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September 2015
“A beautiful, perfectly formed crystal of a novel…” — John Chu
“…an amazing epic fantasy…I consider it an instant classic.” — Tiemen Zwaan
Baru Cormorant wants to understand the world.
“An extraordinary debut—powerful, complex, and passionate.” — Kij Johnson
“Storytelling that succeeds on both an epic and a powerfully intimate scale…” —Sunny Moraine
Her mother Pinion knows the hunt and the stars. Her father Solit knows the smithy and the telescope. Her father Salm knows how to kill, and why no one ever should. She loves them more than anything. She loves her home, island Taranoke, the warm place at the center of the world.
“Smart. Brutal. Gut-wrenching. You’ll be captivated from the very first page. Dickinson is a sly, masterful writer who pulls no punches. Get ready to have your heart ripped out through your throat.” — Kameron Hurley
“…a poet’s Dune, a brutal tale of empire, rebellion, fealty, and high finance that moves like a rocket and burns twice as hot. The Traitor Baru Cormorant is a mic drop for epic fantasy.” —Max Gladstone
Tomorrow, on the beach, Baru will look up from the sand and see red sails on the horizon.
The Masquerade is coming. Armed with coin and ink, doctrine and compass, soap and lies. Their secrets are the secrets of empire and Baru will claim them at any cost. She’ll join the Masquerade. She’ll prove herself a savant at the exercise of power. She’ll be exactly what they need.
Will it hurt? Certainly. Will it ask too much of her? Of course. But she’ll complete her work: finding a way to the top. She’ll do it for her home. Her family. Her freedom.
Baru knows she can save her world. All she needs is a little more power to do it.
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Chapter 1 (http://www.tor.com/2015/05/26/excerpt-the-traitor-baru-cormorant-seth-dickinson/) — Tor.com preview
Chapter 2 (http://www.tor.com/2015/05/27/excerpt-the-traitor-baru-cormorant-chapter-2-seth-dickinson/) — Tor.com preview
Chapter 3 (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sci-fi-fantasy/afternoon-reading-chapter-3-of-the-traitor-baru-cormorant-by-seth-dickinson/) — Barnes & Noble preview
Baru’s World
People need things. Water and shelter. Cloth and sewer. A chance to heal, a story to tell, a dream to realize. A law that puts tomorrow’s weakest above the powers of today.
People build society to meet those needs. Civilizations brick themselves out of the floodplain and sweep down off the high west steppe. In turn they have needs of their own. Stability. Deterrence. Record-keeping, revolt-breaking, a plan for the next drought, an answer to the shapes in the dark and the mutineers in the slum. They grapple with the world a while and then they fall apart.
A time of hope. A time of prosperity. A mistake! A setback! A chain of collapses. Again and again.
The cycle has to end. The civilization game can be solved. Together we propose a solution.
Civilization thrives on the Ashen Sea.
Sail south and harbor in Oriati Mbo: four great nations bound together by philosophy and history, singing the story of a millennium of joyful change. Sail west to nameless lands where the Tu Maia once ruled, the wave of their expansion broken now, their story still alive in the epics of their dandelion-scattered descendants. Sail north to Aurdwynn, land of olive and redwood, wolf and Duke, where the Tu Maia met the pale Stakhieczi masons in a crash of cavalry and phalanx. That story has a few shapes, depending who you ask.
Or you might stay home, on Taranoke, a little bit southwest of the middle of everything. There’s a warm wind on the beach, and kelp to gather. You can burn the kelp for ash. You can make the ash into glass. If you had a nice telescope, you could watch the stars. There must be stories up there.
Of course, you might sail east, over the burnt hulks and seared bones of Oriati fleets. Sail east to Falcrest, the Antler and the Qualm, Old King Poison. Have you heard the news? The old dynasty is ended. Something young and eager rises from the blood of kings. In Falcrest they say —
Civilization clings to the Ashen Sea. Civilization isn’t a story. It’s a fragile, desperate thing, a machine of erratic and tenuous make. And when it falls again, as fall it will, the cost will be appalling.
