The Traitor Baru Cormorant (The Masquerade)

Seth Dickinson's debut novel has it all. Easily one of the smartest books I've ever read, it simply forces itself to be read.

Baru is fighting a constant, endless battle that seems impossible to win, but her determination to do so at any cost - to find the power she needs - makes this book impossible to put down. I am living proof.

THE TRAITOR BARU CORMORANT has the beautiful prose and strong world-building necessary for a fantasy novel of such scope but balances this perfectly with a plot that never stops and yet is perfectly believable because it is so grounded. There is incredible knowledge behind Dickinson's plot and world-building: I frankly cannot try to imagine the intellect it took to write this book. For once, we get to see power and rebellion in terms of administration and accounting - and let me tell you, to this math-avoider, it was absolutely fascinating. I screamed at my friends about inflation because in the world Dickinson has created, it's impossible not to care. It's the kind of book that expands the way you observe the world.

Please, read this book. You will shudder and shiver, sigh and scream. And it will be so, so worth it.

I really enjoyed this book, it was different then many fantasy novels and I think the billing as "geopoltical fantasy" describes it perfectly. It is focused on the interplay of empires, hidden power structures, and captures the perspective of those who are victims of dogmatic cultures, and imperial conquest.

This is purely amazing. It's intricate and beautiful and it will rip the soul from your ether, leaving your chest empty and desiring something that will replace the compassion stolen from you by Seth Dickinson. Read this, but be careful. Embrace it and realize that the real world is very much like this.

I started The Traitor Baru Cormorant recently with the highest of expectations. I'm a fan of Max Gladstone's Craft series, rather enjoyed that Gladstone & Dickinson mutual interview on Tor, and was grabbed by that over-the-top Gladstone blurb: "a poet’s Dune.. a mic drop for fantasy". Sadly, I only got up to 40% and have now likely given it up for good... at the end I even caved, puzzled, and read the spoiler short-story that inspired the novel (The Traitor Baru Cormorant, Her Field-General, and Their Wounds): my heart remained unwrenched :P

There were flashes of brilliance here and there but the supposed main attractions of the narrative --the righteous-but-tragically-misguided vengeance giving life to the deep, modern sociology of power, economics and conquest-- felt surprisingly flimsy and contrived. For instance, the idyllic home & childhood, the supposed emotional bedrock for the whole novel, is only really covered, and even then only tangentially and uninspiredly, in the first short chapter.

I wonder, honestly, what I'm missing. I guess I was expecting more substance (something like real, insightful new theories of power, economics and conquest, in fictional form... yes, a true literary miracle, perhaps something like Charlie Stross's NEPTUNE'S BROOD) when it seems instead to be more like just manipulative wallowing in grimdark/depressing/leftist? themes. :(

This book is incredible, thought-provoking and the characters in it are absolutely perfect. Also great as there is LGBTQ representation, discussions about homophobia and persecution, race and eugenics. The main character is a black woman who loves women. She has poly parents. And that feels absolutely natural and perfect in its writing. I love this book for its politics and character depth, with a plot that Machiavelli would absolutely love.

While I enjoyed The Traitor Baru Cormorant, and will read the second book in the series when it arrives, I felt at times I was being giving a sociology lecture by someone steeped in women's and LBGT studies and political economy. The story is fairly engrossing and the games played by the characters are fun to watch. Unfortunately, the characters do not have much depth -- each of them a trope designed to fit the puzzle of the book more than an actual, living, breathing human being. As to the kicker at the end, Seth Dickinson gives so many hints throughout the book that you would have to be blind not to have seen it coming by the middle of the novel. Though he handles it well in spite of that.

The Traitor Baru Cormorant is one of the better sci-fi books of 2015. However, 2015 has been a somewhat fallow year for sci-fi and fantasy, so I give this praise in a somewhat muted manner. If you enjoy sci-fi and fantasy books with a liberal political bent, you might want to first try Cameron Hurley's The Mirror Empire from 2014.

The prose was gorgeous, but the world Dickinson built was far too confusing to follow. Names, places, blurred by with little context, making relationships impossible to understand. I can’t recommend this book at all.

I finished reading Seth Dickinson’s The Traitor Baru Cormorant.
My head is spinning, a bit.
I finished it three days ago.

***

In those geek-circle inevitable conversations, a perennial one is What AD&D Alignment Are You? Like What Hogwarts’ House Are You or Which Pokemon Are You, this is the sort of conversation that can lead to dangerous ground, if you start telling your friends and family what alignment you think they are and they disagree and then you EXPLAIN your thinking and they go “is that how you really think of me, really?”

Dangerous ground.

But I grew up with alignments, and they are a part of how I consider the world. When I was younger I called myself chaotic good. For a while I said I was neutral good, with occasional forays into chaotic neutral. (Hello, college!) These days … these days I think of myself as more or less lawful good.

I really, really, really like order.

