With The Orb Of Cairado I was hoping for a stand-alone adventure from the fabulous Addison, but I was left generally disappointed by what I discovered. Our story follows the airship explosion that sets up The Goblin Emperor, but this time, it follows the perspective of Ulcetha. Once a student at the University of Cairado, he was working toward becoming a scholar first-class in the Department of History. When a map to the coveted lost treasure of a dead empire disappears, and Ulcetha is blamed, he is kicked out in shame. Now, he works for a crooked importer, using his knowledge of elven history to write provenances for the fake artifacts Salathgarad sells. But, when the death of a friend reveals the map that he took the fall for, Ulcetha is given the opportunity to either try to clear his name or make the historical find of the century.

Orb reads like fan fiction for megafans of the original Goblin Emperor. I don’t really know what the appeal of the story would be if you weren’t very familiar with the original novel because this short makes numerous blink-and-you-miss-it references to the main books. Addison remains (in my mind) one of the best prose writers of the modern age, and this novella meets the high expectations I have come to associate with her work. However, there just isn’t much else to this novella other than the cute Easter eggs and the pretty prose.

Normally, I find Addison’s character work to be on point, but the cast of this novella felt stilted and awkward. Events moved quickly, and I moved through them without weight. Originally, I thought the story would have elements of mystery and adventure, given the premise, but those threads are tied up extremely quickly. The climax feels like it comes around 60% of the way through the novella, but the narrative sticks around to make a few more connections to the original series timeline. The result is a silly romp that felt extremely forgettable despite the gorgeous writing. I supposed I enjoyed myself in a vacuum, and it was a small investment, but I will never think about Ulcetha again once I finish this review, to the point where I doubt I will remember him if he shows up in the main series later. I expected more from Addison, but it isn’t like The Orb Of Cairado was terrible at the end of the day, just forgettable.

Ulcetha is a history scholar who has been kicked out of the University for a theft he didn’t commit, so makes his living now forging documents for a shady artifacts dealer. His best friend is an airship pilot. In fact, *the* airship pilot on the Wisdom of Choharo, the airship which went down while carrying the emperor and all but one of his sons. He is devastated but his friend left him a strange puzzle to work out which might provide Ulcetha the means to clear his name and get his life back.

I very much like Ulcetha as a character, and this is a world I always want to see more of, but this is not a happy story. I was invested in the puzzle and in what was found after but Ulcetha’s lonely and somewhat miserable life reflected Thara Celahar’s lonely and *very* miserable life a bit too much for me. I hope Ulcetha also gets a sequel in which things perhaps go a little better for him.

I love Katherine Addison as an author, and The Goblin Emperor is one of my all time favorite books. I can’t wait for the third Cemeteries of Amalo to come out. All that said, I don’t really understand why *this* is the book to get the gorgeous special edition. It’s an interesting, sad, short little novella and I did like it, but I don’t know that it will have a huge draw for those not already invested in this world.

New content in "The Goblin Emperor" universe will always be first on my list of things to read!

This novella follows Ulcetha, a disgraced scholar. All he wants is to clear his name, but when his friend dies in the wreck of the Wisdom of Choharo, he becomes embroiled in what turns out to be an archaeological treasure heist and murder mystery. Somehow, most things in TGE verse turn out to be a murder mystery.

Overall, I very much enjoyed this little story. It's satisfying and explores some new corners in this world, which I will be happy to revisit as many times as I'm allowed.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

I really love this series, and this was another great installment. I can see where some people might find all the names, and the dates, and events confusing, especially since you are kind of dropped into it without a whole lot of explanation. I sort of love that about this series. It makes me feel like I have been immersed in a fully realized world, and I like learning as I go along. There is so much to think abut, and I love how many little things tie into the other books in this series, and the world as a whole.

The plot is well paced, and it feels like a lot happens in a short amount of time. For a novella the author blended fantasy, mystery, and adventure, and it was just my cup of tea. The characters are well developed, complex, and fully realized. Not just the main character, but the secondary, and incidental characters as well.

I'm looking forward to seeing how this character fits into the larger plot of the series, and I am really looking forward to seeing how everything develops from here. A new favorite story from my favorite author. Couldn't put it down.

