Seth Dickinson continues to amaze and delight and although this definitely feels like half the story, I was still engrossed and I ended up pre-ordering the sequel. I need to know how Baru fares.

The second novel in Dickinson's acclaimed Masquerade series.
It's another good novel, which moves the story forward and further develops the characters. I think THE TRAITOR BARU CORMORANT is better, but I enjoyed spending more time in this world and with these characters. However, I've still not enjoyed these novels as much as I had expected, given the incredible amount of praise they've received. (Maybe it's my mood?)

Worth a look if you're looking for a fantasy series with a difference, with a compelling central character.

Accountant, rebel, mastermind Baru stages her plan’s next part. Some of the worldbuilding is is truly nonsensical? Baru’s caught in dealing with the repercussions of The Traitor Baru Cormorant and isn’t quite the player she was before. Decent.

Adri already wrote about The Monster Baru Cormorant two years ago in a much longer form review. Her review is worth a read, I agree with much of what she had to say. The novel is one political maneuver after another, and for as much as Baru was able to play the political game with adeptness in The Traitor Baru Cormorant, she comes across as a bit out of her depth here in Monster as she is brought in closer to the power of Falcrest / The Masquerade and everyone around her has been playing politics as a game for perhaps more years than Baru has been alive.

Dickinson's writing is as sharp as it was in Traitor, but Monster is a much slower paced novel - not quite plodding, but let's call it deliberate since my opinion of Monster is generally favorable. Baru is willing to do almost anything to reach her goal of achieving enough power to both destroy Falcrest from within as well as save her home island. There are two significant moments of Baru demonstrating that, one so early in the novel it would almost not be a spoiler to reveal and one quite a bit later in the story. It is Baru willing to sacrifice her humanity, sacrifice almost anything and anyone. But, there are almost a few scattered moments of Baru questioning those choices - that maybe her scorched earth ambition might be better served with actual forward thinking and planning compared to taking each moment as a discrete entity.

The Monster Baru Cormorant does not stand alone. So much of the context depends on Traitor, but it serves to whet the appetite to see how Baru might possibly achieve her goals and at what cost (as if the cost has not been high enough already. Dickinson tells a brutal story, but it's not quite one you want to look away from (even if sometimes you're reading with one eye open)

I was so excited to read The Monster Baru Cormorant after absolutely loving The Traitor Baru Cormorant, and calling Baru one of the best protagonists in fantasy. When the publisher sent me through links for both Monster and Tyrant at the start of iso, I thought this was going to be brilliant--the world was burning around us but I had two books I was so excited to read back-to-back during lockdown.

The story starts with failure: failure of courage, failure of combat, failure of death, and who knows how many others—all leading, eventually, back to the secret rebel accountant, Baru. And this is all part of an absolutely devastating opening quarter of book. I gobbled up the first quarter of this book in a couple of days. But that's where my happiness and enjoyment of The Monster Baru Cormorant pretty much ended. And I do need to say in fairness to both author and publisher that, in hindsight, this was likely the wrong book to have read during these times. It's a heavy read, has plenty of characters, and if you lose concentration for a moment, or forget a detail, or read it over a long period of time, like I did, then you're going to miss things.

Our key cast of characters are fairly familiar, with Baru, Aminata, and Admiral Ormsmet leading the fray.

Baru is on a mission to find the mysterious Cancrioth--the mysterious puppet masters sitting behind and guiding the numerically superior (to Falcrest) Oriato Mbo people. They are famed to be immortal, and the Falcresti cryptarchs want that power. The cryptarchs topple nations with disease and commerce, they bring people after people under the iron shod boot of Falcrest. They have done so much just in the last few decades. Imagine what the Falcresti cryptarchs could accomplish within many lifetimes?

Animata, two navy voyages into her career, is now a landlocked torturer of her own people—know thy enemy—using whores to fill time and need and wishing Baru, dead or alive, would write her back. Then the Admiralty gives her command of a mission—the one mission she wishes didn’t exist.

Admiral Ormsment has a plan, and the Emperor of Falcrest is going to kill her and everyone she knows if she goes ahead with it. With two ships full of loyal crew, and a new alliance, it is time for her to hunt down Baru.

