I finished The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison the other day. It was a wonderfully satisfying read. While it was daunting at first — the book opens with a “Travellers Guide” to the world, explaining the linguistic and cultural world, as well as an enormous glossary/dramatis personae — I found the story to be immensely compelling and satisfying.

While I am certain I had heard of the book before, what had caused me to want to read it recently was an article called “Hopepunk, Optimism, Purity, and Futures of Hard Work “, by Ada Palmer. She described the book like this:

[…] a story where good people treating each other fairly within a political system succeed in improving their world and triumphing over corrupt backstabbers through the power of the rational fact that most people would rather work with people who treat us well and have our backs than with corrupt selfish backstabbers. Amid so many tales of murder games and cutthroat games of thrones, there is a genuinely punk-like in-your-face contrariness to stories where, when crisis looms, people stand by each other and do good, a portrait of human nature which rebels against the ubiquity of the claim that, when the going gets tough, the smart trust no one.

After that description I felt like I really had to read it; and I loved it. It was not without its drama, but very restorative in a way I found genuinely compelling.

I am now reading Addison’s most recent publication, The Witness for the Dead, which takes place in the same world. I have high hopes.