I get upset when I see people on the road fail to use a turn signal — not because it’s actually affecting me at the moment, but because the law is there for good reasons, and because we are most often the sum of our habits, and because good habits make for good people. I read the signs in elevators about occupancy not because I think overloading the elevator one time will break it, but because if everyone overloaded the elevator it WOULD break, and we have to think of everyone else’s needs. I clean up the commons. “Sure, you could do it, but the rule is there for everyone not just for you,” is a thing I say to my children all the time.

I am viscerally troubled by non-orderly queues.

I think order has value. I think order and rules make society and people better.

***

I know a lot about history. I love history. One of the things I love is that people are basically just regular people, no matter where or when. We have pretty much been motivated by the same things, the same desires and fears. Past humans are pretty much comprehensible to present humans. We are always us.

Empires, it happens, have pretty much always been empires.

The economics of empire are brutal. People need a certain amount of Stuff to live. If they make more Stuff than they need to live, that surplus can be saved. If the surplus is saved, it can be given to another person who can then do something else with their time.

This, this is how civilization proceeds. Right there. That’s it. Without that, we have nothing. What is done with that extra time, who does it, and where the products of that time goes — this is what makes an empire.

In an empire the surplus is taken away and used to make some other community of people extraordinarily wealthy. In return the people who made the surplus get … something.

Ah.

They get something.

This, this is the thing that many discussions of empire fail to notice.

***

It is true that the “civilizing” laws, products, and governance that the British Empire extended towards, say, India, was brutal, repressive, extortionate, and demeaning. It is also true that uncounted numbers of people saw what the British had and wanted it. My goodness, did they want it. After all, the British were … they were winning. They had won. Many people see power and glory and very reasonably want to be a part of it.

It is true that the Roman Empire was spread at swordpoint. That the Romans stripped surpluses from client states and used that to foster the power of Roman citizens. It is also true that Rome spread methods of agriculture, of architecture, they spread science and math and reading, they made the world better for more people. Uncounted numbers of people yearned for their children to become Roman citizens. To reap the bounty that was taken from their homelands and ancestors.

Every empire I know of — Aztec, Inca, Qin, Mali, Korea, Carthage, Mongol, ANY of them — has taken surpluses from people. All of the empires I know of have given or forced something in return. And in every empire — every single one — some people from the conquered client lands have risen to great, glorious power in the conqueror’s government.

Are they traitors?

***

The Traitor Baru Cormorant is the first book I can recall reading that lovingly, cruelly, ruthlessly portrays the Conquered’s Choice.

***

The empire in The Traitor, The Masquerade, is lawful evil. It is clearly, manifestly, lawful evil. This is made absolutely unequivocal. But it is lawful. And evil does not mean stupid.

The conquered peoples in this novel — they get stuff. They get dentistry. Literacy. Economic systems that provide cushions in times of famine or drought. They get advanced medical care. More women survive childbirth. More workers survive injury and accident.

If the things the Masquerade takes in return — language, marriage, autonomy, control of family, religion, history — are not all that important to you, personally, why on earth would you not desire to see your children survive to adulthood? If the trade is your husband’s life after surgery for an infected tooth in exchange for a religion that was only moderately important to you, why would you not take it?

If the trade is your life and history and language in exchange for your child going on to become a full citizen of the empire … well, I don’t know about you. I expect I might trade my children away to the new, imperial educational system. I would want them to live, to survive, to benefit, to thrive. If it meant that they never came home, that they didn’t remember me …
I don’t know. I might still make that trade.

If resistance means I lose everything, and compliance means I lose some things …

Is compliance treachery? Is collaboration betrayal? Who is betrayed if one decides to live?

***

The thing about Seth Dickinson’s novel is that every one of these characters has their own individual response to the Conquered’s Choice. These replies are human and varied and deeply personal. This makes every. Single. Character. in this novel richly nuanced.

Do you know how RARE that is? My goodness.

All of these people, these sets of living, breathing motivations and goals, they all dance with each other in a plot that is entirely derived from human beings being human. This is an accomplishment so complicated that I fist-punched the air (actually, literally, on my living room couch) when I reached the end of the book.

Dickinson pulls it off. He makes it all work.

This book is amazing. It’s … it’s stunningly good. I was stunned. It’s now three days later, and I am still stunned. The Traitor Baru Cormorant is not only technically executed with incredible skill, it not only has detailed worldbuilding of depth and complexity, it not only has a host of intriguing and well-developed characters —

— it also explains, clearly and it raw, painful detail, why good people join evil empires.

The Conquered’s Choice.

Mr. Dickinson, I can honestly say that I look forward to everything you will write in the future. Thank you for this book. It’s amazing.

I bought this book because the cover was cool and I was a little drunk. I didn't read it for a few days because someone else called it "a geopolitical fantasy" and that combination of words alone almost put me to sleep. Luckily for me fate intervened and I got stuck on a plane with only this and sky-mall for entertainment and subsequently dug into it. My god it was good. I finished it in under 24 hours and am eagerly awaiting whatever the author puts out next.

PS. Does anyone else absolutely adore the authors picture part of the store? You know this guy is legit because he looks like the nerdy version of a Tapout shirt.