Five years ago, Ulcetha Zhorvena was happily living as a scholar second class in the prosperous city of Cairado. After being falsely accused of stealing a priceless artifact, he lost everything. Now, he works for a thief, creating falsified records so his boss can sell stolen goods. When a dead friend's mysterious bequest puts Ulcetha on the trail of the artifact that ruined his life, he has a chance to recover both it and the life he once had. But taking back his place in society comes with a price, and Ulcetha must decide if he's willing to pay it.


The Orb of Cairado is a companion novella to Katherine Addison's beloved novel, The Goblin Emperor, and while it is not necessary to have read that one to understand the world of The Orb of Cairado, it does help if only to have a better understanding of the constructed language Addison uses to describe the features of her world. That being said, I would recommend reading The Goblin Emperor anyway, as it is a wonderful book. But that’s neither here nor there. The Orb of Cairado is a complete story on its own, though it mirrors a primary element of its predecessor: the protagonist is, at his core, a good person.

Morally gray characters have become such a major part of fantasy media that it can be difficult to find good-hearted characters. Perhaps it's to do with overall news and cultural trends that have pushed grimdark fantasy stories on us for the past couple of decades, but I, for one, have grown weary of relentlessly dark narratives, or stories that are edgy for the sake of edginess. I want more stories where the good guy wins by being good, not by falling to the level of his opponent.

That is what we get in The Orb of Cairado. From start to finish, Ulcetha Zhorvena is a good person dealing with a series of misfortunes inflicted on him by people who use their power and privilege for ignoble ends, yet he doesn’t allow it all to make him bitter. When he has the chance to lash out, he doesn’t take it. Sure, that’s partly because it would quickly come back to bite him, but if his circumstances were different, he would still do the right thing, and as a reader, I applaud this. The inherent goodness of the lead characters in Addison’s Goblin Emperor books is a refreshing change from what’s ordinarily pushed in the fantasy genre.

Addison’s skill as a writer doesn’t hurt, either. Whether she’s describing a street scene, clothing, or a dessert, Addison’s prose is elegant but succinct. There are no overwrought descriptions of eye color, unlikely scents, or overstretched metaphors. There is just good, clean prose that tells the story without getting in its own way.

I do have some quibbles with this novella, however, with most of them having to do with the pacing- especially toward the end. Events happen a little too quickly at the end, and certain plot threads are tied off a little too quickly. Given that the story is around 120 pages, Addison had plenty of space to extend scenes by a few paragraphs to round everything out a little more; and many fans of this world– myself included– would be happy to read more full-length novels set in it, so Addison need not worry about wearing the audience out. Given that my usual gripe about a book is that it needs to be shorter, saying “I wish it had been longer” is not much of a complaint.

Addison has another novella in this world coming out in about a month (The Tomb of Dragons), and I am very much hoping that it will not be the last we see of the place. The Goblin Emperor opened a window to an amazing world full of fascinating people, and The Orb of Cairado is a solid entry in it. If we see more adventures of Ulcetha Zhorvena, I will be thrilled to see them and be the first in line to read them.


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Thank you to NetGalley and Subterranean Press for giving me a free ebook in exchange for an honest review. This did not affect my opinion.

To be honest, I'm not sure anything is going to capture the magic of The Goblin Emperor for me. I enjoyed the more academic setting of Orb and I found Ulcetha to be a more sympathetic and relatable character than the more withdrawn Celehar in The Witness for the Dead but I still didn't quite fall in love as much as I did with sweet Maia. I do wonder if part of my detachment isn't that it's been awhile since I last read Goblin Emperor and there are a lot of terms to remember for this world. It isn't quite as dense as Witness for the Dead and I think it's easier to understand what's happening but I also feel like if I binged them back to back, I might feel more invested.

If you really love the world of The Goblin Emperor and want a more academic story following a sympathetic academic just trying to get his life back, The Orb of Cairado is worth picking up. I want to finish out the Cemeteries of Amalo series with The Grief of Stones so I'll probably reread this after I binge the others in the series later this year and see if that raises my rating.

A witness for the dead is clearly an excellent person to know, or so it has been shown in ALL the books in The Chronicles of Osreth series that began oh-so-excellently in The Goblin Emperor.

