Introducing The Socially Distant Tor.com Read-Along, starting with Katherine Addison’s incredible novel, The Goblin Emperor! We’ll be reading this novel over the course of the next six weeks, and you can follow along with us on Twitter using the hashtag #TorDotReads.
Many communities across the globe are taking steps to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, including social distancing and self-isolation. And many of us are understandably worried, trying to stay afloat in a tide of anxiety and competing information. We thought it might be helpful if we all had a small distraction—a way to be together without, you know, being together.
Thus, the Socially Distant Read-Along, which we hope will be the start of a tradition here at the site. Call it Tor.com’s Chonky Boi Book Club, call it a Torantine (okay, maybe only our writer Leah calls it Torantine), call it How We Read Now—we hope it will give you a sense of togetherness and be a bright spot in an anxious time.
For this first outing, we will be reading The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison! Not only is it a rich, standalone novel, with one of the most compelling main characters we’ve ever met in a book: Maia, half-Goblin, banished, untrained in the ways of the Court, is forced to take the throne when his father the Emperor Varenechibel IV dies in a mysterious accident. How can he possibly learn to lead people who hate him? But that’s just PLOT, the real reason we’ve chosen The Goblin Emperor is because it’s a lovely, warm, comforting read, and we figure we can all use a little comfort right now.
Here’s the plan: If you already have a copy, great! If you need a copy, you can order one from a local indie bookshop that is still making deliveries (here’s a handy spreadsheet of indie stores!)—and in the meantime, the first four chapters are available here.
We’ll all meet on Twitter on Wednesday, March 25th, under the hashtag #TorDotReads, to discuss Chapters 1-4: News Comes to Edonomee, The Radiance of Cairado, The Alcethmeret, and The Funeral at the Ulimeire. From there we’ll read about six chapters each week, and check in once a week for the next six weeks to discuss peoples’ progress, talk plot, hash out Addison’s knotty naming conventions, and gush about the cuddliness of Maia.
