★★★★☆ Portrait of a REALLY good politician

The Goblin Emperor

Katherine Addison

** spoiler alert **

I'm marking this review as a spoiler because the central fact of The Goblin Emperor is that Maia is a really, really good politician. It is impossible to say that convincingly without also saying that he has political success. Of course, it could always happen that something goes horribly wrong in the end. But I would still have to admit that at some point in the book he is politically successful, which would be a spoiler. So, I'm taking the easy way out -- just mark the entire review a spoiler, and then I don't have to waddle awkwardly around the fact that Maia survives a coup attempt and an assassination attempt and ends the book as a successful and mostly well-liked leader.

Now, I want to be clear, when I say "Maia is a really good politician", I understand that as a good thing. Politics is the name we give to the social mechanisms for making difficult decisions without violence. That is an extraordinarily important job, and people who do it well should be valued. I have no difficulty thinking of real-life politicians who are or have been, in my opinion, good people. And Maia, in my opinion, exemplifies the kind of behavior that such people should emulate.

Right from the start, it is clear that Maia has good instincts. For instance, he hates his cousin Setheris, who was cruel to him throughout his childhood. Yet he knows that he cannot take revenge on him

... they left Setheris fuming, ... Maia reminded himself that glee was unbefitting an emperor, and thought soberly as the crewwoman opened the narrow door at the front of the cabin, I must not acquire a taste for this pleasure. It was heady, but he knew it was also poison.

Damn straight! Later, he prays thus before the execution of his personal guard who betrayed him,

I cannot afford this anger. The Emperor of the Ethuveraz cannot become vengeful, for once begun, there will never be an end of it. Ulis, he prayed, abandoning the set words, let my anger die with him. Let both of us be freed from the burden of his actions. Even if I cannot forgive him, help me not to hate him.

So, even though he enters the job ignorant and untaught, right from the start Maia has good instincts. Perhaps his most valuable asset is that he KNOWS he is ignorant. Thus he asks advice from people who know more, and he listens to them, and uses what he learns, intelligently. He has the sense to delegate. He also has the sense to realize when delegating isn't working, when he needs to be decisive. He thinks this of himself,

He was not stupid and he was not incapable. He remembered the moment when his thoughts had inverted themselves—that shift from not being able to please everyone to not trying—and the way that change had enabled him to see past the maneuverings and histrionics of the representatives to the deeper structures of the problem...

One of my favorite parts of the story was the attempted coup d'état by Sheveän and Chavar. Maia got out of that in part because he was smart, but also because they were incompetent. Sheveän and Chavar meant to put Sheveän's son Idra on the throne in Maia's place, but didn't clear the plan with Idra first. That was big mistake #1. Big mistake #2 was acceding to Maia's demand to talk to Idra. Big mistake #3 was failing to realize that they were on the clock. Maia only needed to stall long enough for his guards to show up.

I liked this because this incompetence struck me as entirely plausible for Sheveän and Chavar, especially Chavar. Although Chavar's incompetence may seem implausible to a naïve reader, anyone who has read a lot of history will recognize it as a trap that the powerful are apt to fall into. Chavar has been powerful for many, many years. Like most people who wield power for a long time, Chavar has an inflated opinion of his own abilities and fails to realize that he has surrounded himself with people who tell him what he wants to hear. Also Chavar has nothing but contempt for Maia, and that contempt blinds him to Maia's very real abilities.

Of course, that means that Maia was lucky. But he positioned himself to get lucky, and he exploited his luck intelligently.

Amazon review

Goodreads review

Comments

★★★★☆ The First Law of Quantum Communication

Quanta and Fields: The Biggest Ideas in the Universe Sean Carroll The First Law of Quantum Communication is that all explanations of Quantum Mechanics for general audiences are really, really bad*. Sean Carroll 's Quanta and Fields: The Biggest Ideas in the Universe is very different from every previous pop quantum mechanics explanation I have ever read. The question before us is whether it is an exception to the First Law, or a uniquely creative new example. Where I'm coming from: I am a retired neuroscientist and mathematician. I am familiar with and comfortable with quantum mechanics. I have also, to my sorrow, read dozens of pop physics explanations of quantum mechanics, because every pop physics book begins with the same tiresome six chapters intended to bring the presumed ignorant reader up to speed on relativity and quantum mechanics. And they are almost uniformly TERRIBLE. They are terrible for multiple reasons, but most of these come down to a determination on the p