The world of The Goblin Emperor is one that MANY readers, including this one, have been reluctant to leave behind, which led to The Cemeteries of Amalo Trilogy that began with the captivating story The Witness for the Dead, continued with The Grief of Stones and concludes with the upcoming The Tomb of Dragons.

But I suspect I’m not alone in STILL not wanting to let this world go, which may explain the existence of this novella, set in that same marvelous world but not directly part of either The Goblin Emperor or The Cemeteries of Amalo – even though it does kick off from the same starting point.

Howsomever, where the original story started big, and where the chronicles of The Cemeteries of Amalo eventually become big, empire shaking stories, (in spite of any wish or desire on the part of their protagonist), the story in The Orb of Cairado starts small and remains that way.

Not that the events of the story are not of the utmost importance to its protagonist, the disgraced scholar Ulcetha Zhorvena.

Ulcetha has hit the proverbial ‘slough of despond’ and can’t find a way to climb out. He was expelled from the University of Cairado five years previously after being accused of stealing an incredibly precious historical artifact. Which he didn’t. But logic dictates that whoever was the real thief, they are someone with considerably more rank and privilege than Ulcetha would ever have had even before his disgrace.

I’m not saying he’s innocent, because he’s certainly not innocent of wrongdoing now. But he’s got to eat and pay the rent, and the only decent paying job for someone with his education is writing fake provenances for equally fake artifacts. He hates his job, he particularly hates his boss, but needs must as the saying goes.

His best friend has just died, collateral damage in the accident that kicked off events in The Goblin Emperor. And left Ulcetha just the sort of puzzle that they both loved. And a puzzle box that opens to reveal the very artifact that Ulcetha was accused of stealing. Which he didn’t.

But revealing that he’s found it after all these years is not actually going to help his case – and he knows it. He needs to find a scholar in good standing who will actually listen to him and not just turn him over to the police.

What he finds is a much bigger treasure – as well as a much larger mystery – than he ever hoped to find. Or despaired of finding. Or both. Definitely both.

Escape Rating A-: First and foremost, this was definitely a case of the right book at the right time. I ADORED The Goblin Emperor, and I’m extremely fond of The Cemeteries of Amalo with its blend of cozy mystery and fantasy, its continued exploration of a fascinating world, and its oh-so-competent but extremely self-effacing protagonist in the person of Thane Celehar.

Thane and Ulcetha would get along like a house on fire (and possibly also set one considering their combined bad luck) if they could manage to get over their mutual shyness to discover just how much they have in common. Which certainly made it easy to slip right back into this world and follow Ulcetha around as he finds himself in intrigue up to his neck, caught between his desperate hope that he might be reinstated if not vindicated even as he figures out that the facts don’t quite add up to the resolution he was hoping for.

It was oh-so-easy to feel for Ulcetha and get caught up in his struggle. He’s doing the best he can with the hand he’s been dealt – even though that hand is utterly shitty and it’s not his fault. Not that he doesn’t want reinstatement, but that he knows it’s not realistic to expect it and that the odds are stacked against him.

He does remind me very much of Thane Celehar from The Witness for the Dead. He’s doing his best. He’s dogged in his determination to get the job done even when it’s boring or he hates it. He’s pragmatic about his situation even if he’s shaking in his boots on the inside.

And he doesn’t shy away from asking hard questions even though he knows the answers or going to upset his personal applecart all over again. Which is where that comment about witnesses for the dead being extremely helpful people to know. Because Ulcetha eventually figures out that he is in possession of a terrible secret that no one wants revealed, and that he and it will be swept under the rug, again, if he is the one to bring it to light.

However, if a witness for the dead brings it forward, it will be believed. Witnesses for the dead take an oath to their god that they will always tell the truth. They cannot lie, even on pain of death, or they will lose their gift. So Ulcetha goes to the witness for the dead in this case, knowing that the truth they will reveal will have consequences for him, but also that it will finally be KNOWN and that’s enough.

I liked Ulcetha because he’s trying to do the right thing, even when he’s doing it either bass-ackwards or completely underhandedly or both. It was fun to follow him because he provided yet a different perspective on a world that I STILL miss rather a lot. (That book hangover was TRULY epic and clearly ongoing.)