Dickinson covers in one book what it would take George RR Martin three books to write. Baru is fast paced, with a perfect blend of plot and character development that brings the title character more trials, successes, and setbacks than most books of this length could manage to include. Each plot beat, and there are many, comes off as well-orchestrated and unexpected. Dickinson has put a great deal of thought into his plotting, and it tells as Baru never slows and keeps pushing forward unrelentingly until the very end. Fortunately (or unfortunately, if you have things to do), this means that Baru is hard to put down. With the pacing of a thriller and the world-building of the most respectable fantasies, Baru satisfies on every front you could ask from a modern fantasy novel. My favorite thing about Baru is that despite all the satisfying battles and assassinations, the warfare of Baru is fought through economics and trade. I can't emphasize enough how interesting this is; if you know nothing about feudal economics, don't worry. You don't have to know anything about numbers to grasp how important the politics of trade are to Baru's world. The complex web of economic loyalties and debts that holds the world of Baru together is more interesting (and a hell of a lot fresher) than any magic system I've encountered in a fantasy novel.

If you enjoy traditional fantasy, thrillers, mysteries, spy novels, or world-building epics, you are doing yourself a disservice if you don't read the most readable fantasy of 2015. This book is awesome.

When Baru is ten, her homeland is swallowed by the treacherous Empire of Masks. Seeing her family ruined, her people decimated and her culture stamped on, little Baru vows to set her homeland free again, by subverting the Empire from within. She enrols in the Mask school, graduates with the highest accolades, and as she is posted as Imperial Accountant in the rebellious province of Aurdwynn, she sets about her plan.

Warfare by "wits and coin" rather than "sword and fire" and a protagonist who is a savant and an accountant with impressive math skills... How cool and, more importantly, how new is that?! This is what I thought and this is what this hard fantasy delivers, at least in its first ten chapters – a roller coaster ride of lies, treacheries, political machinations, accounting tricks and plenty of solid economic theory. Just watch out how you can stop a brewing rebellion with nothing other than... inflation!

The problem is that at some point Dickinson seems to lose the ability to move the story along this way, "forgets" his initial premise, and we get a radically different novel, with a lot more "deus ex machina" explanations than what is actually good for the story. Instead of using her wits and skill to get out of the barrage of predicaments Dickinson throws at her, Baru just lords about, and people, very conveniently, let have her have her way.

And something else: even though this is clearly a book about the "traitor" Baru, as the story progresses along and Baru more and more becomes like her tormentors, she loses something much more important than self-respect – namely, the ability to make the reader empathise with her. In a way, Baru's moral downfall also turns into the downfall of the story. There must have surely been a better way to handle this.

Overall, a decent novel, but some critical flaws and lots of squandered potential.

Ahoy there me mateys! With an awesome title and premise, this certainly struck me fancy. So I commandeered a copy. This geopolitical book stars an accountant, Baru Cormorant. Her kingdom has been conquered, in the name of progress (of course!), by the Empire of Masks. A young child, Baru is considered bright and precocious and is offered a place in the Empire schools. As it is with any colonization, the goal is to erase Baru’s customs, culture, and loyalties to her past and thus make her a willing tool in serving the Empire’s goals of conquest and subjugation.

But even as Baru excels in school and absorbs its mannerisms and lessons, she has a stubborn spark of hate for all that the Empire has taken in exchange for “civilizing” her. The Empire’s first test of her abilities is to place her as the accountant to another kingdom that the Empire is trying to swallow whole. The task is thankless, dangerous, and seemingly doomed to fail. But Baru is determined to control the purse strings of the country and scheme her way to success.

Writing about this book makes me appreciate it much more than after I finishing reading it. For me, Baru was admirable but impersonal and aloof. These two qualities that served her well in her task but made it hard to love her as a character. Additionally, with all the political intrigue, I did really know the true personalities or desires of any of the other characters either.

Normally this wouldn’t bother me but I always felt like an omnipresent, indifferent observer watching Baru’s tasks. While I enjoyed watching an accountant manipulate those around her, there were parts of the story that I found boring. For example, a lot of the book deals with revolution from within and siege warfare and some guerrilla tactics. It was based on the economics of political wrangling and so not a lot happens plot-wise in those sections. It was hard to keep meself occupied and interested in these parts.

To be fair, the colonization aspects were engaging. Is better food, hygiene, and medicine worth the exchange of declaring all relationships that aren’t heterosexual monogamous ones to be anathema? Is choosing to fight to the death better than losing yer culture and history? Can ye learn to live, love, and be absorbed into the society of the oppressors who use plague and pestilence as a combat tactic?

The book made me think of historical times in our own human culture where these tactics were used. The British Empire. The Roman Empire. The Ottoman Empire. The Aztec Empire. I will say that I found the climax and conclusion of this first book to be wonderful. So while I only found book one to be okay, I might possibility pick up book two to see what Baru gets herself into next.

Brilliant. An unusual fantasy with no magic. Baru's childhood home is conquered and assimilated by the Empire of Masks, an entity which is a cross between ancient Rome and colonial Britain. Baru is a math savant, an accountant, and vows to free her people and destroy the empire from the inside by manipulating its financial sector.

