I have to confess right off the bat that I don’t read very much fiction anymore. I read history and true crime (and am especially fond of historical true crime), which does tend to come out in my writing. In The Angel of the Crows, I figured out why I’d been reading all those books about Jack the Ripper. I’m still waiting to find out why I read about the Battle of the Little Bighorn or the Salem witchcraft crisis or the Shoot-out at the O.K. Corral. Sooner or later, my brain will tell me.
We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from The Witness for the Dead, a stand-alone sequel to Katherine Addison’s The Goblin Emperor—publishing June 22nd with Tor Books!
I have to confess right off the bat that I don’t read very much fiction anymore. I read history and true crime (and am especially fond of historical true crime), which does tend to come out in my writing. In The Angel of the Crows, I figured out why I’d been reading all those books about Jack the Ripper. I’m still waiting to find out why I read about the Battle of the Little Bighorn or the Salem witchcraft crisis or the Shoot-out at the O.K. Corral. Sooner or later, my brain will tell me.
The Goblin Emperor was first published in 2014, but I wrote it mostly much earlier than that. In my head, it’s a ten-year-old book, not a five-year-old book; it sometimes feels very far away. Working on another novel set in the same world is a good excuse to revisit The Goblin Emperor and to make a list of my five favorite things.
I kept trying to make this into two essays, one about coming-of-age stories and one about quests, and I kept not being able to write either one of them.
And then, driving to a class I’m taking for my day job, singing R.E.M. songs (as one does), I suddenly remembered that a coming-of-age story is a quest, and a quest, as Joseph Campbell tells us, is a coming-of-age story. On the level of symbols and archetypes and fairytale forests, they’re the same thing. Writing about them separately was never going to work.
I am a huge fan of world-buildling. I love doing it in my own books, and I love reading it done well. It’s harder than it seems; in particular there is an incredibly delicate balance between making the world-building matter—so that it isn’t just theater flats and cardboard props—and going too far the other way, so that every detail of the world that you mention turns out to be crucial to the plot, creating a Truman Show-esque feeling of being trapped in a Habitrail.
At almost exactly the halfway point of Scott Lynch’s Red Seas Under Red Skies, he pulls off one of the most brilliant examples of this kind of tightrope walking that I have ever read.
I kept trying to make this into two essays, one about coming-of-age stories and one about quests, and I kept not being able to write either one of them.
And then, driving to a class I’m taking for my day job, singing R.E.M. songs (as one does), I suddenly remembered that a coming-of-age story is a quest, and a quest, as Joseph Campbell tells us, is a coming-of-age story. On the level of symbols and archetypes and fairytale forests, they’re the same thing. Writing about them separately was never going to work.
Check out Katherine Addison’s The Goblin Emperor, available April 1st from Tor Books! Preview the first four chapters from the novel below, then read Liz Bourke’s review.
The youngest, half-goblin son of the Emperor has lived his entire life in exile, distant from the Imperial Court and the deadly intrigue that suffuses it. But when his father and three sons in line for the throne are killed in an “accident,” he has no choice but to take his place as the only surviving rightful heir.
Entirely unschooled in the art of court politics, he has no friends, no advisors, and the sure knowledge that whoever assassinated his father and brothers could make an attempt on his life at any moment. Surrounded by sycophants eager to curry favor with the naïve new emperor, and overwhelmed by the burdens of his new life, he can trust nobody.
Check out Katherine Addison’s The Goblin Emperor, available April 1st from Tor Books! Preview the first two chapters, then read chapter three here, and chapter four below. You can also read Liz Bourke’s review of the novel here on Tor.com.
The youngest, half-goblin son of the Emperor has lived his entire life in exile, distant from the Imperial Court and the deadly intrigue that suffuses it. But when his father and three sons in line for the throne are killed in an “accident,” he has no choice but to take his place as the only surviving rightful heir.
Entirely unschooled in the art of court politics, he has no friends, no advisors, and the sure knowledge that whoever assassinated his father and brothers could make an attempt on his life at any moment. Surrounded by sycophants eager to curry favor with the naïve new emperor, and overwhelmed by the burdens of his new life, he can trust nobody.
Check out Katherine Addison’s The Goblin Emperor, available April 1st from Tor Books! Preview the first two chapters here, then read chapter three below. You can also read Liz Bourke’s review of the novel here.
The youngest, half-goblin son of the Emperor has lived his entire life in exile, distant from the Imperial Court and the deadly intrigue that suffuses it. But when his father and three sons in line for the throne are killed in an “accident,” he has no choice but to take his place as the only surviving rightful heir.
Entirely unschooled in the art of court politics, he has no friends, no advisors, and the sure knowledge that whoever assassinated his father and brothers could make an attempt on his life at any moment. Surrounded by sycophants eager to curry favor with the naïve new emperor, and overwhelmed by the burdens of his new life, he can trust nobody.
