The Hands of the Emperor (Lays of the Hearth-Fire)

I absolutely adore this book. Government that functions? People working hard to right the wrongs? Radical poets? And the slowest of slowburn demiromantic relationships that is obvious to everyone but the two involved? Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Like, look, it's literally (a different version of) a fantasy I very desperately would like to see in the world right now. Universal Basic Income! A postal system that works! It does, of course, come with the baggage of (fantasy) empire (don't worry, the empire is mostly gone). The lovebirds are a secretary (elevated to head of government) and the emperor he'd given up on getting to meet prior to being named his secretary as a murder attempt (all while harboring a lifelong wish to follow the footsteps of his Ancestors, where aiding an emperor is sometimes more than worth it). So: also there is service/devotion, there are the issues which come of Divine Providence (not to mention literal provenance) and deification of rulers. Oh, and time and magic are broken. I have re-read this book several times and will again. It gives me some hope in humanity, even if none of us can live up to Cliopher's example. Plot hook, you say, what is the plot hook? You don't just want tropes? Alright. There is a word Cliopher, Kip Mdang, 5th degree secretary, the one who left home, the unwanted and unlooked for, yearns to say and buries lest his yearning repel his heart's desire. There is a word he will not say even in the secrecy of his own mind, rooted in the histories of his people, the legends he's always wanted to emulate. Even as he finds himself secretary to the Emperor, the Last Emperor, after the terrors of the Fall and the aftermath of broken and sundered lands, time, and magic, and a wall of storms--even as he finds himself increasingly powerful, increasingly able to bring his dreams of making government a thing that "stewards the resources of all for the benefit of all"--even as these pass, he struggles with the seeming wilfull disregard his family half the world away has for his accomplishments. And such accomplishments they are! Everyone will joke, when he visits home, that Kip did always say the post was the first thing he'd fix in government (he did). And there's always another Mdang cousin to repeat the joke for full, grinding effect. Nevertheless, Cliopher persists, and yet...he sees his Emperor is perhaps...we cannot say struggling (that would be treason)...let us say...not as happy as he might be, nearly a thousand years into his second, lesser term of rule (from Emperor of 5 worlds to Lord Magus of only 1 is quite a way to fall). What might cheer him up but a visit to Cliopher's legendarily beautiful homeland? But beware, for if you give an Emperor a vacation, what freedoms might he ask for next? See also the sequel, At the Feet of the Sun for an increase of Radical Poet Shenanigans, upsets, and homecomings!