I have a confession to make. I never read any of the Lord of the Rings books. I tried. I really did. I loved the movies so much that a few years ago I decided to be a good geek and actually read this absolutely wonderful story. But I couldn’t do it. There were so many new words, so many names that were so foreign, and I guess I just wasn’t willing to put in the time to get passed the first couple pages. And I’ve never felt the need to go back and try again.

So, when I first started reading the Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison I was a little concerned I would have the same problem as I did with LotR. There’s an entire pronunciation guide and 12 pages of persons, places, things and gods. It has names like Setheris, Untheileneise, Choharo, Uleris Chavar, Edrethelema, Edrehasivar, and Verenechibel. There are a lot of characters that come from a lot of different houses, kingdoms and lands and there are a lot of complicated connections. All of this should have equaled an abandoned book, but I could not put it down.

I can’t really say I’m a fan of political intrigue because this might be the first one I’ve read, but this combination of fantasy and fictional politics struck a chord. The story is about Maia, a half goblin-half elf son of the Elven Emperor, who was so far down on the succession line that he was relegated to a secluded household and everyone in the court ignored him. That was until the entire Royal family died on an airship and Maia became Emperor. The story follows him trying to learn how to lead an Elvish court that neither likes or trusts a young, half goblin who knows nothing of their ways.

The characters feel real, our protagonist is likable, the story is solid and well thought out, and the writing is easy to read. I liked it a lot.

There’s always a fine line in any kind of story when you as the reader are being introduced to a foreign world. If the author explains too much you can’t immerse yourself in the world, but if they explain too little you end up getting lost. Katherine Addison does an amazing job of walking that line. Her protagonist lives in this foreign world but has been very sheltered so he understands some things but not others. There are concepts like the Witness for the Dead, that don’t get any explanation because it’s something that Maia had been exposed to, and as readers we are left to put the pieces together to understand what they do. And then there are other concepts like a Revethvoran that Maia does not understand and his secretary must explain it, so we get the information in a bit of exposition that doesn’t feel like exposition. It’s a nice balance.

Once I finished the book I immediately looked up the author to see what else she had done, and I found out that she wrote another book set in the same world. It’s being released in June of this year and I’ve already pre-ordered it for myself and to carry at the shop. Super looking forward to that.

Also, on a side note, while I was looking for an image for this post I found the Spanish version’s cover which was done by Libertad Delgado and I’m super jealous because my book does not have that amazing art on it. So, I used the Spanish version’s cover for my image. Go check Delgado’s other works out at https://liberlibelula.com/. They’re amazing.