"I can already see the changes," Shulivar said. "You do not hold on to power as your father and grandfather did. You are not afraid to let it go. And you have new ideas, ideas that no emperor before you has ever had. ... No other emperor would ever have attended the funeral of his father's servants. No other emperor would have accepted a woman as his nohecharis. You bring change ..." [p. 398]
Confession: I started this novel more or less when it came out, and abandoned it because I found the plethora of names and terms confusing. (I don't think I was at my best that spring.) Also, I had somehow missed the fact that 'Katherine Addison' is a pen name for Sarah Monette ...
Maia is eighteen years old, and has spent much of his life in exile with a hated cousin: then an airship accident kills his father the Emperor, and the Emperor's other sons, and Maia -- half-elf and half-goblin, dark-skinned and unpolished and ignorant -- inherits the mantle of Emperor.
He hasn't a clue how to behave, or how to rule: he is imprisoned by his new role, caged by the expectations of those around him (some of whom are more helpful than others), and desperate for friendship even while brutally aware that everybody he meets is his social inferior.
Maia is also kind-hearted and intelligent, qualities so rare at court that he manages to achieve a surprising amount, or perhaps a quantity of surprise. The politicians who think he can be steered and manipulated gradually realise that he is an astute observer who has a good instinct for who to trust, whose knowledge and experience to rely upon. The guards -- the omnipresent nohecharei, two of whom are always with Maia -- learn when to assist, and when to stand back. And Maia learns a great deal about himself, and about his family -- his families, for he meets his maternal grandfather for the first time.
The world-building is intricate and credible. This is a society where the elite hold all the power: but there are revolutionaries. This is a society which restricts the activities permitted to women: but there are women who write novels, or captain ships, or practice astronomy. This is a society with airships and magic, where the latter can be used to investigate suspicious 'accidents' of the former. This is a society with religion, meditation, faith: with music and opera, hurrah!; with poetry, architecture, ambitious civil engineering projects and ancient conflicts. It's fine, I gradually realised, that I didn't find it wholly accessible at first: nor does Maia. Yes, some of the names, and some of the linguistic details (the ways that formal titles are constructed, the differing forms of address), were confusing. I let myself go with the flow.
And, surprisingly, it is a very positive and cheering novel. The court is a pit of vipers, and some grim crimes are perpetrated: but Maia's own kindness and compassion affect not only those in his immediate circle, but all of his subjects .... and perhaps even people beyond the borders of his realm.
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