Recap: The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison

I read this book some time ago, but re-read it again for this year’s Hugos. It remains very good of its type.

At some levels, The Goblin Emperor is your standard tale of the unexpected heir. Maia is the fourth son of the Emperor and, furthermore, the Emperor’s heir has produced a child. He’s not raised to the throne because nobody expects him to inherit.

Until somebody blows up the airship carrying his father, brothers, and nephew. Oops!

To make things more interesting, Maia is mixed race, the offspring of a marriage intended to improve peace between elves (light skinned) and goblins (dark skinned). And not everyone is happy to see him take the throne.

In other words, this is a court intrigue book, with violence here and there, a touch of a comedy of manners, and some very interesting worldbuilding. Addison’s elves are almost more anime than western, but mostly act like humans (except for the ears). And the fantasy racism is not as clumsy as it sometimes is.

Now I’ll be reading the rest, at some point in the not-too-distant future ;).

Review: Dead Country by Max Gladstone

I read Three Parts Dead a while ago, liked it, but didn’t get around to the rest of the series. Dead Country starts a new series in the world, with the same protagonist. But while Three Parts Dead was a murder mystery, Dead Country honestly feels more like a western. It’s a western with almost no horses or cows, but there is something western about it.

Tara Abernathy seldom goes home. Witches are not welcome in Edgemont, surrounded by the Badlands. But her father is dead and she needs to go pay her respects.

Once there, she discovers Edgemont is in very real danger. She also discovers a young woman named Dawn who has a lot of potential for magic. Or does she?

Yeah. It feels like a western; the lone gunman rides into town, solves the problem, but must leave…even leaving a lover…in the end. In this case, the lone gunman is a witchy woman, but it feels the same.

This is not a criticism, but more a statement of what the reader should expect. Being a book about necromancy, it also has a darkness to it (but not a grimness. It’s more in the vein of the recent fad for treating necromancy in an almost cozy manner. Until it isn’t).

There’s power here, there’s interesting fantasy theology, and the world is in very real danger…including possibly from Tara herself.

I received a copy of these books for award consideration purposes.