His father the emperor hates him on principle, as Maia was the result of an arranged and loveless marriage for political benefit, and thus sent both wife and son away into exile the first chance he got. Maia is mixed in race, half-goblin and half-elf, with appearances leaning more toward the former. The Goblin Emperor starts with the main character, Maia, in his exiled residence from his neglectful father and the royal court. “The reminder that other lives had tragedies without reference to his own was both salutary and painful.” Whereas intrigue, fish-out-of-water syndrome, and world-building often play second fiddle to action, monsters, and magic, Katherine Addison has flipped the script in this novel which, for all intents and purposes, makes for a story that shouldn’t work, but somehow succeeds. The Goblin Emperor upends standard fantasy by shifting the importance of its components. Magic exists but plays a minor role relegated to the background to fill out the world. Yet, these belie what the novel is at its heart: a coming-of-age story filled with political intrigue. The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison is many things a novel about elves and goblins, a story with mages and magic, and a book with a steampunk aesthetic.
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