The second quarter of this book is a lot slower, sometimes a bit dreamlike, to how I remember book one. In this section we spent a lot of time in Baru’s head, trying to figure out the repercussions of her actions in The Traitor Baru Cormorant, deal with the shadow of her lover, figure out who wants her dead and who is helping her and why. The threads of where this book could go writhe out in what feels like a hundred trails of possibility.

Unfortunately, in hindsight, this is perhaps where I should have pulled the pin on The Monster Baru Cormorant--perhaps even just to try and pick it up again in happier days. All these threads just end up creating a bunch of confusion and an incredibly long drawn out second half of the book that does not deliver a satisfying ending--a dissatisfying bridge into book three. I feel like I can see what Dickinson was doing. I understand the plot. I can see the characters grow and change. I just can't say there was ever a moment where I was thinking, "Wife? Food? Sleep? Forget that! I've got to drop everything and read!" as opposed to feeling obliged to finish the book so I could review it.

The frustrating thing is that all the right ingredients are there in this book. A super shadowy foe to discover and chase down. A nicely diverse and different group of characters. Enjoyable ethical systems and characters who truly see the world differently. Espionage and fear of discovery. Brutal, brutal, decisions and repercussions. A very gross but very cool low magic system. One wonderfully terrifying extra foe in Tain Shir. Real heartbreak. An end goal where it should have been a brilliant unveiling that drives home an unquenchable thirst to get into book three.

This book feels like it should have been half the length, like Dickinson had too much story for a duology and not enough story for a trilogy, and went with the latter, jamming all the good bits into book one and (hopefully, now) book three.

One thing I do really want to highlight is some really interesting commentary from the author on how culture is fluid—it's in a perpetual state of change and has no set boundaries. That really rang true with the prejudices I have witnessed change in my lifetime around the LGBTQIA+ community, and I assume some of the change other countries have seen in their own cultures and populations as the world becomes more and more connected and people leave their countries to live on other shores in greater numbers, taking their own cultures and life experiences with them. This is something Dickinson does really well throughout this series so far. He ties themes that matter to readers now into his work in a manner that doesn’t have him on a soapbox preaching and info dumping, but has you seeing this change through the eyes of Baru.

In the end, this is a book I wanted to love so much. Again, I don't know if it was the times I tried to read it in, or it was just as unenjoyable as I found it (I haven't looked at anybody else's reviews to compare), but I found The Monster Baru Cormorant to be a long grind towards an unsatisfying end. I really hope The Tyrant Baru Cormorant is as epic as I think it will be, but I'm going to read a few short, sharp, million-miles-an-hour books to get my mojo back before I open up Tyrant.

Baru has done it: she is now Agonist, one of the cryptarch who secretly rule the Masquerade. Baru should feel victorious but the events of The Traitor left her in shambles. She is now deeply scarred by what she did, how she betrayed Aurdwynn, the people who worked for her and her lover, Tain Hu. However, she now has the opportunity to ignite a war that could destroy the Masquerade from the inside. If only, she survives the journey.
I don’t know where to start with this book. The Traitor Baru Cormorant is one of my favorite books of all time. To me, it’s perfect, it has everything I want in a book, a fascinating main character, gorgeous writing, political machinations and a lot of unexpected twists. In a way, The Monster has all the same elements, however, the execution was very different from the first book.
This book felt… off. I had several issues that prevented me from enjoying The Monster. The most obvious problem was Baru. I loved her in the first book: yes, she was flawed, selfish and pretentious yet, I could understand where she was coming from. I could understand her actions and motives: she wanted to save Taranoke, her home island from the Masquerade.
However, in this book, the protagonist who was once a brilliant strategist and a clever accountant has become a self-centered drunkard obsessed with herself, blind to the others and to her own goal. I can understand how the event of the first book would be traumatizing, she’s young, extremely powerful and she betrayed all the ones she loved in the most horrible way possible. That’s not always a great mix. However, I cannot understand the complete personality change.
I can like a book without enjoying reading about the main character if the plot is interesting. But, here again, my expectations weren’t met. Where The Traitor has a perfect pacing – I wouldn’t add or take off any word- The Monster is completely different. I found the first half of the book a slog to get through. The second half of the book was much better but still, a 400+ pages book shouldn’t feel like a 600 pages one.
Reading The Monster Baru Cormorant was frustrating because I could tell it could be an amazing read, it had so much potential to be as good, if not better, than the first book, and it wasn’t. Some parts were very good: the ending was explosive and very “Red wedding” like, the new cultures introduced like the Mbo were fascinating and I loved the new POV character, Tau-Indi. She was a breath of fresh air compared to how unsufferable Baru was the entire time.
I don’t know if I’ll continue on with the series or not. I feel like I should because I have only one book left to read and the ending of The Monster was shocking enough to intrigue me. I think Seth Dickinson did a great job at expanding the world and the scope of the story and I’m curious to see where he is going to lead us. I also want to see how Baru is going to turn out (and if the title of the last book, The Tyrant Baru Cormorant, is a good indication, it’s going to be interesting) and if she’s going to succeed or not. The only thing that is scaring me is the fact that the next installment is going to be more 600+ pages. If it’s as good as The Traitor, it’s going to be wonderful, if it’s like The Monster, I don’t know if I’ll get through it or not…