This novella-length treat of a book is a terrific addition both to a fantastic series and to the marvelous trend of fantasy (and SF) mysteries, whether cozy or not so much. I’m very, VERY happy I picked this up and if you have as fond memories of The Goblin Emperor as I do you will too. If the above is true, and you haven’t yet had the pleasure of reading The Cemeteries of Amalo, there’s plenty of time to read the first two books, The Witness for the Dead and The Grief of Stones, before the marvelous conclusion, The Tomb of Dragons, comes out in March!

Well this left me wanting more!

Ulcetha Zhorvena’s friend Mara Lilana has died in an airship crash, along with the Emperor and three of his sons.
Mara left a puzzle for his disgraced, scholar friend. Zhorvena has ended up writing false provenances for fake antiques.
Zhorvena has been accused of stealing an artifact, the Orish Veltavan. He didn’t. He was framed, but of course no one believed him
As Zhorvena follows the clues from his friend who’d enjoyed puzzles, he realizes that the way back to scholarship might be within his grasp. What he didn’t count on is tripping over the body of an Orb obsessed academic who’s been missing for some years. That takes his exploration of the underground caves he’s following up on in quite a challenging direction.
A fascinating fantasy about academic rivalry, obsession and more.
I found myself wanting to accompany Zhorvena into his future.
Another brilliant piece of writing from Katherine Addison.

A Subterranean ARC via NetGalley.
Many thanks to the author and publisher.
(Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.)

Katherine Addison has created an elaborate and fascinating culture between elves and goblins and the many beings of mixed heritage in her classic, The Goblin Emperor, which she has continued to develop in The Cemeteries of Amalo series featuring, Thara Celehar as a Witness for the Dead. She returns to this world in a short new work, The Orb of Cairado, taking the devastating crash of the previous emperor’s airship as it’s starting point. The deceased pilot of this ship has left clues to his grieving scholar friend Ulcetha about a long missing treasure in a valuable book, which has also been long missing. What is worse is that the book is the one that Ulcetha was wrongfully accused of taking and kicked out of the University. His reputation in tatters, Ulcetha survives by faking documents for fake artifacts for a dangerous and unscrupulous boss. But with the reappearance of the book, Ulcetha has a path to redemption, though it comes at a cost, this cost will involve, theft, murder, subterfuge and a string of discoveries that will threaten all that Ulcetha’s holds dear, including his beautiful elfin lover. There is always a rip current of moral judgments that Addison’s characters are caught in and she is a painstaking examiner of their circumstance. Her characters are deeply sympathetic as they try to pick out an ethical pathway, putting their livelihood, loves, and often their lives on the line. She is comfortable with the bittersweet tang of life that often does not permit easy resolutions. This often makes her writing beguiling, as is frequently the case with Ulcetha’s storyline. However, a familiarity with her work, and particularly the linguistic habits and kinship addresses of its domain, is recommended to avoid confusion. She has crafted a enticing but incomplete portrait of Ulcetha, and this short book, especially the ending, begs to be revisited and expanded. Sign me up for this one.

This was a delightful little novella. It's always a pure joy to return to the world of The Goblin Emperor, and I love every one of Addison's sad but good at their core characters, Ulcetha Zhorvena included. The academic setting is fun -- Ethuveraz as a world always feels so full and lived in and real, and I enjoyed seeing another angle of that world. An excellent reminder that I'm very much looking forward to the third Cemeteries of Amalo.

A fast-paced, tightly contained and somewhat straightforward mystery set in the world of The Goblin Emperor. Short and fun, adventurous, easy to digest in a sitting or two. I suspect if I got to spend more time with the characters, I would get just as invested in them as I am with the cast of Cemeteries of Amalo. Overall, I'd say it's definitely worth the read - a treat to tide you over until Thara Celehar returns in March!

Fun novella and I think any fantasy reader familiar enough with the genre to go yes yes, goblins, elves go on could follow the story just fine it works better if you’re already familiar with the world. And if you like fantasy and haven’t read the Goblin Emperor you really should. Under this pen name she write cozy-ish fantasy of poor souls who are really just muddling through the pile of crap they find themselves in as best they can while people around them are horrible. They’ve all been excellent reads.

