Welcome to Episode 151 of Speculate! The Podcast for Writers, Readers and Fans. As we head into our sixth year of production, in our first episode of 2016 we begin a new triptych of shows with our reader response to Katherine Addison‘s Locus-award winning The Goblin Emperor, a striking combination of steampunk, political intrigue, and, well, goblins. We talk about the wonderful worldbuilding and characterizations, the way the book acts as a palate cleanser from the current grimdark landscape of fantasy fiction, and the social stakes at the heart of the novel…plus some of the aspects of language which did and didn’t work for us.  We really enjoyed this book, and we’re looking forward to talking about in more detail over the coming weeks.  If you like what you hear, don’t forget to check back next week when we’ll chat with Katherine Addison herself about the book.  And if you haven’t already, please check out our Patreon and consider becoming a patron so you can get access to even more content and we can continue to bring you analysis of the best authors, editors, and artists in speculative fiction.  Thanks for supporting us here and via our Patreon page, and thanks as always for listening to and and spreading the word about the show!