...and that's all I can say without spoiling things.There are twists and more twists and twists within twists. Great characters--Baru, Tain Hu, the "Scholar Duke," the unassuming secretary, many more; almost everyone is memorable. Novel is also beautifully edited: it comes in at under 400 pages, and covers more than an undisciplined author like George RR Martin would have managed in multiple 1000-page tomes.

Absolutely recommended.

So this was a weird book.

Large country sends traders and missionaries to small tropical island, historical check. Missionaries insist on correct one-man-one-woman and not this lax business of just be happy, lack of standards is immoral. Historical check. Large country creates school where little island children don't see their families for most of a year, historical check. At least one of the teachers is a perv, historical check. Very bright island child brought into the meritocracy, what? Not so historical.

Baru wants to be the best so she can govern her island and people will be allowed to have whatever marriages they want, and no child will have one of her daddies killed in such an awful way. But she is sent to another place as administrator, to see if she succeeds or fails. She seems to be going about it the right way. About half-way through, the plot takes a left turn and I was left wondering how on earth this will further her private goals, or has she gotten caught up in local politics and forgotten her own-goal?

The ending was barely satisfying, but I will read the sequel if there is one, just to see if Baru ever goes home, and if she will be corrupted by Large Country or if she will try to implement her goals and get killed for it. Happy endings, I do not expect to see you.

I don't really know where to begin describing how good this book is and how badly you need to read it. I don't care who you are, you need this book. Even if you don't normally read fantasy, READ THIS BOOK. Because I don't normally read fantasy either. I'm not biased against it, but I just don't read it that often. This is a standalone (though apparently a sequel's being worked on, which is SO EXCITING) geopolitical fantasy about a woman named Baru Cormorant. When she's young, her home country Taranoke is invaded by The Empire of Masks/The Masquerade/a bunch of a**holes who like punishing people for sins and doing weird selective breeding stuff. She grows up seeing them change her island, her mother and two fathers are split apart and punished, and she goes to school to be taught the empire's education. And she's really, really smart. But she harbors a hatred of the empire for what they've done and she wants power to save Taranoke. She's willing to work her way up through the empire to get it. Her superiors (excuse me for avoiding using names, I listened to the audiobook and have no idea how to spell anything) notice how smart she is and she's eventually sent to a far away country where she's to be the imperial accountant. It sounds like a boring job at first, but through examining the accounts, Baru unearths a conspiracy. And that's where she begins practicing exercising power and navigating the politics of a country very thoughtfully. Things get crazy.

So much of this book is about politics and economics that I didn't think I'd enjoy it, but it's ABSOLUTELY riveting. If you like the politics of Game of Thrones, you'll absolutely love this. Baru Cormorant is an incredible character. Sharp as hell, incredibly thoughtful, sometimes ruthless. She knows what's going on and she's willing to play any game she has to. We never know who around her she can trust. And all the while, Baru has a secret about her sexual orientation that could get her killed by the empire. You never know for sure where loyalties lie. It is so intense and so much fun. The drama is real. There are so many twists. So much gasping. I'll stop gushing now.

If you want to be entirely wrapped up in a story, enjoy complicated plots and well written characters, and are interested in stories that feature interesting gender/sexual orientation stuff, you have to check this out. The ending will blow you away. Please read this book so we can talk about it.

I went into this book a little warily - the cover blurb uses the word "brutal" to describe it, and, well, I'm so very tired of plot and/or character growth coming by way of sexual abuse or coercion. For those that care - none of that here! (aside from some early, second-character, averted molestation by an elder).

The main character is the person whose voice we hear throughout. We follow her from early childhood through early adulthood. She's a savant - gifted mathematically and politically - but she is still a person, driven by the things people are driven by, and making the same kinds of mistakes that normal people make. She's self-knowledgeable about her flaws, but that doesn't stop her from making mistakes time and again. She's not frustrating because she does grow, and learn, and become so much more than she set out to be in the beginning. This isn't a case of 'decided what to do at age 5 and spent the rest of her life getting there', which aside from astronauts (Cmr. Hadfield, I'm looking at you) doesn't really happen to most people.

The politics were believable and yummy (I like politically chewy fantasy - GoT, or Jacqueline Carey, frex.). There are multiple secondary characters we come to know and care about. People have believable motivations. The structure of the empire itself has some .. hm, shallowness to its implementation (the imposition and maintenance of monolithic cultural mores over centuries just seems... very difficult, and the outright 'race'-based theories it works upon are actively a) repellant (as the author intends) and b) unscientific (not sure about that one).

I read this book within 24 hours; it started a bit slowly but took off and stayed gripping the rest of the time. I stayed an hour late after work so that I could finish it, and by the time you get there, 'brutal' is the right word to describe the wringer you've just gone through. Jo Walton talks about 'the long spear', where the storytelling has to build the spear so that when the point goes in, it has weight and heft behind it. This definitely did. I finished it yesterday, and it's still not out of my mind. Turning over the pieces, going back to re-read bits. It's a very well-crafted book and I really loved it.