I really enjoyed this book. Seth has training in political science, and it shows. The book is full of realistic political intrigue. Baru struggles with tough ethical and practical choices about how to use her powers. This isn't an easy read, in many ways more complicated than the first book, but it's well worth it.

I ended up not finishing this book as I had forgotten a lot from book 1. Overall, it was not a book for me :(

I read the first 10% or so of this and decided that I wouldn't be continuing. It just didn't seem to meld with the first book, which I'd just read -- Baru didn't feel quite right, and when I checked the other reviews, it really didn't work for some people whose opinions usually mesh quite closely with mine. I didn't want to ruin the first book for myself by reading this!

C’è un tocco di ingenuità o inesperienza dietro certe affermazioni e frasi fatte che colpiscono la narrativa di genere con particolare frequenza, soprattutto da parte dei frequentatori occasionali. Una di quelle che mi incuriosisce di più riguarda la costruzione del mondo fantastico o fantascientifico (il cosiddetto world building). Posto che immaginare una realtà differente da quella di cui si ha esperienza richiede una certa dose d’immaginazione, concesso che rendere un mondo fittizio abbastanza coerente e organico richiede un quantitativo di talento letterario non scontato, rimango sempre basita quando sento dire frasi come “è un bel romanzo fantastico è perché ha un world-building incredibilmente complesso”.

Forse però non dovrei stupirmi, considerando quanti e quali best seller fantasy dominano le classifiche. Romanzoni affetti da cronico ipertrofismo geografico e dall’ossessione per il dettaglio genealogico, topografico e modaiolo, che fanno levitare il conto pagine ben oltre le 500 o 600. Eppure sembra che proprio grazie a questa formula abbiano parecchia presa su un certo tipo di pubblico. Io stessa ho una predizione particolare per tutta una serie di autori (da Richard Morgan a Ian McDonald) proprio per la loro capacità di costruire una realtà altra che sembri innanzitutto organica e complessa, con una quantità di ricadute sociali, politiche ed economiche che vanno oltre una trasformazione cosmetica della nostra, scavando a fondo e a lungo.

A mio modo di vedere però ciò che distingue una cerchia di onesti scribacchini dalla buona resa dagli autori davvero talentuosi non è la capacità di creare complessità, ma quella di gestirla e dominarla, riducendola a una forma che appaia così semplice e immediata da risultare naturale. Esempio perfetto di cosa succede quando un narratore ha per le mani un mondo di grandissima potenzialità ma fatica a tenergli testa è The Monster Baru Cormorant di Seth Dickinson, il sequel del qui amatissimo The Traitor Baru Cormorant.



Riducendo ai minimi termini: The Monster Baru Cormorant è un’esplosione che l’autore fatica a contenere e che il lettore a sua volta deve faticare e non poco per fronteggiare. Che la stesura di questo secondo tomo fosse problematica – per quello che a mio modo di vedere poteva e forse avrebbe dovuto rimanere un bellissimo scritto autoconclusivo – lo si era capito dai tweet sempre più ansiosi che l’autore faceva a riguardo. Il conto parole era spaventoso, le stesure multiple, la riscrittura senza fine.
Considerando le premesse Seth Dickinson esce comunque da vincitore dall’insidiosissima prova del secondo romanzo, ma lo fa in zona Cesarini e con uno sforzo narrativo e fisico quasi palpabile.

