Neither of them had wanted or expected to die so soon. Another is a young and hopeful pregnant wife. One is a malevolent opera singer who seems to have fallen in the river. He is morbidly racked with self-denial, unable to sleep properly, and unsettled by demonstrations of confidence, trust, or affection.Ĭelahar must investigate the deaths of several young women. While the Goblin Emperor is encrusted in a necessary protective emotional carapace, Celahar is wracked with guilt for a necessary thing he has done as part of his calling as a Witness.
Both Addison’s goblin novels give us a protagonist who is desperately in need of many, many hugs, if only they would allow themselves to receive them. Addison’s novels are empathy-rich fantasies which focus on how what people feel makes them act, not what they wield or how sharp or explosive it is. It’s far more interesting than that: it’s about compassion, and the societal bonds and obligations that make living in a civilised manner desirable for all.Īddison is working in the same space as the “ hopepunk” of Becky Chambers’ science fiction, placing emotional integrity at the centre of a plot that takes the reader forward rather than inward. It is not steampunk, although Ethuveraz technology is fairly mature, and it is not high fantasy with secret heirs and long-lost magical weapons. It is an excellent novel, possibly scoring 4.5 out of 5, with The Goblin Emperor as a stunning 5, but it is in many ways more satisfying than its predecessor, simply because we find out so much more about this remarkable world. Justice must be done, at all times, and so it is not surprising that The Witness for the Dead is really a police procedural with strict dress codes. In Amalo, Celahar works with the Vigilant Brotherhood, the equivalent of a non-investigating police force.
In The Goblin Emperor, Celahar worked for Edrehasivar VII, the new and young Emperor of the Ethuveraz, to solve the mystery of an exploded airship. The Witness for the Dead continues Addison’s exploration of the Ethuveraz kingdom by sending Thara Celahar, the eponymous Witness and a prelate (a priest) of Ulis, to Amalo, a city in the north of the kingdom, where his calling is to represent the interests of the dead by listening to their memories, and often their deaths. The richness and complexity of the Untheileneise Court, and the intensity of the relationships between the characters-elven and goblin and variations in between-enhanced by Addison’s persuasive construction of an ancient civilisation encrusted with formalities of ritual, make a deeply satisfying read. Katherine Addison’s The Goblin Emperor (2014) is one of my favourite fantasy novels published in the last ten years.
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