So we have come to repair it.
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i'm on page 355 which by my count gives you 32 pages to ruin everything, i look forward to seeing you rise to the challenge
Yes, he (battuta) does. You will not be disappointed and may want to throw the book/ereader across the room.
Ha. Ha. I'm still being vague.
Ok, I'll be the first to admit that I may not have finished the book in the best of mindsets. Wee hours of the morning, forced awake by whiny (and thankfully false) smoke alarm noises, and generally too-wound-up and too-tired.
All the same, I was MAJORLY caught off-guard by the ending. There was normally some subtle signposting to big twists at earlier points, and I may simply have missed them, but goddamn. That was a brutal triple-cross.
So last week was my Octobercation and I took the opportunity to dive into this work.
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I found it a very enjoyable read, Batt's has crafted an interesting world and characters that I hope are relished with future attention.
His use of language is superlative, smooth and delicious like the Kingkiller Chronicles, and one of the few literary works in recent memory that managed to utilize words not in my vocabulary. On a side note, as a student of the sword proper terminology for the guards always deserves kudos. I do wonder how punchy the ending would have been if I hadn't read the original short story and got to approach it cold. Given my foreknowledge of the ending I was half expecting experience similar to Joe Abercrombie's work, however, while the story was indeed tragic, Baru's character remained fundamentally sympathetic and the narrative did not reach the utter grimness of The First Law Trilogy. By the end of novel I could still root for the protagonist and was invested in what would occur in the future. I personally preferred it this way since by the time I wrapped up Last Argument of Kings the series was deftly crafted misery.
The Empire of Masks was in and of itself a very interesting concept. In a world of roughly Renaissance Era technology, a society leveraging an advanced understanding of economics, psychology, conditioning, and eugenics as it primary weapon set was terrible to behold. It's almost like someone went back in time and handed Habsburg Spain the keys to sociopath Ubuntu. Given how many literary empires rely on their grim implacable legions, the Masquerade's doctrine is very innovative and frightening. Seriously how scary and **** awesome were the brief forays into the Cold Cellar? I very much would like to learn more about Falcrest and its interactions with the Necessary King and the murky darkness across the ocean. This is a unique setting and some serious fodder for future tales.
If there was one thing I might have preferred was a little more of Tain Hu and her relationship with Baru. Granted the proscriptions on tribadism may have factored in their interactions but Baru's camaraderie with Murie Lo in some ways felt more fleshed out than with Tain Hu. I don't know, perhaps my knowledge of the outcome unintentionally colored my reading but I really wanted to be more invested in their relationship as I approached its inevitable conclusion so that the knife twisted that much harder.
Still that's a minor personal quibble in an otherwise fantastic first outing. I've enjoyed all Batt's short story works so far and Traitor Baru definitely proves in my mind he can make splendid use of the additional breadth of a full length novel. I sincerely hope it gets the recognition it deserves and Batt's the go ahead for future novel projects.
That cover is really good.
I like in particular how Baru's hemilateral neglect is on show here (and yes I had to look that back up Batutta)
Finished it today. Debated if I should edit the first post but then decided against it. :roll eyes: Took way longer than anticipated since I decided to re-read the first novel (for the third time) again and that took longer due to real-life things.
Well, finished Monster about 4 hours ago and I thought I should write my review now, while its fresh but also while I had time to think about what I just finished.
TLDR, I am pretty torn on the book but I read it feverishly and that certainly counts for somethingg :) I am not going to keep it spoiler free but I will use spoiler tags for the actual review.
First, a few essential quotes from my forebearer: If you wait for the sequel to come out to buy both books, it's bad for the vital statistics driving Batts' income.