Storia lunga breve: avevamo lasciato la sua creatura, Baru Cormorant, di fronte al tradimento chiave della sua vita, la terribile prova a cui doveva essere sottoposta per arrivare al tavolo da gioco di Falcrest, la giovane repubblica imperiale a cui l’eroina aveva giurato vendetta dopo che aveva sconvolto la sua patria Taranoke, ucciso uno dei suoi padri e ordito inganni, epidemie e stermini anche a Vultag, ducato dell’amante di Baru e scenario della sua prova di fedeltà all’impero. Riprendo fiato.

Da traditrice qui Baru diventa mostro, a causa della ferita alla testa riportata nella battaglia decisiva dello scorso volume. Come fosse una dei pazienti di Oliver Sacks, Baru non riesce più a percepire il lato destro del suo campo visivo, con l’emisfero più paranoide e influenzato dal suo terribile maestro Cairdine Farrier (l’uomo che Baru desidera più di ogni altro annientare) che sembra prendere il sopravvento. La nuova Baru, mutilata nel fisico e nello spirito dal lutto per l’esecuzione da lei stessa perpetrata dell’amata Tain Hu, non avrà un attimo di respiro. Come sempre infatti una missione già quasi impossibile sulla carta assegnatale dall’impero di Falcrest si trasforma in un’affannosa corsa alla sopravvivenza e al potere.

Dato che dare anche solo una vaga idea di cosa succeda in questo volume va oltre le possibilità sintetiche di qualsiasi essere umano, figuriamoci le mie, procederò con un elenco puntato delle sole principali linee narrative del tomo:

Baru entra a far parte della cricca di criptarchi che manipolano l’imperatore e lottano con il senato. Il gruppo di cospiratori nell’ombra è equilibrato da una perenne lotta fratricida. Non avendo ostaggi o punti deboli su cui gli altri criptarchi possano fare leva, Baru è considerata pericolosa in quanto non ricattabile, senza contare che è ritenuta troppo influenzata dal suo maestro.
Cairdine Farrier e Hesychast, nemici giurati dentro il gruppo dei criptarchi, assegnano a Baru una missione: scoprire cosa sia il Cancrioth (entità misteriosa, forse magica, che ha garantito la millenaria vita dell’impero Mbu) e assicurarsi il segreto della sua leggendaria immortalità.
Baru viene affidata a un altro membro dei criptarchi, Apparitor, a sua volta protagonista di una complessa storia su come sia diventato criptarca e su chi sia il suo ostaggio attraverso cui viene manipolato.
Apparitor assegna a un suo servo e amante di etnia Mbo Iraji il compito di proteggere Baru e anche lui avrà una storia non indifferente nell’economia della trama.
La rocca dove Baru si sta riprendendo dagli ultimi eventi viene attaccata da una sezione ribelle della Marina della repubblica imperiale, convinta che lei voglia scatenare una guerra contro gli Mbo che fornirebbe al Senato la scusa per vaste epurazioni tra i membri della flotta. Inoltre alcuni ufficiali della Marina non le perdonano di aver sacrificato delle navi per ottenere la fiducia dei ribelli nel primo libro. In questo frangente tornerà anche Aminata, ufficiale di marina Mbo legata da una strana forma di lealtà verso Baru.
A inseguire Baru c’è anche Tain Shir, parente di Tain Hu decisa a torturare Baru per farle capire il vero prezzo dietro il suo sacrificio di pedine e persone per la conquista del potere. Oggettivamente uno dei passaggi migliori dei libro, perché Tain Shir è tanto matta da legare quando spettacolare quando fissa Baru in fuga e le punta silenziosamente il dito contro, gelando il sangue nelle sue e nostre vene.
Sulla stessa nave di Baru c’è anche Xate Yawa, sua vecchia conoscenza dei tempi della ribellione ad Aurdwynn, fedele alla repubblica imperiale ma decisa a toglierla di mezzo per mantenere il controllo sul Nord. Non mancano digressioni sulla giovane Yawa.
Baru incontrerà anche i sopravvissuti della falsa ribellione da lei ordita e lotterà con Yawa a distanza per assicurarsi il controllo sul Nord.
Inseguita da Tain Shir, Baru è costretta a fuggire di luogo in luogo, cercando informazioni sugli Mbo e sul loro impero, visitando tre avamposti remoti della repubblica di Falcrest, scontrandosi con le rispettive popolazioni, personaggi ed economie.
La storia di Baru è intervallata da quella di Tau-Indi Bosoka, una sorta di principe ambasciatore degli Mbo, di cui viene raccontata a più riprese l’adolescenza e il legame con due amici d’infanzia. Il primo è prigioniero segreto della Marina e potrebbe essere il pretesto perfetto per Falcrest per scatenare la guerra, la seconda non si sa dove sia finita nel presente di Baru.
Nei flashback di Tau-Indi viene raccontato inoltre il viaggio dei giovani Hesychast e Farrier nel regno degli Mbo durante la guerra della prima Armada, quando già i due cercavano un modo per far collassare l’impero millenario.
Viene spiegato approfonditamente il concetto di trim, elemento cardine della cultura Mbo, una sorta di interconnessione tra persone che funziona a livello sociale, culturale ed economico.
Queste sono solo le linee narrative principali del libro e sostanzialmente succedono tutte insieme: la più grande debolezza di The Monster Baru Cormorant è lo sgarbo con cui butta fuori bordo il lettore, lasciandolo annegare in questa mareggiata di avvenimenti e personaggi, senza che l’autore riesca a fornire un supporto galleggiante razionale al quale aggrapparsi. Se doveste avventurarvi nella lettura del tomo è di vitale importanza leggere questo post sul sito dell’editore Tor, in cui lo stesso Seth Dickinson fa un sunto di tutti gli avvenimenti del primo romanzo e dei personaggi che dovete tenere a mente per venire a capo di questo tomo.

