Jonah

Always read @mskellymhayes.bsky.social

Faces made for radio but for podcasts

Absolutely do not get 'video podcasting': isn't listening to podcasts something normal people do when they're walking to shops, cooking, or doing chores around the house? How is watching video part of this?

“we should be none the worse for articulating what passes in our minds when we read a book and feel an emotion about it.”

A grey chapbook with the image of a tree trunk cut laterally so the rings are visible and the title "Tradition and the Individual Talent" by T S Eliot, published by Eris gems.

Picked up this “gem” at my local bookstore recently. Seemed appropriate to find it on the day I was listening to a podcast close reading Prufrock

Anyway, I’m not going to call it good, and I will probably try to resist the urge to pick it up again, but I would enjoy reading some other things like Goblin Emperor in the future.

I also liked the treatment of religion better this time than last, so that at least was nice.

Rushed through the ending, enjoying every last piece that fit into place, even if some of it was a bit *too* neat. There’s so much to love about the book! It’s really enjoyable to read about an emperor trying to be as good as he can, and I want to give many of the characters virtual hugs.

Goblin Emperor isn’t subtle about saying “in this world I have created, if a good person is given power, these are the ways it should be exercised” it simply doesn’t choose to make that point about the world of an unmarked white imperial power and its physically monstrous black neighboring kingdom

I mean, this is a book that knows how to make the point that workers of the world should unite and throw off their chains. It shows women advocating for education, and taking it regardless, and assesses the political reality an assassination had on imperial policy.

The standard response I get when I bring up the racism in The Goblin Emperor is that it’s there to be a critique. The world is racist, but somehow the book is pointing out the problems with that. I am trying but I cannot see this reading - the narrator and narrative are just regurgitating our world

“Maia’s first thought was amazement that that vast coach had been big enough to hold him. He was six and a half feet tall, if not more, and mountainously fat. His skin was jet black, his protuberant eyes lurid orange.”

And then the Great Goblin shows up in his “ponderous monstrosity” of a coach, and of course the notable thing about him is that he is in fact physically brutish…

Just got to the demonstration of the bridge. I remember really enjoying the wonder of this scene before (unless there’s a life-size version later I forgot, in which case I will have that to be delighted by), but Maia’s wonder here and also the effectiveness of a polished demonstration really shine

Anecdata from 10+ years of climate conversations, structured or not, affirms this. On the plus side, people's eyes often do... not exactly light up, but wake up a bit... when I'm like, "How about going to the city council meeting?"

You will blind them to every opportunity for a better world, and worse, crush their ability to believe in their own agency.

“Piety was not fashionable at court, was in fact regarded with a certain amount of suspicion.” Barbarians have a religious obsession with a particular place, which the Goblin emperor can sympathize with, because he’s got a connection to spirituality through his mom. And spirituality is spirituality

I think every person with some kind of goblin ancestry gets their physical characteristics marked out, which is never done with elves. That’s the racism that is inherent to the book, not the society it describes, that makes me so unhappy with Goblin Emperor.

I've been seeing a huge uptick in fantasy queries where only the oldest, purest bloodlines have powerful magic, or where the MC is a super special but super illegal "half-breed" and folks, it's 2025. Can we please be more careful with how we engage with eugenics/blood quantum/bloodline purity? Thx.

(OK, but actually Maia is charming and seeing the whole book as basically Hal Clement’s “Heavy Planet” but for good imperial governance rather than gravity is making me like it more than I have so far)

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison - Lawyers, Guns & Money [This review was requested by reader Greg Sanders, winner of the LGM fund drive auction. Thank you to Greg for the contribution, and for selecting an excellent book!] In the middle of the night, in a ...

A lovely @lawgunsmoney.bsky.social reader won an auction for a review by me, and requested Katherine Addison's The Goblin Emperor. It was a delight to return to this novel with a critical eye, to talk about the things that make it special & set it apart. www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2025/07/the-...

Ann Arbor's experiment with a new kind of utility Missy Stults explains Ann Arbor's novel plan to build a second, clean-energy utility alongside its incumbent.

It's very hard work, and not every municipality has the resources of Missy and her team in Ann Arbor, but it's definitely a model for elsewhere. Worth a listen. Great guest, @volts.wtf:
www.volts.wtf/p/ann-arbors...

Where and when did Maia develop this interest and insight? Seeing how government works, rather than the messy people who make it work, is a specific, difficult discipline.

“But his mind was running on principles of government, and he could not help wondering if this was a bad one”. I’m on record as thinking SFF should be about ideas and characters are kind messy and I don’t understand feelings, and *I* think this is a little heavy-handed.

Doing something different! If you want a tour of a romance bookstore (with loads of romantasy etc), a peek a behind the con-running curtain, and some general thoughts about Readercon, check it out:

Fantastic Coronations: https://jsuttonmorse.me/2025/07/28/fantastic-coronations.html

Pete Buttigieg weighs in on ‘fairness’ of transgender kids playing girls’ sports He said he rejected blanket policies about trans participation in sports.

Buttigieg said parents have legitimate concerns.

To be clear: If you cannot be relied on to unequivocally defend transgender kids, you can’t be relied on to defend anyone or anything.

www.advocate.com/news/pete-bu...

It’s maybe a failing in my reading, but I can’t think of many other fancy coronation scenes in fantasy literature, so the comparison for me is Kelson in Kurtz’s Deryni. Kelson was competent and aware of political intrigues, Maia is not. Not that one is preferable, but they bump together for me.

(Regret to inform that the first few goblins that have specific characteristics are all not just notably physically different, but also speak less well, have strange totems and images, etc. the elves’ physical characteristics and language are essentially the unmarked default)