The Hands of the Emperor

4.5 A very lovely story about a couple of old men discovering their friendships and how to not act unemotional for others' benefits. The one bigger complaint I have is that it is just a little too nice and easy for most of the part. Sure, there are some challenges for Cliopher, the Emperor and their friends, but apart from one section there are few parts where the reader really feels any tension and the new society they're building is just too good, but I guess the latter is kind of the point. Minor quibbles are that the last third is dragging on a little, the editing is bordering on quite bad in parts and the thing is quite literally the heaviest read I had in a while. If you have the paper version you might want to invest in a good lectern.

The undeniable strong points are the depiction of rich fantasy world that is modern in most ways except for technology, but where PoC are not only the default, but almost the only characters. Of course, there's still racism too, but the story wonderfully shows how the protagonist is learning to stand up for his home culture in even more ways and how difficult it is to reconcile identity and home connections in the face of moving away. This could have used some more challenges, of course, but it is still a topic rarely explored in any detail in fantasy.

Overall I enjoyed the book very much and would recommend it to anybody who likes their reads less hectic and less dark.

Can you not understand that the walls between us are not of my making? That I do not want to be behind them? Can you not look at me and see not the Radiancy but the man?

I've heard a lot about this book from a number of people whose tastes I often share. From their descriptions, it sounded like something I genuinely couldn't wait to read. I mean, a lengthy slice-of-life story with politics and a pronounced focus on character arcs? Sounds like a dream! I pictured something like The Healers' Road by S.E. Robertson, which happens to be one of my favorite books of all times. It doesn't have much in the way of the plot—it's literally all about two healers traveling with a caravan and getting to know themselves and each other better—but it's one of the most riveting and engaging reads I've ever encountered. So with The Hands of the Emperor, from all the descriptions, I was expecting more of the same, except bigger, and with older characters, and with court intrigue.

What I got instead was... frankly, a slog.

It's not that the book didn't keep the promise, so to speak—everything I expected to find was there. But the shape it took, or rather the complete lack of shape, made it incredibly difficult to enjoy. To use The Healers' Road as a comparison again: that book, while being undeniably slice-of-life and lacking the usual conflict-ridden understanding of a plot, is still very much book-shaped. The narrative causality is still there; despite the absence of some big overarching external plot arc, the character arcs hit all the necessary beats right on time, providing the ebb and flow of tension. 

The Hands of the Emperor, on the other, uh, hand, doesn't provide that. The story is all over the place. There are all those wonderful, lovable characters with their complicated personalities and histories; there's a rich, vivid world to explore; there's the political landscape providing a picture that is both utopia-like in some ways and sinister in others; there's the overall vibe of making the world a better place with lots of well-thought-out competence porn. And all of these wonderful ingredients so often get smeared across the page instead of getting woven together into a... well. Into a story.

Reading this book felt a lot like looking through someone's strangely polished first draft, or perhaps a draft zero, or even just a collection of snippets and creative notes and writing exercises that for many writers may preface the actual first draft of a book; the ones not meant for anyone's eyes but the author's. The worldbuilding sometimes got presented very eloquently, through specific situations or culture clashes; other times it was laid out in conversations bordering on "As you know, Bob"; other times still, incidents happened that clearly were meant to convey a lot about the setting, except full understanding also relied on having some other bits of information about it that haven't yet been shared. The pacing didn't know what to do with itself: there were lengthy sections where all the minutiae of the characters' days was described in detail, and then there were big time skips that didn't feel entirely justified.

All of this isn't to say that the book is badly written; the problem for me, perhaps, is that many parts of it are written really, really well. There are scenes and exchanges that are so poignant and beautiful. There are quotes that will stick with me. There are so many cool and wonderful ideas explored on these numerous pages. But all those beautiful moments that could have been the real gems, the parts that turn the story around, that make the story worth telling—they just get lost in the shapeless body of this book.

Maybe it's not the book. Maybe it's me. I know a lot of people seem to love it exactly for this lack of narrative shape, among other things. For me, it turned out into something that I would have perhaps enjoyed if I had, before reading, known and loved the characters already. Something to expend on their stories, to showcase what they were before and outside the eventual narrative. But as a complete book, an introduction to this world and these characters, The Hands of the Emperor simply doesn't work for me—and it's a shame, because the world, and the characters, and the author's writing are all so good. All the themes it works with are ones that always touch me deeply, like the topic of power, and the choice between duty and self, destiny and humanity, like family and friendship.

It's just the way the book/story is constructed that, sadly, makes all of these beautiful ingredients so hard for me to enjoy. 

(I can't write words without giving stars?! I haven't read this yet…)

Alexandra Rowland described this book (in Goddard's interview/review with Rowland for Tor.com about her beautiful A Taste of Gold and Iron with:

There is slowburn handholding. Like so slowburn that they institute universal basic income before they hold hands. I am feral about it.

and I am SOLD!