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    The Monster Baru Cormorant
    Unavailable
    The Monster Baru Cormorant
    Unavailable
    The Monster Baru Cormorant
    Ebook706 pages10 hours

    The Monster Baru Cormorant

    By Seth Dickinson

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    A breathtaking geopolitical epic fantasy, The Monster Baru Cormorant is the sequel to Seth Dickinson's "fascinating tale" (The Washington Post), The Traitor Baru Cormorant.

    Her world was shattered by the Empire of Masks.
    For the power to shatter the Masquerade,
    She betrayed everyone she loved.

    The traitor Baru Cormorant is now the cryptarch Agonist—a secret lord of the empire she's vowed to destroy.

    Hunted by a mutinous admiral, haunted by the wound which has split her mind in two, Baru leads her dearest foes on an expedition for the secret of immortality. It's her chance to trigger a war that will consume the Masquerade.

    But Baru's heart is broken, and she fears she can no longer tell justice from revenge...or her own desires from the will of the man who remade her.

    At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateOct 30, 2018
    ISBN9781466875135
    Unavailable
    The Monster Baru Cormorant
    Author

    Seth Dickinson

    Seth Dickinson's short fiction has appeared in various publications including Analog, Asimov's, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Strange Horizons and Beneath Ceaseless Skies. He is an instructor at the Alpha Workshop for Young Writers, winner of the 2011 Dell Magazines Award, and a lapsed student of social neuroscience. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. The Traitor is his first novel.

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    Reviews for The Monster Baru Cormorant

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    • 5/5
      This is one of the most underrated books I’ve ever read. The yearning, the political intrigue, the bold characters, the fuckin HEARTBREAK, this is the TRUTH and you will know because it hurts ?
    • 4/5
      subtle, and rewarding, the writer remains in firm control of his ever-enlarging world.
    • 5/5
      Pros: political intrigue, interesting characters, fantastic worldbuilding Cons: Baru Cormorant’s actions on Aurdwynn have numerous consequences. She is now Agonist, a cryptarch, one of the secret lords of the Imperial Throne of the Imperial Republic of Falcrest. She has also made a lot of enemies, one of whom is a navy admiral, who decides to mutiny in order to bring Baru to a form of justice. Baru believes she’s one step further towards destroying Falcrest and freeing her homeland, but cryptarch rivals Hesychest and Itinerant have a job for her and two of their other proteges. This book picks up immediately where the previous one ended, and if you don’t remember all of the characters and subplots of the first book, I’d highly recommend giving it a quick reread. I was very happy that an issue I had with that book’s ending was dealt with pretty heavily in this one. There are plots within plots, and two main points of view, that of Baru (told in third person) and Xate Yawa (told in first person). The switch was a bit jarring at times, but insured you didn’t mistake who’s thoughts you were observing. There are also flashbacks to a previous war from the viewpoint of Tau-indi, a prince of the Oriati Mbo, which gives cultural and historical information for the continent and for the war of ideas between the cryptarchs. The worldbuilding is incredibly intricate. Everything is connected and the language recognizes differences from our own world - like ‘matronizingly’ instead of ’patronizingly’, because some cultures have a matriarchy as a system of rule. I loved the attention to detail. While Baru is often - though not always - able to avoid personal consequences for her actions, once again it’s clear how she causes serious fallout in her wake, particularly with regards to trade and the economics of some of the islands she visits. Very serious consequences, for what seems like limited gains on her part. This makes her an increasingly hard character to like or sympathize with. Which I believe is the point. A lot of the action is set-up for the next book, so the plot here feels scattered at times. Having said that, the level of intrigue is high and I never felt bored. Be prepared to remember a lot of names and get lost in intrigue. If you like morally dubious characters, this book is for you.
    • 3/5
      Lacking the novelty of the setup in the first of the series, this volume has us follow a frequently drunk and dubiously out of control Baru as she does what she's directed to do on her way to bring down the Masquerade. She has lots of seriously bad sorts out to kill her and few friends and a bizarre hold on power.
    • 4/5
      The series focuses, unsurprisingly, on Baru Cormorant, a woman whose tranquil island home has been oppressed by a colonialist empire. Recognized as a savant and regarded as loyal to the principles of that empire, she was granted entry to its upper echelons and embarked on a far-reaching plan to take it down from the inside. But the cost of her schemes is very, very high.I think I feel about this volume much the same as I did about the first one. It is annoyingly difficult to keep all the people, places, plots, and motivations remotely straight. Even more so this time, in fact, since it's been long enough since I've read the first book that I've forgotten much of what I was able to follow there. But it remains an extremely interesting read. The world-building is deep, rich, and fascinating, and the themes it deals with are complex and appropriately disturbing. This one does introduce some plot elements that are very, um... weird, and I haven't made up my mind yet whether they're weird in a good or a bad way. But I will be interested to see what the next volume does with them.
    • 3/5
      Second volume in the series featuring Baru Cormorant, taken from her home to serve the empire that conquered it and that despises her for her racial inferiority and her tribadism. I found it violent and confusing and more interested in jerking Baru and others around than I was in following the twists of the story.
    • 3/5
      Extends the universe of the first book but starts to get a bit bogged down and repetitive in theme and setting by the end, despite introducing a host of new characters early on.
    • 2/5
      I adored The Traitor Baru Cormorant (Masquerade #1) and loved the *start* of book #2 in this series, but despite some excellent writing and characterisation at the start, the novel disintegrated for me at around the 30% mark.