A wonderful return to the world of the "Goblin Emperor", this time focusing on some of the middle class individuals who were impacted by the airship explosion that led to Maia becoming Emperor. Add in an academic archeological heist and I loved this short novel. The characters were a unique look at different view points on history and how that history should be and is interacted with.
Not going into the plot here, given that this a very short read, but the heist was interesting and the perspective of Ulcetha as a fallen academic attempting to redeem himself to the upper eschelons of academic authority is so poignant.
If you enjoyed either the Goblin Emperor, and the Witness for the Dead, you will probably also enjoy this short entry into the world.

Ahoy there me mateys!  I was overjoyed to hear about this novella set in the same world as the goblin emperor.  Reading about this world is a comfort to me and I have already read this book twice.  This features Ulcetha Zhorvena, a disgraced historian whose best friend dies in an airship blast and leaves him a puzzle.  This puzzle leads him to an artifact, treasure, and a murder.

On the first read, I found Ulcetha Zhorvena to be a bit distasteful while still compelling.  This is because he uses his history background to write fake provenances for false artifacts because it pays well.  And he enjoys it even though selling the fakes does make him a bit uncomfortable.  It was interesting to read about a character in the world that is disreputable given that the other books set in this world have exemplary main characters.

On the second read, Ulcetha Zhorvena had a lot more of my sympathy.  He is kicked out of university due to a stolen artifact and he was innocent of the charge.  In addition, one of the leaders of the university is completely prejudiced against Ulgetha for class issues and that is awful.  His best friend is dead and leaves him a puzzle that leads to painful truths and Ulcetha Zhorvena chooses to do the right thing even though the consequences for him are stark.  Plus the years of being outside the university system do cause him to mature in unexpected ways.  Ulcetha Zhorvena may have made bad choices but fundamentally is a good person in the end.

Reading about Ulcetha Zhorvena is fascinating but so is the world building and history.  This novella ties in nicely to the events of the world as seen in other books but very subtly.  I continue to love insight into the culture and politics.  I would very much love to read future events of Ulcetha Zhorvena and see what happens to him next.  Arrr!

Remember how Maia Drazhar got to be Edrehasivar VII, the Goblin Emperor, when the airship Wisdom of Choharo blew up? The pilot of that airship, Mara Lilana, had a best friend, and that grieving best friend, Ulcetha Zhorneva, is the protagonist here.

Ulcetha is a historian, booted from the university in disgrace because he's believed to have stolen an artifact called the Orish Veltavan, itself in turn a clue to the whereabouts of the Orb of the title. And now Mara has left him a bequest, also a clue -- to the whereabouts of the Orish Veltavan. Which in turn leads to another mystery, a murder this time.

So look: that little bit of scene-setting probably makes it clear that The Orb of Cairado is best enjoyed if you're already familiar with the Goblin Emperor world, so you can laugh out loud at a line like "it became steadily less likely that Edrehasivar VII would start his reign with a purge" and enjoy the blink-and-you'll-miss-it reference to every Addison fan's favorite Sad Gay, Thara Celehar. All of which having been said, we GE-world fans love these books in large part for the fundamental decency of their protagonists; thanks to their goodness, they succeed in certain important ways, but they all pay a price, as well. Maia does, Thara does, and Ulcetha does as well.

I could have used some more relationship development -- I'll skip the spoiler explaining which one(s) and why, but I'm dinging half a star there, and rounding up.

A slow, academic, cozy. I want to say it's a mystery, but Katherine Addison is, as always, crafting something that is all her own outside of genre boundaries.

I'm not sure if I would recommend it as an entry point to this fantasy world. However, I would wholeheartedly recommend it to people who have already read something else in this fantasy world. It's got the same charm.

Thanks to Netgalley and Subterranean Press for a copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

I read the Goblin Emperor years ago, and when this novella popped up on NetGalley, I requested it with excitement to get back to the setting I remember fondly. Unfortunately, I got lost in the info-dumpy world-building and couldn't get into the story at all. Made me question if I even liked the Goblin Emperor as much as I remembered (what I remember are the interesting reveals and emotional beats, but I don't remember being this annoyed by the world-building and writing style). Overall, an underwhelming experience for me, but someone who likes this writing style will enjoy it more than I did.