After the Empire of Masks conquers and colonizes her home, Baru becomes a student of the empire in the attempt to destroy it from within--whatever the cost. The Traitor is a pointed commentary on colonialism, makes equally pointed social inversions (particularly to gender stereotypes), and discrimination is viewed from within, from a protagonist is a minority group. Dickinson's style is terse, which makes the dense politics and battles unnecessarily confusing but is perfect counterpoint to Baru's unidealized emotional journey. But the plot depends on the reader overlooking the foreshadowing of a crucial plot twist while Dickinson's style demands close reading; the twist is thematically necessary, but the way it's written makes it a betrayal by narrative rather than by character--clumsy and insincere.

(I'm also unhappy with the symbolic injury that ends the book, because I don't think disability should be used a metaphor.)

I love this book in theory and, though I read it some time ago, think of it often. I recommend it on the basis of what it does well, which is ambitious, intelligent, and heartless; its themes penetrate every aspect. But at its most crucial point, it fumbles.

Baru's homeland has been taken over by the Empire of Masks. They will change her culture, traditions, pretty much everything she knows and loves. She vows to rise in power in the Empire and get revenge for her homeland from the inside.

I think one of my main problems with this book is I could just never connect with Baru. I never really saw the charisma that supposedly drew everyone to her and made all these people follow her. I just didn't buy it. And I didn't care much for any of the other characters either. They all seemed very one-dimensional.

The world building was pretty good. Much of the time I was drawn into the story enough to want to keep reading, but there were quite a few slow spots.

This kept being billed as a brutal story, but I didn't find it to be overly so. I kept waiting for it to get there, but it never really did except maybe at the end, which still wasn't bad compared to some I've read.

All that said, I didn't dislike this book. If it's the start of a series, I would definitely continue.

This book. I was not prepared for how intense this book is. It starts with the methodical and sinister conquering of Baru’s homeland, not by military might, but by money. Brilliant and bold, she determines to avenge her family and home by gaining power. And gain she does. Using her mind, she masters the financial aspects of the conquering Empire and is appointed a powerful spot over another conquered land. But there, there she encounters forbidden love, rebellion, treachery, and worst of all – her own cruelty.
It’s hard to review without spoiling the story. The beginning, telling her rise to power, is mostly political maneuverings and the economics of the new land. Dickinson’s world building here is fantastic – complex, intrigued, detailed, rich, and vibrant – and terrifying. The Cold Cellar and the Masks and the Eugenics and the Hygiene. There is almost a touch of horror to the prose. As Baru becomes entangled in the politics, the story picks up. And what happens from there is thrilling, gut-wrenching, heart-breaking, and terrifying.
Worth reading, but not for the faint of heart. The end left me devastated; my mind a torrent of emotions. Excellent story-telling. Read it!

I was intrigued by the evocative title of The Traitor Baru Cormorant ever since I first heard of it. Then I found out that it was about a woman who wants to take down a ruthless empire by rising within its civil service – as an accountant! Political intrigue and worldbuilding are two of my very favourite things in fantasy, and you can’t really have a story about manipulating the economy to bring down a country without either of those things. And I figured that someone with the audacity to base their debut novel’s premise on fantasy economics has to be good enough to do it well. So yes, I had really high expectations for this book, and I was still blown away.

Baru Cormorant is from the island of Taranoke, which has caught the eye of the Empire of Masks (or the Masquerade as it is called derogatorily). The Masquerade doesn’t do anything as overt as actually invading, though – their strategy is much more subtle, starting with getting the Taranoki dependent on their trade, “helping” with Taranoki defense, and opening schools, and before you know it, half of Taranoke is dead from a plague and most of the customs Baru grew up with are declared anathema. Baru recognizes how helpless she and her people are, and resolves to help her people the only way she can think of – by destroying the Masquerade from the inside. She knows her first assignment is a test, though – to subdue the harsh and rebellious country of Aurdwynn, which has always destroyed those who have tried to rule it.

There are so many ways this book could have been done wrong – the trope of “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” has been done a lot, and it is hard to sympathize with anything that helps an Evil Empire (and the Empire is definitely Evil – eugenics, cultural superiority, no regard for human life, strict laws on sexual preferences). But Baru is a tremendously compelling character,; she haunted me for weeks after I finished this book. She really wants to be ruthless in her quest for vengeance, and she usually succeeds, but no matter how many atrocities she causes, you can’t help but rejoice at her successes. You see how much she suffers with every betrayal and watch her pull herself back together through sheer force of will, and it’s as beautiful as it is terrible. The Masquerade has shaped Baru for longer than her family of “a huntress and a blacksmith and a shield-bearer” has, and even if it kills her, she must work for it to eventually be able to work against it.

Everything else about the book is extraordinary too – the supporting characters (especially the enigmatic Duchess Tain Hu), the settings (complex and organic cultures, but no stereotypes), the plot (the loans and futures trading are fascinating, but there’s a lot more to it too) – but Baru steals the show, as is apropos of book’s title. I absolutely cannot wait for the next book.

