The Goblin Emperor

Despiertas y plaf te toca encabezar un imperio, tú el cuarto hijo, el relegado, cuasi-exiliado. Nadie esperaba que te tocaría, cualquiera de los otros iba antes, pero así es cuando se mueren todos en un accidente.

Por lo tanto todo es duda y sorpresa, pero cual diplomático japonés te toca ocultar todo estado emocional, ser ilegible conviene a los intereses del imperio. No ayuda que tienes orejas, pues eres un goblin, una raza más oscura de elfo.

En esto ayuda tu inocencia: el imperio no te interesa más que como estructura de poder para ayudar a tu gente. Pronto se nota que no eres como el previo emperador, como los previos: tienes otra sensibilidad, te interesas por todos.

Es que tu guardián hasta ayer era tu primo que te odiaba y maltrataba. Por eso tu capacidad refinada de sentir el dolor ajeno. Por eso serás otro tipo de emperador, nomás tienes que creertela.

En este punto la novela nos ha impulsado a reflexiones interesantes, acerca de El Poder, de los vínculos entre monoteiso y monarquía, de la vida interior y cómo se gobierna como se es.

¡Y apenas va construyendo el mundo! De ahí vienen como tres diferentes puntos de inflexión, cada uno complica la trama, arrecia la crisis, acelera la narrativa. Todo aderezado con dos o tres sub-tramas que construyen al personaje central y a sus cuates y a sus adversarios.

Ahora que trato de reconstruirlos en mi mente me doy cuenta de que cada arco narrativo va trenzado con los demás, justo como se peinaría una elfa cantante de ópera.

En suma: recomendable fantasía para lectores receptivos.

A slow-moving fantasy about an ostracized son of an emperor who suddenly finds himself an emperor. The story focuses on court politics, tensions between the emperor - who is clearly above everyone else in the society - and the rest of the society.

... and I mean above. Emperor Maia is kind, decent, thoughtful, listening ruler who tries to make friends everywhere and, in the end, probably succeeds. His background as a half-blood (the former emperor being an elf and Maia's mother a goblin) makes him a bit uncertain, his lack of education a bit socially awkward, but those things also allow him to break through conventions on how the ruling class should behave.

I thoroughly enjoyed the slow moving court politics, Maia's awakening into power and others' awakening into their emperor. Somewhere there's a nagging feeling that Maia is too good - the biggest mistakes he makes are on the level of apologizing from his subjects. One thing I didn't enjoy is the barrage of invented words - even though you get an idea of them as you read (and there's a description of some of those at the end of the book - nice to notice after you've read the book - they seem to be there just to give an idea of a foreign world without any real meaning.

Even though the book leaves an opening for sequels, I almost hope that doesn't happen; it would either be too much of a good emperor parade, or it would require changing the character of Maia. There are aspects to the story that practically shouts for more thorough handling, though, so maybe something set into the same world - say, in the neighboring goblin empire - would be nice.


That is actually something that is, in my opinion, missing from the book. Even though Maia's goblin heritage is mentioned, repeatedly, the structure of the society is left kind of unclear. Goblins seem to be very much in the working class - but on the other hand, neighboring Avar empire is goblin-led and the former emperor had a goblin as a wife. The situation spells both internal and external conflict, but the best we get is the fact that Maia considers himself ugly because of his goblin-like features.

Another thing that annoys me is the heavy-handed reference to socialist movement in the flyer factory. Maybe it's just me, but depicting the workers as atheist heathens who want to bring down the ruling class by means of conspiratorial murders doesn't really fit the tone of the rest of the book.