This is a wonderful return to the world of The Goblin Emperor, one of my favorite books of all time. The characters are so real, and I love how the history of the world is woven through it in stories and artifacts. I'm very much looking forward to the next book in the Cemeteries of Amalo series, and this was the perfect little story to tide me over. All of the stories are about grief and love and friendship, and this one was no exception.

Free ARC received from Subterranean Press via NetGalley in exchange for a fair review. Publish date 31 January 2025.

I've been a longtime fan of Katherine Addison's, and I was excited to see there was a new novella coming out set in the Goblin Emperor universe. In The Orb of Cairado, Ulcetha Zhorvena, a thoroughly disgraced ex-university scholar, receives a mysterious letter after a close friend dies in an explosion. The letter leads Ulcetha on an investigation which encompasses a long-lost secret, ruthless departmental politics, and the eponymous Orb of Cairado.

The novella is fully a standalone, with few to no references to previous novels set in the universe. However, the rich depth of the worldbuilding—including the complex system of forms of address, the switch between formal and informal grammar in dialogue, and a fair bit of terminology—gets less explanation here than in The Goblin Emperor. Personally, I love the complexity. The incorporation of ear body language alone is fascinating, and the conlang Addison uses for names is lovely (Sinzharo, Salathgarad, Trenivar, Csecoro...) However, without the appendix that was included in The Goblin Emperor, new readers entering the universe with this novella might find themselves a little lost.

Ulcetha himself is a delight. His rather rakish introduction, as he climbs out a woman's window to avoid her irate father, implies a dissolute failed younger son persona that we gradually learn is not accurate. He's a scholar to the core, and he hates his job forging artifact provenances because he doesn't think it's ethical. I also enjoyed the little glimpses we got of him working on his thesis. (And in fact, he was in the woman's room in the first place because she was covertly letting him into the family's private archives.) The two driving elements of the story are Ulcetha's scholarly tendencies, and Ulcetha's grief for his dearest friend, who has left him with the uncomfortable legacy of an ugly tangle of secrets.

A lovely little fantasy mystery with exquisite worldbuilding. A must-read for fans of The Goblin Emperor, but if the premise sounds appealing, new readers might be better off starting with The Goblin Emperor rather than jumping in here.

A short mystery novella taking place during the events of The Goblin Emperor, I found this a fun and enjoyable read that made me excited to get back into this world in anticipation for the third book in the Cemeteries of Amalo. A fairly quick and easy read, this book focuses on a disgraced historian named Ulcetha accused of stealing an artifact, unable to continue his scholarship when unable to clear his name. With the crashing of the Emperor’s airship - and his friend who was the pilot - he’s left mysterious clues that lead him into an investigation with more twists than he ever saw coming.

I found this novella to be fun and entertaining, but I would consider the way this book is written to be more on par with the offshoot series starring Thara Celehar, as opposed to the political court intrigue present in the Goblin Emperor. While this novella is short, and the pieces to the puzzle come together fairly quickly, I enjoyed Ulcetha’s investigation and think he would greatly get along with Thara, if the two were to ever meet. (Forgive me if this character has come up before, but if so I don't remember him - it’s been a while since I’ve read these books.) Both Thara and Ulcetha work to uncover the truth behind the investigation - even when everyone else is against them, and doing so would cause them more strife than anything else. I appreciated his determination to uncover the full mystery, even when the consequences would not benefit him.

All in all, I found this to be a nice appetizer to getting myself back into the world of the Goblin Emperor, and any fan of the series who likes mysteries and investigations I believe would find this to be a fun read. While the events taking place in TGE are present in the background of this book, I don’t believe you need to be overly familiar - or remember them too closely - to understand the timeline in this book. While taking place in the same universe, much like the Cemeteries of Amalo series, this book focuses on our main character as he tries to live the life the world has dealt him, and get to the bottom of the mystery that has landed in his lap.

A huge thank you to the author, NetGalley, and Subterranean Press for providing this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.