A fascinating character and culture study, most reminiscent of Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch books. Baru Cormorant is a young woman whose homeland gets annexed by an expanding empire, after which she privately vows to rise through her conquerors' ranks to take down the enemy from within. The empire's strict heteronormativity makes this a very personal battle for Baru, as she is the child of a three-parent home and a woman interested in women herself. But to destroy her enemies and free her people she will need to submerge herself completely into her new role, and there is heartbreak and betrayal aplenty as her decisions twist everything she holds dear. As court intrigue spills into open armed conflict, The Traitor Baru Cormorant presents a captivating look at the insidious forces of cultural imperialism and the personal costs to one woman's soul for resisting it.

At the local bookstore where I go to college, the staff hangs up these cute little recommendation signs for their picks. One of those picks was The Traitor Baru Cormorant. I can’t remember what it said, but I feel like I need to personally thank whoever wrote that recommendation. Because this book is an all-time favourite, already.

≫ THE PLOT:

“Aurdwynn has one great habit, Your Excellence, one constant touchstone, no matter who rules.” Her secretary hesitated over the map, his own fingers half-curled, as if of half a mind to draw her hand away from a flame. “Rebellion.”

Baru Cormorant is just a clever girl on the island of Taranoke until the Empire of the Masks colonises her home. She’s pulled into their school, and their world—a world of conquer by trade, cunning political strategy, rigid meritocracy, and chilling eugenics. Even as the Masquerade proclaims her a genius, she strives to succeed within their system, so that she can finally have the power to save her homeland. But her plans are cut short. The empire decides to test her skills by sending her to Aurdwynn, a foreign land already colonised, yet still prone to testing the empire’s strength. Baru must navigate the treacherous waters of Aurdwynni politics, but she must be careful not to be drawn to the heart of the rebellion itself.

The plot is well-paced, aside from a slight lull right after Baru arrives in Aurdwynn. But pacing aside, it blows my mind that this story could’ve been woven so stunningly. I’m running out of adjectives here. The things that happen—the decisions that are made, the tragedies that befall Baru—are so carefully, precisely timed. Actually, it’s not just the things that happen. One of my favourite things about this book is the fact that Baru is such an active part of her own story. Even when Baru is reacting, it feels like she’s acting. It’s hard to see where the plot ends and where Baru’s character begins, honestly, and that’s another strength of this novel. But more on that later.

≫ THE SETTING:
Even before I reread the book, I could have recited the names of the thirteen dukes and duchesses of Aurdwynn. That’s how well-constructed the world of this book is. And it’s not just geography or history, although there’s plenty of both. It goes into the very cultures of the lands the characters inhabit. There’s probably more diversity in the first chapter of this book than in several completed series I’ve read before. For example, in Baru’s native Taranoke, families are made of a mother and two fathers. I don’t think I’ve ever even heard of a book where polygamy is part of the culture! With culture comes cultural differences, and Dickinson exploits those admirably. There’s language barriers and different dressing styles, all the way to different opinions on homosexuality and aforementioned polygamy. The setting is part of the story both culturally and geographically, and I can count on one hand the number of other books I’ve seen that in.

≫ THE PROTAGONIST:

If there is rebellion in my heart, a rebellion of huntress mothers with man-killing spears come to find their vanished husbands, well, I must be ready with acid and steel mask.

Baru is the heart of this story, and she’s so well-formed a character that I feel as though I’ll pass her on the street someday. She’s determined, ambitious, clever—but not so clever that she’s unlikeable, and not so clever that challenges don’t pose a problem to her. Her conflicts and her desires are clear to the reader, and it’s impossible not to empathise with her situation. She’s not a physical fighter; she fights with her mind, and it’s fascinating to watch her decision process unfold. And also, she’s a lesbian, in a fantasy novel!

And the best part about the way Baru’s written—what makes the plot work so well—is that her fatal flaw is emphasised, again and again, in her mistakes. You know she’s not infallible.

≫ THE OTHER CHARACTERS:

…we are not free. Not even when we march beside them, nor even when we lead them. Freedom granted by your rulers is just a chain with a little slack.

Every single supporting character, I can promise you, makes an impact. I don’t know what kind of talent this is—or where I can acquire some of it—but Dickinson somehow manages to breathe life into all the major players in the story. From Baru’s reserved but good-humoured secretary Muire Lo all the way to the nobility of Aurdwynn, they all stand out. And I have a soft spot for them all! I especially love the way the dukes and duchesses are written. They all have their own agendas, faults, and dangerous tendencies.

≫ OF VILLAINS:

Mother, why do they come here? Why do we not go to them?

Why are they so powerful?

The Empire of the Masks is the most terrifying antagonistic force I’ve read about in a long time. Yes, they’re formidable and their tactics are bone-chilling, but that’s still not what makes them frightening. It’s how believable the empire is. Looking at our history, can I imagine that a foreign power would ruthlessly conquer by trade and tear cultures apart? Guess what, I don’t have to imagine it. It’s happened. Add to that the empire’s disturbing edicts on eugenics, their experiments with human breeding (?!), and their really horrifying punishments for homosexuality… yeah, I wanted Baru to tear them apart.

≫ THE ROMANCE:

Her nearness summons sedition in Baru’s chest.