Go buy the book now, its certainly worth it the asking price. This book is, at times, an oppressive read. Not only does Baru's depression hit her hard, and us with it as we spend time in her head, but her ingenuity and resourcefulness as established in Traitor don't really get much screen time either. She has her moments, to be sure, but ... there could've been more of them for my liking, y'know?
By having interludes from other character's POVs, we get a better picture of who Baru is, how she presents herself, and how she's seen by others, and each of the other POV characters is interested in their own ways. As any good middle entry in a series, it leaves me both satisfied and intensely hungry for more.
I agree with both these general statements, and they are a good summary of what to expect if you read the first book.
Now, on to spoilers stuff:
I went into this book knowing to expect something completely different. I thought: No more Aurdwynn and dukes, no more politics in that brilliant arena of his. Instead, new and larger challenges, a larger game, a mysterious force in the east towards the mother of storms or maybe even a look into Falcrest. And I got something completely different and I think it took me 50% of the book to get on board with what was going on. If you have not already guessed it, I am starting the review with the negative points, to get over them as quickly as I can. Let's talk plot details: Baru is now lifted into the elusive circle behind the throne, the minds behind all of it. Armed with supposedly incredible power, held only in check by her peers of the same station (or not quite, considering the ending of the first book), she is basically sent on a "fact-finding" or scouting mission with little to no actual intel that could very well be a fool's errand. I imagined Cryptarch's to be powerful manipulators, playing the games of politics, conquering islands posing as traders, intimidating and controlling Falcrest's seemingly perfect industrial and military machinery. Instead, they are sent on super-risky missions with vague objectives :nono:. I really took me a while to just accept that turn of events. Still, not completely over it to be fully honest, maybe its my fault reading it back-to-back. As stated, maybe we are talking about a misconception on my part here but I imagined the high-personal-risk mission type was sort of the big test. Monster even seems to support me in that notion somewhat, considering that extended sections of flashbacks contains sections of such missions that Baru's peers had to undertake to earn their station. In short, the whole going out on a ship adventure main plot was a though pill to swallow for me.
The other big negative thing was probably unavoidable. Since Monster is opening the world and expanding to new POV characters, it eliminates the razor-sharp focus of Traitor somewhat. Fully expecting that, it was certainly less of an issue for me and E's statement quoted above nicely summarizes the positives about it. I particularly liked the attempt of vastly different writing styles. With this expansion also comes a certain tendency to undermine motives of the first book, for instance Falcrest's perfectly functioning colonialist machinery. What was once a homogeneous, impersonal and utterly invincible navy now comes with mutineers and internal power struggles. A cabal of genius manipulators behind the throne are just people, some of which do not seem that gifted. As stated, this was inevitable and expected, and we are getting a lot of positives for it, but it was certainly something I loved in Traitor.
I could have done without that one Ormsment POV chapter, which did not add anything and did not feel special in any way. I get that Batista might have felt it was necessary as an attempt to better establish her motivations for what she is doing but since her whole motivation is a rather simple revenge thing (apparently, at least), I am sure that a different way could have been found. Maybe as another Lindon chapter, receiving more reports? Anyway, I always disliked one-shot POV's unless its some sort of prologue where the character is abducted, killed or whatever...
The good stuff: :)
The prose is, again, Battuta-brilliant. It will obviously be different from Traitor and that was already evident in that book's last chapter. Liked it a lot and it got me hooked, as usual. The words are, again, chosen carefully and adeptly and form a well-flowing text that draws the reader in.
The world building is excellent again, it almost never feels forced, interesting little and utterly unimportant details are mixed with larger, general ones and a sense of place and wonder is quickly instilled in the lands of the Ashen Sea. The sense of people and philosophy is nicely realized and I like how different most of it remains from the standard fantasy stuff. Aurdwynn and its dukes were medieval-like, a known quantity. Monster embraces the weird that was hinted at before and does so in a believable fashion, mixing at times seemingly contradictory things (like religiously caring for others while having an instituted form of mocking them as a way of spreading news) together into a really interesting cocktail. I loved it, with all its ambiguities and issues-that-are-no-issues and weird ideas. It is hard to describe to be honest and that is a very good thing. More POVs, as well as the ship traveling thing, obviously allows for a vast scope regarding these aspects.
