Musings of a Hugo Voter: The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison
This book will not be to everyone's taste. Strip away the world-building, steampunk, elves, and goblins, and it's a pretty straightforward Bildungsroman -- a coming-of-age story. I, however, liked it.
Maia, a young Elf lord with some goblin in him (think mixed-race, including status issues on the elf side of the fence), is woken in the middle of the night to find out that he's Emperor. This is not helped by the fact that after his mother died, he's been shuffled off to be raised in the ass-end of nowhere by a vengeful, bitter drunk who pissed off his Imperial Old Man, back in the day. Anyway, an airship crash that wipes out Dad, brothers, and everyone else ahead of him in the Imperial succession, drops him in the deep end and he has to learn to swim.
Of course, this being a Bildungsroman, he grows into it. He spends a large chunk of the book playing catch-up on all the stuff he missed out on, during the dysfunctional-upbringing phase. He also shocks a lot of people by being a most un-Imperially decent person. There's stumbling blocks, evil stepmothers (including one who's only a couple years older than him, and a brat), nefarious plots, and adapting to life in the Imperial precincts.
Addison's world-building and level of detail vary with distance from the Palace. The outer lands are painted with the spare strokes of a Japanese artist working with brush and ink. Immediate surroundings are described in enough detail that you can imagine them, without resorting to info-dumps. The bits and pieces of language are thrown in in such a way that I derived some amusement on the side, deducing grammar and syntax and whatnot. The plot moves along, for all that most of it is happening around Maia and in his head.
This one is most emphatically not about exploding spaceships (well, one airship gets blown up, off-camera), or armored armies clashing with sword and spear, or horse-chases, or whatnot. It's still worthwhile as a coming-of-age story. I'm actually ranking this one between Butcher's Skin Game and Cixin Liu's Three Body Problem.
Maia, a young Elf lord with some goblin in him (think mixed-race, including status issues on the elf side of the fence), is woken in the middle of the night to find out that he's Emperor. This is not helped by the fact that after his mother died, he's been shuffled off to be raised in the ass-end of nowhere by a vengeful, bitter drunk who pissed off his Imperial Old Man, back in the day. Anyway, an airship crash that wipes out Dad, brothers, and everyone else ahead of him in the Imperial succession, drops him in the deep end and he has to learn to swim.
Of course, this being a Bildungsroman, he grows into it. He spends a large chunk of the book playing catch-up on all the stuff he missed out on, during the dysfunctional-upbringing phase. He also shocks a lot of people by being a most un-Imperially decent person. There's stumbling blocks, evil stepmothers (including one who's only a couple years older than him, and a brat), nefarious plots, and adapting to life in the Imperial precincts.
Addison's world-building and level of detail vary with distance from the Palace. The outer lands are painted with the spare strokes of a Japanese artist working with brush and ink. Immediate surroundings are described in enough detail that you can imagine them, without resorting to info-dumps. The bits and pieces of language are thrown in in such a way that I derived some amusement on the side, deducing grammar and syntax and whatnot. The plot moves along, for all that most of it is happening around Maia and in his head.
This one is most emphatically not about exploding spaceships (well, one airship gets blown up, off-camera), or armored armies clashing with sword and spear, or horse-chases, or whatnot. It's still worthwhile as a coming-of-age story. I'm actually ranking this one between Butcher's Skin Game and Cixin Liu's Three Body Problem.