It’s the definition of slow burn. Baru falls for the alluring, fierce Duchess Tain Hu, one of the most dedicated rebels. I loved the complicated dynamics of their relationships, and how they grow to trust each other over the course of the rebellion. Tain Hu is the noble we see most of all the Aurdwynni, and I loved her character just as much as I’m not going to sit here and pretend they’re the perfect couple to read about if you want happy LGBT rep—their relationship is pretty much doomed from the start. And I know that’s a turn-off for lots of LGBT folks who want to see more positive representations of themselves in the media. But I’d encourage you to give it a shot, because two women, together, in a fantasy novel? Not written creepily? Both openly admitting they’re into women? It’s pretty significant.

≫ TO SUMMARISE:
Political fantasy is maybe my favourite genre of all time, so it was basically guaranteed that I’d love this book. But if you’re a fantasy reader, you’ll enjoy this book without question. It’s not dense, it’s so engaging, and it’s just all-around such a heart-stopping story. Now, where can I get the next book?

The Traitor Baru Cormorant is a novel that believes that nothing should be done halfway. Seth Dickinson makes many bold choices in his debut, and standing proudly at the center of these choices is a challenging, confrontational moral ambiguity. How evil should we become to fight a greater evil? Can the ends justify the means? Do we become what we pretend to be?

The book, like all good art, is about asking these questions, not beating readers over the head with philosophical proselytizing. Still, moral absolutists and anyone uncomfortable with sociopathy will find this a difficult read. No punches are pulled here, for the bleak world of this novel is much more like our own history than the theme-park medieval Europe found in most western fantasy. Life is short and dirty, war barbarous and disease-ridden, but a reader determined to find hope amongst the brutality will not return empty-handed.

For a work driven so strongly by character and philosophical qualms, there is a surprising complexity of plot. Even veteran readers will be challenged to ponder and envision the whirling mechanism that drives the action towards resolution. It is well worth the effort, however, to see the elegance of its operation, the commentary on the social systems that build up and destroy us all.

The prose has clearly seen a lot of polish--it's not always simple, but every word supports beauty and narrative purpose. Dickinson enjoys making his words do double-duty: the narration reveals much of the viewpoint character, and the dialog is barbed with paranoid double entendre. For that alone, the book is worth a reread.

If you're looking for light escapism, look elsewhere, but if you're up for a challenge, you will find it in Baru Cormorant.

I read this book back when it was first published in 2015, and I've since re-read it twice.

I don't know what to say about this book except: wow. Incredible. I had seen all the early high praise for this book, so going in my expectations were sky high. Needless to say, even those expectations were completely blown away by the end. Coming in at 400 pages (hardcover edition) you'd think it would be a long read -- it isn't at all. The story flies by, though all of the politics and accounting aspects can get a little confusing. Nevertheless, it's well worth it for the incredible, twisting story that unravels. The world-building is magnificent, with lovely depth and scope; it makes me want to read a history book about the countries/cultures. There's a lot of characters to keep track of, but they're all rendered very nicely, with distinct personalities that keep things from becoming a blurry mess. This really isn't a story to rush through, but rather one to read at a luxurious pace so that every detail can be savored. It would be easy to say too much about this book and spoil the story, but it's one that's deeply satisfying.

Needless to say, I'm ridiculously excited for the sequel.

The Traitor Baru Cormorant is about the price of high stakes power games, devastating in its point of view. (This text has a few spoilers, but not the huge ones.)

Baru is born into a culture soon conquered by the all-powerful “Masquerade”, an ever growing Imperium of social hygiene, of clever trade and schooling for all gifted children. The empire is a self proclaimed meritocracy and to Baru, who is exceptionally gifted, the dream of doing well on the merit tests becomes everything. Baru is the daughter of three parents, one mother and two fathers, and the Masquerade teaches that sodomy and tribadism are social sins punishable by mutilation, reeducation or death. One of Baru’s fathers disappears early in her life, killed or imprisoned – the rest of the family never know of his fate – and Baru sets her life on a course that runs all the way and then some to her goal; to change the Masquerade from within and to save her homeland Taranoke.

The book is interesting for many reasons. One is Baru’s implacable journey from idealism to near-sociopathy. She does anything demanded of her to achieve her goal, to reach a place of power within the ruling group behind the throne in faraway Falcrest. Long after her homeland has been ruined and renamed, her people decimated, she keeps sacrificing more and more to get to where she needs to be.

Another thing is the imperialism itself, the way it’s described as not wholly evil, but not wholly good. The new hygiene protocols help save lives, while the new illnesses kill off swathes of population. The trade offers many opportunities, but the new laws make old ways of life punishable by death or reeducation. Like a mirror to reality.

These parallels are philosophical as well. Is there in fact any way at all to become an influential political power without destruction and betrayal gathering in your wake? In this book, it doesn’t seem that way. Any character who tries to stay “clean” is punished by being weakened in some way.