★★★☆☆ I skimmed the "sexy bits"

A Power Unbound Freya Marske I picked up Freya Marske 's Last Binding trilogy because it was nominated for a Best Series Hugo in 2024. It would not get my vote. I am not a big fan of romance, and am even less a fan of erotica. A Marvellous Light contains this acknowledgement And a special shout-out to my mother, who was the first person to tell me that she couldn’t put this book down, and who forgave me for making her read the sexy bits. There are indeed sexy bits in all three novels, and they are explicit and LONG. That was even more true in this, the final novel, because the erotica plays a part in the plot. One of the romantic partners, Alan Ross, is a writer of erotica (although he scorns such euphemism -- he just calls it "pornography"), and the other, Jack Alston, Lord Hawthorn, is one of his readers. I have nothing against erotica in principle, but it is just not what I'm looking for in my reading. I feel about it much the way I imagine Marske 's moth

★☆☆☆☆ There is such a thing as artistic merit...

The Prophet Khalil Gibran ...and this ain't it. The characters of Herman Wouk 's Inside, Outside have opinions about The Prophet “He’s so mature, so thoughtful, so wise, Izzy, and he gets all his philosophy from this one book.”... “What book, Bobbie?” “The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran,” she said. “It’s so deep, and he reads it aloud so beautifully.” I had never heard of The Prophet or Gibran, but said I would get hold of it. “Oh, do, Izzy. You’ll learn so much. You need that book... Next day I asked Peter Quat about Kahlil Gibran. Oh yes, he said, his doormat mistress had treasured The Prophet, and could reel off whole pages by heart. “What’s it all about?” “It’s utter horsepoop*,” Peter snapped... So I hunted up a copy and read it, and Peter was right on the mark. I first encountered The Prophet as a high-school student. We did a unit on poetry, and a few of Gibran 's effusions were presented as "Prose Poems". I immediately decided it was utter horsepoop. My

★★★★★ A little more conventional than Inkheart

Inkspell Cornelia Funke, Brendan Fraser (narrator) I joined audible.com and began listening to audiobooks in 2004. Among the first were Cornelia Funke 's Inkworld trilogy. They were very good -- good books, but also very well read. And since the series is about the magic of reading aloud, this is appropriate. Recently, however, I learned that Inkworld is no longer a trilogy. A fourth novel, Die Farbe der Rache ( The Color/Ink/Dye of Revenge -- the German title is a pun that doesn't translate) has recently been published. Wanting to read it, I decided I would first go back and re-listen to the first three books. Inkspell is, in my opinion, both better than Inkheart and not quite as good. It is better in that the Inkspell narrator, Brendan Fraser , is in my opinion more versatile than Inkheart narrator Lynn Redgrave . Don't get me wrong: Redgrave is very good -- I would have no criticism of her, had I not heard Fraser 's narration. On listening to Ink

★★★☆☆ A LOT of novel

Myriad Joshua David Bellin Once when I was a postdoc at MIT, I heard physicist Alan Guth speak in the Physics Colloquium. Guth was known for having invented the idea of Cosmic Inflation , that the universe exploded in size just BEFORE the Big Bang, setting the initial conditions for the Big Bang. (Versions of this idea are now mainstream physics.) In his Colloquium, he discussed the possibility that inflation could start anytime, anywhere, from quantum fluctuations. This, he showed us, would lead to the creation of a new universe. He then asked how we might see this. And he showed us that since the new universe would be entirely unattached to the one in which it began, there would be no observable consequence in the universe in which it originated. I was bemused. It felt to me as if he had walked down to the front of the room, pulled his hand out of his pocket and there unfolded an entire new universe. He then folded the new universe back up in his hand and put it back in his pock

