** Competent is Good Enough **
In special effects, faces are the hardest to passably recreate. This is because the human brain, through eons of evolution is trained to catch the nuances and twitches of every muscle, pore and stretch mark. When it comes to fiction, court politics are the equivalent of faces. Simple enough from the outside, but it turns out our evolutionary proclivity towards family-based power structures and small group social dynamics means that it’s easy to spot a fake in the uncanny valley.
The Goblin Emperor is a passable court drama, which is an achievement. The protagonist acts human (if anachronistic), the antagonists make mistakes and even act from good intent. Even an emperor is hard pressed to sway one vote in the parliamentary council, and the pivotal events save our protagonist are completely out of even an emperor’s control. Fantasy elements like goblins don’t play into the world much beyond the flattening of ears, and while airships are used, Goblin Emperor is more pure court intrigue than tied to any specific time or place. Addison even gives name to a tried and true bureaucracy tactic, one for which I’m grateful we now have a name:
Veklevezhek: “a goblin word, and it means to decide what to do about a prisoner by sticking his head below the tide-line while you argue.”
Sometimes all you need for a good story is to not break the illusion.
** 3.5 stars ** ** 77th book of 2021 **