      Structural problems were my biggest issue. Instead of one clear focus on Baru, MONSTER cut between different characters. That in itself isn't problematic, except that some of the other POVs seemed random in their choice and presentation at times (in one memorable chapter, the narrative switches mid-paragraph from first person following Xate Yawa, back to third distant centered again on Baru.) I'm not really sure why those decisions were made.

      The narrative is disjointed (continuation of structural issues) and I struggled to see a clear thread pulling it tightly together, unlike the first book which was sewn up tightly. It gets better when Baru finally leaves the Masquerade people to go do what she does best, but the overall execution still feels sloppy to me.

      Smaller point, I was mildly disappointed by the Masquerade crowd. They felt small and powerless, and their rule over the empire very fractured. I found it hard to believe that these people were successfully governing anything when they can barely organise a dinner party. But maybe other readers will react differently.

      As ever, my thoughts are my own and opinions are subjective.
    • 4/5
      Sadly very much a mid-series book and nowhere near as good as the previous episode. It's not just that the plot drags through much of the opening half, but the single pov from Baru has been substituted for head-hopping into various characters none of whom we care about much, and given their various names for the same person, can be hard to tell apart. It was much better, tauter and more impressive when they acted off-stage and Baru focused on her tasks.Baru has been elevated to the inner circle behind the throne, having passed all the tests set for her (mostly unaware) during the previous book culminating by executing the traitor Tain-Hu, formerly her lover, and friend, whom she betrayed for the betterment of the Empire. This book is all set to expand on the consequences of that and her previous actions. The circle is of course a pyramid with the two key influencers Farrier and Heystadt vying for the favour of the Revanant who leads them, they both believe that ensuring Baru follows their doctrine will lead to their ultimate success - it's not clear how much either really cares for the Empire, and of course Baru herself is trying to bring the whole thing crashing down from within in order to save her home country before it's culture is irredeemably compromised. There are also other apprentices from the circle hoping to earn favour and redemption, with whom Baru crossed paths last book. For now she's been tasked with preventing a war between the Empire and the neighbouring vast populace of the Mbo - the empire's technological superiority would win the battles but lose too much to remain stable. She believe that a mysterious cult have the opposite intention and that she can trace their fingers through the finance of the pirates who failed to attack the Empire's navy. All this leads Baru and all of the above plus the somewhat mad sister of Tain Hu into a long journey south to the borders of the empire. Along the way Baru loses many of her former sureties but retains the dis-orientation of her head-wound, although the author did appear to forget about it from time to time.It's all a bit too much I think, without enough action to carry it through. Baru is a passenger for much of the book which doesn't help. Her counterpoint the honest and upstanding Aminata does feature but only in passing. It remains very imaginative and embracing of cultures not our own which is good to see - although one notable contradiction is that the empire is incredibly intolerant of any signs of homo-sexuality but all it's agents turn a blind eye to Baru and many of the others because they're on the inside, which doesn't make a lot of sense. The Mbo's sense of 'trim' proper connections between people is lovely and a beautifully executed piece of writing to contrast the various political machinations of the other parties. As in the previous book there's room for a lot of interpretations of the title, and many of the characters could wear it, which again is clever writing. But in the end I didn't care for any of the bit-players we were forced to accompany and not enough happened until very late in the book.I'm still going to read the next one, and hope it reverts to something close to the brilliance of the first.
    • 4/5
      This is not not going to CRUSH you like that last one did, but you are going to finish it hungry for Book 3.