Maia, an unwanted half-goblin (dark-skinned) unwanted son of the elf (light-skinned) emperor suddenly finds himself thrown in the deep end when his father and older brothers perish suddenly. Scarred with the early loss of his mother and the abuse of the person who raised him afterwards, he carries on doing the best he can despite his ignorance of courtly elf politics and the disadvantage of his breeding. I found this sad reading at first because of just how hurt and lonely Maia was and how much he just needed someone to give him a hug, but between that and the slow-moving, patiently developing plot, it made the eventual emotional turning points that much more rewarding. Kind of unfortunate that I read this so soon after The Hands of the Emperor, which told a similar sort of story but with way more complexity and from a different point of view; I kept wishing it were more like, which diminished my enjoyment of The Goblin Emperor through no fault of its own.