And the style of this book… I said on twitter at one point that it reminded me of Leckie’s Ancillary novels. I think that’s the detachment pervading a lot of the text, the way Baru keeps concentrating on the details and game pieces of politics and mostly disregarding empathy. I’m not saying we don’t see Baru’s feelings – we see a deeply angry woman controlling herself and going further and further with that control to reach her ultimate goal, which in turn becomes more distant. In some ways, it makes me think of the character Will Graham in Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal TV series… Anyway, Baru’s intense interest in any kind of political games made me as a reader become more interested in economics than I thought I could ever be. A large part of this book is maneuvering a country’s politics and economy to where Baru needs it to be, and that is not a weak point. Seth Dickinson makes it into vital information for the story building.

The ending is awful. It took until almost the end for me to guess what it would actually be, and it hurt. Although by then, all the previous blows to the head the book delivers made me kind of… numb about it. In the end, it seemed inevitable, the same way the Masquerade conditions its prisoners to stop looking for the cell door key, to stop trying to escape, because it will never ever work. You will never truly be free.

This book has overtaken Joe Abercrombie's Best Served Cold as my favorite fantasy of all time and is a strong contender for my favorite book, period. If you like the emerging trend of fantasy as a laboratory of history, especially where character arcs yield to the cold, pitiless onslaught of economics, this is definitely for you. The female protagonist is superbly written, and there are too many layers to her identity and story to fully appreciate on a single read. I'll come back to this book many times, and am eager to see more from Seth Dickinson

Follow the money. Who would think a book written about an accountant would be so engaging? Baru is a savant. She manipulates numbers and people, can scry evolving shapes in shipping and financial records of a country well enough to find traitors to her high, faceless masters at the Empire of Masks. Baru’s idyllic childhood powers her goal of protecting that way of life. What she does with the information she gathers through her spy network will cause you to never again doubt the power that comes from understanding the way wealth moves.

Geopolitics and economics don't frequently bring to mind the foundation of an epic fantasy story. Perhaps they should, because The Traitor Baru Cormorant delivers in suitably fantastic fashion. This book is full of political intrigue and conflict that frequently goes deeper than simple steel-on-steel combat, a rarity in the genre. The pacing is lightning quick, never bogging down in unnecessary chaff and details that the reader doesn't particularly care about. Character development among supporting characters suffers somewhat for this, but that's not to say the characters are flat or one-dimensional, merely that their development happens before the reader is introduced to them; every major character is a player in the game of conspiracy and espionage, move and counter move.

Without spoiling anything, the major twist was recognizable. It's another strength of the writing that I didn't care that I already had a good idea of what would happen, I wanted to see it happen myself. An excellent read, and one to which I greatly look forward to reading the sequel.

I ended up reading this book right after the first of Ann Leckie's Ancillary books (Ancillary Justice). Both are thematically similar and use a simple revenge hook to explore the mechanisms of empire and oppression ... but after that, their paths diverge significantly. I enjoyed it and decided to check in later to see what else the author was working on.

I'm re-reading it now after about a year, knowing what's behind at least some of the masks presented, and it's actually even better than I remember it being the first time. This time I'm admiring the balance struck between rebellion and deception, the characters and the setting. Books like this rarely stick the landing, and for me this one did.

The Traitor Baru Cormorant is a sharp-edged brilliant revenge drama in which the injustice to be avenged is the murder of a way of life. We see the murder take place—our hero Baru is a young girl when she watches her island home colonized the modernist way, through trade agreements, education, and managed disasters rather than raw force of arms. (Though of course force of arms is deployed, when needed, to “protect trade.” Sound familiar?) Baru, a genius, decides to destroy the colonizing empire from the inside—to join their system, climb its ranks, and break it from the heart. I’m scratching my head to remember a book I’ve read in genre that more aptly displays the vicious process and logic of modern hegemonic colonialism, or engages with it more directly. This is a well-written, passionate, fast-paced, burning tale. It says in pages stuff I feel like I’ve taken books to try to say. It points fingers. Most of the fingers it points are pointed at us.

I feel like the villain in Steve King's "Misery." I want to fly to wherever Seth Dickinson lives, and hold him prisoner until he finishes the sequel.

What a wonderful piece of world-building. Utterly believable, and informed by a deep knowledge of political economics. The plot twist in the last chapter was a punch in the gut, but I was left with the feeling that I should have seen it coming. Why? Well, exactly how was helping a bunch of feuding dukes going to further Baru's long-term project of rescuing her island home from the Empire?

Real, real good.

This book takes an interesting angle, using economics and accounting to drive the plot. I know that sounds potentially boring and dry but it worked well as part of a very emotional story. It also doesn't hurt that the writing was beautiful and the ending was incredible.

Amazing book. Absolutely brutal. Brilliant exploration of the trap of colonialism. Avoids being one-sided; shades of grey throughout.

This isn't really fantasy. It's more just set in an alternative world. No magic appears, AFAI can see. I like what the author did with this choice, but if you're looking for sword and sorcery, look elsewhere

This book grabbed me from the beginning with it's intelligent dialogue and world-building, but got to be a bit of a slog towards the end. Nothing surprising about that ending either, but it was an interesting journey along the way, and way better than most books getting four or five stars here. I'll be looking forward to the author's next work, he obviously has a lot of talent. Give it a try.