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Petty Treasons (EBOOK)
Petty Treasons (EBOOK)
Artorin Damara, last Emperor of Astandalas, is in need of a new secretary.
It has been three years since he woke from a magical coma caused by the collapse of his empire, and he can barely acknowledge his own existence, let alone articulate what he needs from someone else.
Enter Cliopher sayo Mdang, Fifth Degree Secretary of the Imperial Bureaucratic Service, and to everyone's surprise the apocalypse ... ends.
This novella is set on Zunidh in the universe of the Nine Worlds. It is best read after The Hands of the Emperor.
Find the print edition and the audiobook.
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Customer Reviews
Overall rating: 4.9 / 5 from 23 reviews.
Loved it! Reader is excellent and the story superb!
Rebekah P. 5/5 Verified
The audiobook functioned exactly as advertised through Bookfunnel. I loved being able to hear these stories. Thank you.
Michelle W. 5/5 Verified
I am so happy with the audiobook. The reader is excellent, and the flow and the rhythm of the story are engaging. I can’t wait for other audiobooks to appear
Cheryl W. 5/5 Verified
Very much enjoyed it.
Judith S. 5/5 Verified
Loved it!
S. 5/5 Verified
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David W. 5/5 Verified
This book gives a glimpse of the early days just after the Fall, as told through the eyes of Artorin Damara. It begins to make it clear just how important Kip and his visions have been to his lord. The process of receiving and downloading the audio-book itself was very easy, and the narrator Kae Mills has a fantastic voice! I certainly hope that we will be able to get more audio-books soon. It were nice to hear names and places spoken, and I also found out that I have miss-pronounced Astandalas all this time!
Gustav F. 5/5 Verified
When i purchased the ebook, i wasnt informed that it would be sent to my email so i was a little confused. Maybe add a message of what the steps to download are.
Lilly H. 5/5 Verified
A fun prequel
Zachary B. 5/5 Verified
It's a great story. But I love everything Victoria Goddard writes.
Karen B. 5/5 Verified
A wonderful short story. The narration is excellent.
Justine M. 5/5 Verified
A haunting glance into His Radiency's life just as Cliopher first entered it as a secretary. The language may feel strange at first, but it's for a reason. (And a reason that reading At The Feet of the Sun makes clear.) The prose is lyrical, as befits our main character. Little happens, but everything changes. If you fell in love with these two men in the longer books exploring their lives, you'll love them even more in this brief but beautiful prequel.
Kat M. 5/5
Loved the look into Cliopher and his Radiancy's relationship. Also the blending of first and second as a metaphor for the difficulty in combining of his two different facets of his identity.
Liz S. 5/5 Verified
Instantly emailed, easy to use app, beautifully narrated, good book!!
Jemmily B. 5/5 Verified
ace!
Patrick B. 5/5 Verified
I’ve been raving at everyone I know to give this series a shot
Alexandra V. 5/5 Verified
I absolutely adore the way Artorin? Fitzroy? thinks of himself, the switching pronouns are so fascinating and heartbreaking in equal measure And then, of course, the story of the rain of sharks. It's such a hilarious story, and the way it's read adds so much to it! The sheer delight and how Kae Mills draws it out, the emphasis and timing and the drawl? tone? of Kip's voice elevates it into a masterwork, properly shows the sheer relish Kip takes in telling this story to his emperor. Honestly, I could go on for ages about this part. Best bit of reading ever!
Patrick 5/5
I LOVED getting to see the beginning of their relationship from the Emperor’s POV. I loved every single one of Kip and the Emperor’s interactions, as well as getting to see the deep struggle and inner turmoil of the Emperor to fit in this role that he hates.
Maggie M. 5/5
It was so nice to read a story told from His Radiancy’s point of view. (Also, it was interesting to have more detail about the chaos after the Fall and the broken magic.) That constant switching between second and first person narrative was very cleverly done. Knowing what I know about the emperor after The Hands of the Emperor and At the Feet of the Sun, I could understand where it was coming from and why it was there… “Up fifteen strides, down twenty-five, ten back to your desk.” There is no privacy in the life of the emperor, and a lot of loneliness. So, the emperor paced. “It was better, proper, courteous to keep your thoughts to yourself and your expectation for companionship low.” One day, a new secretary arrives, one Cliopher Mdang. It was absolutely lovely to see the beginnings of the friendship to be and how the emperor is… saved. This is a wonderful short read and Victoria Goddard’s writing is brilliant. Be aware, though, that this is a companion novella to THOTE, so it cannot really stand on its own. Give me more, please!
Alexandra 5/5
What an interesting companion story to The Hands of the Emperor. I was wondering if the book would be first person or third person, as it is the point of view of a major character in the main story whose opinion we never directly have, and... Well. I was, I always with this series, surprised. It was a very interesting choice, and I don't think I ever read it made for this kind of reason (I interpret that as metaphor the fracture in the Emperor, caused by broken magic + his natural one, and the duality of his person due to the conflict between his imposed role and who he is). It was very interesting to see it evolve from the begining to the end, as Cliopher's présence helps him mend the magic and himself. The symbolism of fire was delightful and seeing Cliopher in the eyes of his Emperor was very satisfying.
Welgan 4/5
This novella revisits and expands upon a slice of backstory previously mentioned in author Victoria Goddard’s excellent fantasy doorstopper The Hands of the Emperor, when Cliopher Mdang first began service as His Radiancy’s personal secretary. Except while that book was generally presented from Kip’s third-person limited point-of-view, this one shifts to the perspective of his liege lord, and is interestingly told in both first- and second-person, as though the man is reflecting upon his private memories and drawing a distinction between “I” the individual and “you” the public figurehead of his recently-shattered empire. That’s a device I don’t believe I’ve encountered in fiction before, but it allows for great insight into his character, especially in those moments when he starts a thought with one pronoun but then switches in mid-sentence to the other. The plot here is minimal — basically just the protagonist meeting his new servant, sending that underling on his first big diplomatic mission, starting to fix the world’s magic, and considering the limitations of his situation and the oblique things he misses from before he came to power — but the careful study of a careful ruler waking up from his inadvertent lethargy (with a little bit of outside help and inspiration) is pitch-perfect. I imagine the story probably works best for an audience already familiar with / fond of both figures from the preceding volume, but it stands well enough on its own that I might recommend it to anyone tentatively interested in the Nine Worlds saga (or merely its Lays of the Hearth-Fire sequence focused on Kip) yet daunted by the length of some of the longer titles. As other readers have indicated, the series seems to be a rather forgiving, Discworld-style hypertext with multiple possible entry points that build contextually and enrich one another the more you explore. This is only my second read in this setting, and I am already itching to come at it again from some other angle altogether.
Joe K. 4/5
Beautiful little novella. I cried and cried and cried.
Dorien 5/5 Verified