★★★☆☆ Not this

Selected Poems (Dover Thrift Editions) by Emily Dickinson Emily Dickinson For me the essential experience of poetry is the “Yes, THAT!” moment, when you read a verse, and you know EXACTLY what it means. A moment was captured, a feeling, a thought. Now, I do not claim that this is the only way to experience poetry, or the right way, or the best way. It is only my way. This works if the mind of the poet and the mind of the reader meet. That makes the experience of poetry very personal. And, I am sorry to say, Emily Dickinson ’s mind and mine didn’t often meet. It was not a complete loss. For instance, this landed The bustle in a house The morning after death Is solemnest of industries Enacted upon Earth,— The sweeping up the heart, And putting love away We shall not want to use again Until eternity. But it was one of perhaps three poems in this collection that did. Even the famous “Because I could not stop for Death” didn’t do much for me. Part of the problem for me was that Dickinson

★★★☆☆ Velveteen vs ALL THE BOOKS!

Velveteen vs the Junior Super Patriots Seanan McGuire When I picked up Laughter at the Academy , I thought that my project of reading everything Seanan McGuire has published was about to come to its end. Alas, the introduction of Laughter at the Academy mentioned McGuire 's Velveteen stories, which I had never heard of. What are they? Well, here's the description from McGuire's website , The Velveteen stories began in 2008 as an open-ended series about a superhero universe where cosmic powers not only came with great responsibility, they came with great legislation, merchandising, and focus group oversight. Many young heroes were effectively "adopted" by a corporate entity known as The Super Patriots, Inc., which promised to teach them how to best control their amazing gifts. Some of those junior heroes wanted out. Few of them got it. Velma "Velveteen" Martinez was one of the young heroes "adopted" by The Super Patriots, Inc. Sweet, smar

★★★☆☆ This what it feels like to do science

The Bone Wars Erin Evan Erin Evan is a gifted story-teller, but an inexperienced novelist. In The Bone Wars she has written a good book. It could be better, and I am confident that her future books will be. The Bone Wars is principally about four paleontologists, grad student Sarah Connell, her PhD advisor Sean Oliphant, her mentor Derek Farnsworth, and teenage intern Molly Wilder. The story is told in the first person by these four characters, but Molly is the central character. The first thing I loved about The Bone Wars was its feeling of authenticity. Evan is herself a fossil-hunter. Even if no one told you this, you would recognize it. I was captivated by Molly's account of a long day spent lying on her side, working patiently to free a fossil femur from the rock in which it is embedded. If you have ever done research, you will recognize the peculiar combination of tedium and excitement that accompanies most research. I would have called it indescribable, had not Evan

★★★★★ Finding a home

The Blue Sword Robin McKinley When I was growing up my father's job kept my family moving. Mom and Dad eventually settled down, but just when they did I became an itinerant academic, moving to study and work at various research institutions. I was a 27 year old grad student at Stanford when I first read The Blue Sword and the longest I had ever lived in one place was six years. (Understand, I am not complaining -- I was and am a Happy Nomad.) There's a peculiar type of homesickness experienced by rootless people. One usually thinks of homesickness as being away from and missing a very specific place -- the place one calls home. But I had no place to call home. And yet I sometimes felt homesick -- I felt the lack of a home -- all the more because there was no home where I longed to be. In the first few chapters of The Blue Sword I immediately recognized this feeling of rootless homesickness in Angharad (Harry) Crewe, the hero of the book. As the book begins Harry has just co

★★★☆☆ Good on the facts, relentlessly infuriating interpretation

Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman James Gleick I read James Gleick 's Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman not long after it came out in 1993. I read it because of my interest in Feynman , but I went into it with some trepidation, because I had read Gleick 's Chaos: Making a New Science , and I did NOT like it. Here is what I think of Gleick : he's a writer who thinks he's smarter than his readers. He is not content to give you just the facts and allow you to draw your own conclusions -- he wants to have INSIGHTS, which he insists on pressing on you in such a way as to cause you to marvel at his, Gleick 's, brilliance. But I will say this for him -- he's a thorough researcher. If you want the facts about something and can ignore Gleick 's insights, you may benefit from reading him. I learned things about Feynman that I didn't know before reading Genius . Gleick 's deep insight about Feynman is that he worked to

Search This Blog