The Witness for the Dead

A beautiful companion novel to the goblin emperor. The same kindness and good government as that the first book . THARA , you are loved and deserve love. Dude
Stop being so hard on yourself

A side character from the first Goblin Emperor book solves a whodunnit in which an opera singer was murdered, with a number of side quests. It's nice to see more of this world getting filled in, and what is happening away from the royal intrigue. The short story at the end is very sweet, too.

Solid technically-a-sequel to The Goblin Emperor. Didn't hit me quite as right as that one, but I enjoyed it a lot. Same world, not completely separate cast, but total change of focus. Ending is a bit abrupt and I'd have liked some more of the politics.

Pros: earnest, humble, the world is still neat, fun blend of genres (murder mystery, redemption journey, bit of a horror / ghost story at times). Really refreshing to meet a pastor who's a likable real character, flawed but good hearted and trying to do the right thing.

Cons: all these weird names are terrible to keep up with, and genuinely hurt my understanding of the plot. I can hang with the best of them on varied casts (Game of Thrones, etc), but this is too much

This is definitely a book. It has pages, some characters, a plot, it even has some dialogue. So it passes the “is it a book” test. Otherwise...

This book is kinda like if Miles from Lost got a spin-off, but didn't have any snark. Like, Miles is cool, but you're not watching Lost for Miles, and without the snark, you're just kinda left with an undeveloped character who can talk to dead people.

I like Katherine Addison's world building. It feels like a real world, like reading an old book, but everything in this world is something different. She manages to insert explanations and descriptions in the story in a natural way, I never need to ask about something, but I'm not getting infodumped either. I love it.
There were some loose threads and themes and ideas that were presented but not [insert the word I have forgotten] further, and that bugs me a bit. But I will forgive, because I love her world, writing, characters, stories...
I am really glad this is a start of a series, even though I was slightly disappointed it wasn't about the Goblin Emperor.

The author does not disappoint. (I don't think she would even know how to disappoint me.) Addison does a very good job of crafting a story in a world I love, without making it a sequel to a story about a character I love even more, and drawing me in to this part of the world and this character as much as she did the first time round in “The Goblin Emperor.” Most impressive was the way she graciously refused to provide "fan service" at the end. If I had gotten the ending I really wanted -- at least a kiss with hopes of many more to come -- I would have felt cheated and cheapened. “Goblin Emperor” became my new favorite book as soon as I read it, and this one fits very happily with it.

I very much liked “[b:The Goblin Emperor 17910048 The Goblin Emperor (The Goblin Emperor, #1) Katherine Addison https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1373039517l/17910048.SX50.jpg 24241248]”, the first book in this unusual series. Unfortunately, this successor fell clearly short of greatness.The book's eponymous “Witness for the dead”, Thara Celehar, is a humble, demure and thoroughly traumatized prelate who has - more or less - been exiled because he had an affair with a married man who proceeded to murder his wife.Celehar is originally called upon to investigate the murder of an opera singer but large parts of the book are not actually about this investigation but about a forged will, a serial murderer who kills his newly-wed wives, a ghoul who needs banishing in the country side and a lot of other small “sub-plots”.That's where my issues with this book start: There is not one consistent primary storyline but there are several that are mostly unrelated to each other. Just like our thoroughly likeable hero Celehar, we're following him in his exploits. The writing and world-building is so well executed that I, at times, felt like I was witnessing what happened. Everything felt plausible and intrinsically “real”.Unfortunately, reality tends to be a lot about routine which isn't very exciting. While I smiled at Celehar feeding stray cats, and I commiserated with him for his insomnia, his need to ration; it's just not very interesting.At times, especially when Celehar went to banish the ghoul, I wondered what narrative purpose this side story had - which turned out to be none.At another time, Celehar is to undergo a “trial by ordeal” which amounted to spending the night on the “Hill of Werewolves”:»The path, paved in ancient flagstones, meandered a good deal; I resisted the impulse to try to take a shortcut, even in places where it looked reasonable. I was halfway up the hill before I encountered the first ghost.«Sounds great, doesn't it? And it's not just a single ghosts, it's an entire battle between ghosts! And it culminates at the end of the page like this:»Now all I had to do was to get through the rest of the night without going mad.«I was drawing in my breath sharply, I felt my lungs expand, I held my breath; preparing to turn to the next page where I was shocked to read this:»When I reached the gate at dawn, the canon was not the only one waiting for me.«I immediately deflated.There are lots of missed opportunities in this book that had - by its merits of good writing, a complex world, interesting characters and an author who knows how to capture her readers - every chance of greatness but failed.The murder of the opera singer? Solved pretty much by chance instead of using the setting of the opera house itself, its huge cast pretty much all of whom despised the victim.The explosion of an airship, similar to the Hindenburg Disaster? In terms of the overall story just a side-note.Or the shy beginnings of a romance between Celehar and the director of the opera, Pel-Thenhior: Of course, after the horrible ending of his previous relationship, Celehar is understandably reluctant to act upon his attraction to (and fledgling feelings for) Pel-Thenhior. The longer both interact, the more obvious it becomes that Pel-Thenhior, too, harbours more than just good will for Celehar but this remains a loose end like so many others.Still, “The Witness for the Dead” is definitely not a bad book. It's just one that, sadly, failed to realize its immense potential.Three out of five stars.Blog Facebook Twitter Instagram

3.5 / 5 - not as engaging as The Goblin Emperor but liked the little murder mystery story.

I mostly enjoyed it - mostly because Addison is so good at making people that you're supposed to like actually likable and those that you're supposed to dislike, very unlikable. And I do like Celehar, though I do, admittedly, find him a little dry and boring at times.

But... A lot of the same problems I had in The Goblin Emperor, I am still having in this book. (A generally homophobic, racist, sexist world. Over-done fantasy names.) Conversely, a lot of what I liked in The Goblin Emperor is relevant to this book, too. (People are generally good and the good guys often win.)

Regardless, this book tried for a four star read for me - and because of Celehar being likable, the book being peaceful (even during the zombie hunt), it almost made it. Ultimately, what made this book a three star read instead of four stars is the plot. The plot being Celehar's daily job being a Witness for the Dead. The fact that the plot is four or five different ‘cases' and dozens of people that I have no prayer keeping straight. The plot being cases that, really, aren't even connected and this could have been four or five short stories of fifty-ish pages each and I probably would have liked the ‘book' better.

(I don't know if I'll read the sequel, whenever it eventually gets published. Probably depending on if I think I remember enough about this and the previous one to get by. Because this book does not have a glossary in it and, really, I think it needs one. It's a good thin I reread The Goblin Emperor a few months ago, otherwise this would have probably been a DNF.)