Kalpa Imperial is a series of eleven stories from the author Angélica Gorodischer. The work is known for having a Golden Translator for the English language in speculative fiction author Ursula K. Le Guin. In Argentina, the first volume appeared in 1983 and both volumes were published by 1984. Its English translation appeared in 2003 when the book was published in the United States.
It depicts several stories about "the Greatest Empire That Never Was". From The Storyteller we know that the empire was destroyed and reconstructed several times, and its story begins again with new dynasties and new emperors or empresses.
This work provides examples of the following tropes:
- Bigger Is Better in Bed: Horribly subverted with the unnamed fourth Emperor of the Kiautonor. He's oversized and likes very small women, so when he takes the unnamed concubine, the palace servants can hear her screaming in pain every night.
- The Chosen One: Seisdimillia was born with the eyes open, and her family makes a big deal about it, so the girl believes in being "the chosen one". She's cunning and skilled, so it happens that she achieves her destiny as one of the greatest Empresses of Kalpa.
- The City: Several, but especially The Font of Five Rivers, which gets a whole short story to itself and takes many forms across the ages:
- Ghost City: After the empire moves the Capital to the Southern border, the Font of Five Rivers is left near destitute with only old-timers too stubborn to move remaining.
- Hive City: The Font Of Five Rivers has been built, unbuilt and rebuilt so often that most of the buildings are overlapped and connected. It's not uncommon to have a basement that's your neighbor's attic or a staircase in the middle of the street.
- Holy City: When Heldinav'Var banned Meabramiddir'Ven, he goes to the City and begins to preach salvation. This leads to the City becoming a major center of world religions, with all the heresies, discourse, and holy war that entails.
- The Empire: The Greatest Empire That Never Was, an empire continuously falling, being reborn, and falling again through the eons.
- Full-Circle Revolution: Played straight and mentioned by the The Storyteller, several times. But again, several times averted (again, according to the Storyteller). The Empire has risen and fallen many times, after all. The most notable example is "The Pool", where the doctor asks the revolutionary whether she'll rule the same as the Emperor she denounces as unjust, and she affirms this, but says it'll work out because the emperor is bad and the revolutionaries are good.
- General Ripper: Several, most notoriously Oddembar'Seïl the Bloodthirsty and his enemy Reggnevaün. The Battle of the North, which the two fought, is considered one of the bloodiest battles in the history of the Empire (which, considering how long that history is, is quite impressive) and dissolved halfway through into every soldier just killing whoever moved regardless of affiliation.
- The High Queen: The Great Empress from "Portrait of an Empress" is praised as the wisest, kindest, and most prudent Empress the Empire has ever known. She was sharply cunning, prioritized learning over court politics, and took on advisors regardless of rank or origin, leading to a golden age for the Empire.
- Lemony Narrator: In some of the stories, the Storyteller outright insults his audience for being dumb enough to ask him for a story.
- Magic from Technology: Played straight. There is no sign of any real supernatural activity, only ancient artefacts (as the pistol acquired by Bib in a Paleolithic downfall).
- The Magnificent: Nearly every emperor or empress has a title, although they are rarely complimentary (The Bald, The Listener, The Bloodthirsty, etc.)
- Moral Guardians: The emperor Mezsiasdar banned absolutely all art and poetry on penalty of death for the belief it would tempt people to sin.
- Punctuation Shaker: One mark of nobility in some iterations of Empire is to add an apostrophe before the last syllable of the surname.
- Rags to Royalty: Various examples, but the story of Bib, the disobedient farm boy who refounded the Empire in the first story, is the most notable.
- La Résistance: The South is constantly being conquered and throwing off their oppressors. In the best years of the Empire, the Emperor only claims dominion over the South but doesn't enforce it, while in the worst years, they actually try and lose. "Down There in the South" is the only explicit example of a time the South took control of the Empire.
- Royal Inbreeding: The Queen and Queen's brother in "The End of the Dynasty, or, A Natural History of Ferrets". They wanted to keep their family line pure and unsullied by the King, a plan that failed when she got pregnant by the King anyway.
- Ruling Family Massacre: Happens in most of the stories, sometimes multiple times, to clear way for the next dynasty or iteration of the Empire. Emperor Ferret manages a rare nonviolent version by not having children and not allowing any in his family to have children.
- Schedule Fanatic: The Hehvrontes dynasty was obsessed with protocol to truly ridiculous degrees, and with each generation they grew worse. When Livna'lams begins his day, there's a rotating order of servants dressed in specific colors saying specific words with specific gestures, and he has to take 20 seconds sitting up and 20 seconds getting out of bed. The Storyteller says that it would take an entire season just to explain the exact protocol of bathing the prince.
- Schizo Tech: Thanks to the Empire constantly falling, whatever technology survives or is maintained often comes down to luck. In "Portrait of an Empress", the Empress bans certain forms of transportation as part of a Batman Gambit, which includes large wagons and private planes.
- Shout-Out: The story Z'Ydagg tells about how the world began in "The Old Incense Road" is a retelling of The Iliad and The Odyssey with all the major characters given corrupted names of old Hollywood stars and a few other references being made. The Odysseus stand-in is Clargueibl (Clark Gable) and his wife is Vivianlig (Vivian Leigh), Paris is Kirdaglass (Kirk Douglas) who abducts Marillin (Marilyn Monroe) away from her chosen husband Yeismdin (James Dean) who then goes to war. The sirens are referred to as ringostars, Circe is Monalisa, and Clargueibl and Vivianlig live in a house named "Gone with the Wind".
- The Savage South: There's references made to Southern people, who are depicted as barbaric and foreign. Of course, it is equally implied that this view is simple xenophobia.
- The Storyteller: All the tales are narrated by a storyteller to an anonymous audience. Although it's never specified if it's the same storyteller, as storyteller seems to be an occupation within the Empire and the tone changes enough to possibly be different people.
- Try to Fit That on a Business Card: One of the most common and most mocked hobbies of Emperors is inventing new titles to give themselves or their family. Inverted with The Unfavorite Prince Yveldiva'Ad, whose father ignored him so thouroughly he only had one title: Prince of Innieris, a city that had been abandoned generations ago.
- Urban Warfare: In "About Cities that Grow Uncontrollably", near the end, the general and later Emperor Oddembar'Seïl the Bloodthirsty tries to run away and seeks refuge in the City, but he's caught with the pants down by his enemies, so he must fight right there in the city.
