The Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard

Novel of manners, with the Emperor and his loyal secretary establishing a friendship through the layers of protocol, with interesting worldbuilding and loads of character. Read for the 'randos rec me 12 books' Twitter challenge.Ībsolutely loved the first half or so of this. I have not had a favorite book in years, but this is it. This is the third, and I must have had tears pouring down my face at more than a dozen scenes, not because they are sad at all-nothing very sad happens in this book-but simply because of how much this book CARES, how much these characters matter, and how keenly it portrays the ache of someone with a dream in their heart wanting badly to be Known and Seen and Understood as he really is. In all my life there were only two books I've ever cried at, and only one scene in each of them. The friendship between the two main characters is incredibly profound and I've never read anything like it.Īdditionally, I do not as a rule cry at books. This is the kindest, gentlest, most empathetic book I have ever read, and it is still delightfully funny and wry, and it has a burning core of fierce righteousness and a belief that good people doing hard, thankless work can make the world BETTER (they institute worldwide universal basic income!!!). By all rights, this book should not have worked, and yet it DOES, brilliantly, because Victoria Goddard is just that BREATHTAKINGLY good at characters. This book breaks all the laws of book physics. I'm aiming somewhere between them and Neil Gaiman's 'Stardust'. Three of my favourite authors are Patricia McKillip (especially 'The Riddle-Master of Hed' trilogy and 'The Bell at Sealy Head'), Connie Willis ('Bellwether' and 'To Say Nothing of the Dog,' which latter would make my top-ten books on a desert island), and Lois McMaster Bujold ('The Curse of Chalion' and its sequels).

and the extraordinary deeds of ordinary folk, too. I like writing about the ordinary lives of magical people on the other side of the looking glass. I have a PhD in medieval studies from the University of Toronto, looking at poetry and philosophy in the works of Dante and Boethius - both the poetry and the philosophy come into my stories a great deal (and occasionally the Dante and the Boethius). I'm currently the sexton of an Anglican church in Nova Scotia, which means I am keeper of the keys and opener of doors (and shutter-off of alarms).

I walked across England in 2013, fulfilling a long-held dream.

The Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard