★★★★☆ 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