Songmaster

Songmaster centers around a group of "singers" that sing songs that can greatly accentuate feelings. The hero is an empathetic young boy who becomes attached to the emperor of the universe. He is part of the palace intrigue that leads to the peaceful succession of leadership, and eventually to himself assuming the position of empire for a long time.

His character is quite similar to Ender and other Card "youth heroes". He always seems to know what people need at any point in time and is able to do it. (His only major self-inflicted problem is caused by showing compassion towards a bisexual man. This character gets built up, but then quickly dies. ) Eventually, he returns to the home of his youth in an attempt to return to attempt to regain the childhood that was "lost" in ruling the empire.

Music today is an extremely powerful device for altering emotions. It is not far fetched to see it be "amplified" by a group of wise gifted people. This makes for an intriguing premise. However, the novel has a number of lose threads that could be better developed. The fact that the "hero" was kidnapped from wealthy parents (and these parents are known) was not built up, but then dropped.