I was about to say the same thing! Hands of the Emperor is a 950-page fantasy doorstopper with no action, no romance, not a whole lot of throughline plot, and i

I was about to say the same thing! Hands of the Emperor is a 950-page fantasy doorstopper with no action, no romance, not a whole lot of throughline plot, and it's the most gripping thing I've read in years. You just want to keep watching these people live out their lives, whether or not something objectively exciting is happening. It's genuinely changed what I want out of fantasy and sci-fi. It has a utopian vibe, like Monk and Robot. The world of Zunidh isn't perfect, but it's pretty damn good and getting better, mostly because of the determined, lifelong work of the protagonist and his friends. Kip is the most delightful bureaucrat I can recall seeing in fiction. Goddard's other books don't always follow the same formula, though they're rarely truly grim. There's more adventure, sometimes violence but not usually large-scale violence. Some are better than others, but they're all very charming IMO.