palace intrigue novel that, like the titular character, is ultimately confined by its heavy trappings. Maia is one of the most empathetic and nuanced court-dwelling fantasy characters I've read - thankfully, he's not completely ignorant of court life when he's thrown into it, so while he's appropriately bewildered by the new environment, he's not doddering around like many characters in his situation. And Addison does a good job of portraying how limited an emperor's power really is - except for when she doesn't, and except for when those limitations hurt the novel's pacing and reality.

About halfway through the book, I started to wonder when ANYTHING was going to happen. There were obviously the seeds of plots going on, but Maia necessarily can't investigate them personally so only hears about them secondhand. All of the action is happening off-page. Any time things actually happened, my first reactions were "wait, why is that happening now?" and "of course, because that's been very clearly in the works for 150+ pages." This is, again, because Maia only hears about everyone else's motivation, and also because he is always right. Every gut feeling or first reaction he has to every character is the right one. There are scheming characters, but Maia's secretary or other underlings tell him "this person is scheme-y" (often laying out the exact scheme the person is likely brewing) or Maia gets a bad feeling from them, so we know they're planning something. There are secretly good characters, but it's not secret because Maia and his secretary are basically omniscient. Spoiler alert: The accident that kills Maia's father and brothers is not an accident, and the person who orchestrated it is the one who (so we hear) is evil and angry the whole time.

The other main problem with the pacing is that actions don't lead to other actions. There's a huge host of characters and there are several large-scale events that seem like they are going to be moments of crisis, but they're not (or at least, not for the right reasons). There's a lot of trepidation leading up to the Winternight Ball because the King of the goblins and most of the goblin court will be there (which is politically stressful), and significant events do happen, but those things have nothing to do with the King and the goblins. There's just a fundamental disconnect throughout the novel between the strong and emotional (if slightly cliche) character arc of Maia and the external story that supposedly sparks those emotional changes. I'd probably read a sequel, but only if the focus is on a character who can actually do things. Because at this point, WE GET IT - the emperor has very little power to live the kind of life he wants, or to change the things he wants to! And that makes a character interesting but it makes a story very dull.

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