I loved the Cancer-Cabal idea, the immortata. A disgustingly brilliant idea and in the book's acknowledgments, Batista makes it quite clear that my choice of adverb here might be in itself an issue. If it turned out to be nonsense, a desperate explanation of Falcrest's secret cabal incapable of understanding how something could endure without strong control, I would have been satisfied as well. But apparently, it is not ;7 so let's see where that goes.
The Farrier-process, although I am still not entirely sure what it is, sounds like a cool thing as well. Another angle of attack, another wall of questions on what has been engineered :nervous: for Baru. Liked how Aminata, Shir and others are basically part of it. The motive of Nietzsche's And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you, of Baru as a perfect tool of the Empire, is maintained in an unexpected and clever way. Obviously, repeating the steps of Traitor would be both boring and impossible and since Baru is a Monster now, that motive can be supported by "internal" means now. I liked it, both in the way Battuta played with the font and the eventual revelation.
Tain Hu's presence in the book remains strong, which was rather unexpected for me. I thought that most if it made sense and did not felt forced, both in Baru's supporters and Baru's internal struggles. Good job on balancing that. Found the end to be perfectly acceptable. While not ending anything related to Baru's personal arc, the whole book feels like a journey, an intermediate step, a setup anyway. And since that setup is now complete, it was fine to end it there :D.
The weird stuff:
I did not really get the Iraj-character to be fully honest but I suspect that is part of the plan. Does he actually like his lover? Probably, but I am not sure. More central, what are his hopes (we certainly know his fears) for the future, what does he truly wish for?
Tain Shir came out of the blue and, as the book makes it obvious to the reader, she does not. ;) Another thing that took me off guard, that is for sure. She has this other-wordly attitude and that is the point, another monster made by Farrier. I am sensing some interesting revelations for book 3 there.
The shift in Baru's expression of sexuality was a hard one. One of the things I loved in Traitor was how suppressed even the writing was on that subject, perfectly mirroring the character. All of that is gone, however Baru is obviously at a different point now. It is a known fact now to most of the people around her, and she feels somewhat safe. She had sex, she liked it. And, of course, she is utterly broken as a person, constantly drunk and on the verge of complete loss of control. In the end, this was never something that bothered me enough to be on the negative list, however I did want to mention it.
I had never read something like Traitor before, a book that I found so utterly perfect, a book that felt like it was written for me and had all the elements I liked in my stories and absolutely nothing else. Monster was not written for me. But so were many other great books I really like. Eagerly awaiting the next one :nod:.
Well done.
I finished reading it! I think I need to read it again. I would have liked a glossary, actually, like a scribbled notebook similar to the lovely map. That's probably just me though, I couldn't read the book as often and as concentrated as I'd liked.
When Baru started chanting the little rhyme I dreaded something horrible was going to happen, well done that.
I had a few questions, and a lot of them are going to resolved in the next book, but there's a few things I was unclear on:
The Mbo society allows people to choose their own gender at a young age. Is there any leniency if they, after more sexual development has happened, decide that they mabye should be something else? Or does this never happen to begin with?
Cutting Tau-Indi from Trim: I get that the Cancrioth would rather remove themselves from Trim since, well, that would be even more destruction they'd leave in their wake if they didn't. But why cut Tau Indi from trim? Doesn't this do damage as Tau Indi is, above all else, a fundementally good person and Trim is lesser for his absence? What binds Tau Indi to the Cancrioth now, as they started off with doing something that to him is entirely horrible? Is cutting someone from Trim pernament?
I also particularely liked how the final chapters of the book made me question some of the fundementals I thought the baruverse was based on. Still couldn't sleep for hours after reading the ending too! Kept thinking about everything.
In short
It good.