Recommendations

Books Like Goblin Emperor

The unwanted half-goblin fourth son becomes Emperor — and discovers that being good is the most radical power of all

Katherine Addison's The Goblin Emperor opens with Maia being woken in the night to be told that his father the Emperor and all three older brothers are dead in an airship accident. Maia — raised in exile by an abusive caretaker, never educated for rule, never expected to be anything — is now Emperor of the Elflands. He knows no one at court, has no allies, barely knows the forms of address, and everyone there wanted someone else on the throne. The novel follows his first months ruling by a radical method: trying to actually be good. If the warmth, the competence-as-kindness, the found family that slowly forms around an unexpected ruler, and the conviction that gentleness is a form of strength gripped you, these eight picks go to the same place.