A Fractal of Loops

Yes! A list!

The Swords and Fire Trilogy (starts with The Tethered Mage) by Melissa Caruso: These are a trilogy of dense political fantasy novels. Caruso is the master of presenting you with a story, telling that story in the first third of the book, and then revealing the much larger more complex story underneath the original premise. Swords and Fire has a very different tone to Goblin Emperor, its much more in line with conventional fantasy, and there's more magic and violence. But it has a lot of the same preoccupations as The Goblin Emperor, one of the main plotlines centres around a vote on a civil rights bill, and the main character's arc is around negotiating how she's going to cope with an inherited political position and what compromises she's got to, or is willing to make. They also feature Ciardha, who is the character you get if you weaponize Csevet.

If you actually just want big, complex fantasy worlds and are less concerned with the plot specifics I would recommend Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke which involves the return of magic to an alternate version of Regency England. And also Rebecca Roanhorse's Between Earth and Sky Trilogy (starts with Black Sun). There is Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir which is sci-fi and quite different but is similarly demanding.

The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst is a smaller scale cozy/romantic fantasy about a librarian who returns to the tiny village she grew up in while fleeing a civil war. Its very sweet and has more romance than Goblin Emperor, but it does have some of the similar notes of fixing a problem inside a system when fixing the system is out of reach. It has sequels, I've read the second and it was charming but not as nuanced.

The book I've read which is closest in terms of vibes is actually a YA post-apocalyptic novel called An Inheritance of Ashes by Leah Bobet. The actual story is completely different, its about two sisters trying to maintain their farm which is periodically being invaded by monsters. But the dynamic of how Hallie interacts with people, and the thematic line about how communities and families react to and discuss (or fail to discuss) abuse is very Goblin Emperor like, and the preoccupation with the logistics of daily life under stress will feel familiar from Cemeteries of Amalo. There are a group of friendly neighbourhood mad scientists. Also its just very, very good and it drives me insane that no one I know has read it.

Also YA and a rather different in terms of specifics are Tamora Pierce's Circle of Magic and Protector of the Small quartets. Even though these are a lot different in terms of style they do have a similar focus on dealing with problems in a setting, and they do again, share some appealing overall vibes with both Goblin and Cemeteries. I love Pierce's other Tortall books as well but they're much more conventional fantasy.

If you just want gaslamp fantasy and fun clothes my recommendation would be Gail Carriger's Finishing School and Parasol Protectorate books. These don't engage with the politics of the setting basically at all and they don't reward engagement the way Goblin, they're much more romantic silly books. I like them as cupcake books and they have a lot of airships.

If you want more necromancy I have two recommendations: Sabriel by Garth Nix starts with the titular Sabriel having to scramble to get home because her father has been killed and she must inherit a position she doesn't totally understand and isn't prepared for. She is now the Abhorsen, the state anti-necromancer - unfortunately, the whole country is overrun by zombies. Vespertine by Margaret Rogerson is another book that I can't believe isn't more popular. I've recommended it before as Sabriel + Murderbot and it features a very traumatized ghost-hunting nun. The actual plot has very little in common with Cemeteries but it does spend a lot of time on the question of what different people do with power and the difference between being in the right and actually doing the right thing, which I was enraptured by.

If you actually want the crime-solving portion of Cemeteries of Amalo, I actually would not recommend the mainstream forensics based series (I know of two if you want them Kathy Reich's Temperance Brennan and Elly Griffiths' Ruth Galloway). I do like these series but the structure of mainstream crime thrillers gives the crime solving a slightly voyeuristic tone that Addison manages to avoid with Thara. The books which are actually the most similar that I've read, are memoirs by real life forensic professionals, who are much more concerned with the dignity of the people they identify than their fictional counterparts. I've read 4 in the past year or so I would recommend: All That Remains by Sue Black (Dr. Black is a professor of forensic anthropology and this is a memoir which describes the various roles she's played over a long career which has included forensic work for law enforcement, responding to disasters, identifying victims of genocide but also anthropolgical teaching and research), The Bone Woman by Clea Koff (this is a much more narrowly focused memoir of Koff's work for the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and Yugoslavia), Working Stiff by Judy Melinek (details Dr. Melinek's training as a pathologist in the medical examiner's office which ended up encompassing identifying the victims of 9/11) and Personal Effects by Robert A Jensen (Jensen is a manager of forensic specialists who made a career of managing the recovery and identification of the victims of mass casualty events).

The other non-fiction books I've referred to while reading Goblin are: Servants by Lucy Lethrbridge, which is a history of domestic servants and their relationship to the economy and labor movements, Jacquard's Web by James Essinger which is a history of the developments which lead from the Jacquard Loom to the computer, The Fabric of Civilization by Virginia Postrel and The Golden Thread by Kassia St. Clair which are both more general histories of textile production, Mother Nature by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy and A Good Time To Be Born by Perri Klass which are both examinations of infant mortality, maternal decision making and public health. I would say these are only recommendations if you're independently interested in these topics except for Perri Klass's book, which I recommend to everyone because I think it should be mandatory.

I really like Idra. He's clearly very bright and very observant. But he's also clearly very tough-minded in the way Maia is. He gives Maia this very direct, very incisive description of the relationships within his family, including things they did that were pretty terrible.

But he's only fourteen and he's doing this only a couple of months after his father and grandfather have been horribly killed, so even a very smart and brave fourteen year old could really be excused for wanting to avoid discussing the difficult parts of his recently dead family.

Maia is, understandably focused on how kind Berenar is being to him. But I think we should also take a minute to appreciate how brave Berenar is to do this.

On the more serious hand, this is such an interesting example of the cross-influence that Maia and Thara have on each other, which neither of them seem to notice.