Lungi dall’essere rimasta delusa, ho trovato The Monster Baru Cormorant ancor più affascinante del primo volume. Gli spunti narrativi che la sua miriade di personaggi offre rende il lettore davvero solidale con Dickinson, perché il romanzo ha la rarissima virtù di presentare personaggi a tutto tondo e con un’intera scala di grigi morali, anche nelle retrovie. Cospiratori stagionati come Xate Yawa e Apparitor altrove sarebbero stati ritratti come semplici “cattivi”, mentre qui hanno motivazioni solide nel loro opporsi a Baru e storie così complesse da renderli equiparabili a protagonisti veri e propri.

Anche le new entry sono davvero spettacolari. Ho adorato il tocco horror sadico dell’inseguimento di Baru da parte di Tain Shir, parente di Tain Hu decisa a insegnare a Baru il prezzo della sua politica di acquisizione del potere attraverso il sacrificio delle persone. Soprannominata “il tormento delle vedove”, Tain Shir è una folle sanguinaria ma dannatamente intelligente, una sorta diversione femminile del colonnello Kurtz che è riemersa da un viaggio suicida folle e inarrestabile, di cui tutti hanno paura.

Dall’altro lato dello spettro c’è Tau-Indi Bosoka, l’ambasciatore Mbu il cui passato comincia ad essere narrato molto prima della sua apparizione in scena. Inizialmente reagivo quasi con fastidio (cfr. la reazione al capitolo Daenerys) di fronte ai flashback ambientato nel regno dei Mbu perché sembravano totalmente fuori contesto e perché volevo rimanere al fianco di Baru, ma il dannato Dickinson sa bene cosa sta facendo e sul finale del tomo viene quasi da rimpiangere che il Tau-Indi non sia protagonista di una storia tutta sua.
Tra l’altro il suo personaggio si etichetta come laman, una sorta di terzo genere sessuale che unisce il maschile e il femminile in maniera fluida, a riprova di quanto la tematica queer qui non sia usata come facciata politically correct o mero abbellimento dall’autore. L’inserimento di Tau-Indi permette di esplorare appieno l’ecosistema culturale ed economico degli Mbu, un’etnia di chiara ispirazione africana che presenta un modello sociale molto distante a quello circa capitalista e colonialista di Falcrest, ma che si dimostra straordinariamente complesso da comprendere appieno e difficile da distruggere.Un dettaglio che mi ha scaldato il cuore è che, pur essendo morta tra atroci tormenti, Tain Hu rimane di fatto una delle protagoniste del storia di Baru e la sua influenza torna a mostrarsi con forza nelle sue peripezie, dimostrando quanto a fondo avesse capito (e amato) l’egoista e narcisista protagonista del romanzo.

Tornando a Baru, come non amare la sua constante ambiguità di fondo, sospesa tra genio e stupidità, sacrificio disinteressato e egoismo calcolato, che anche sul finale (davvero enorme, anche se non all’altezza dell’iconica, drammatica chiusa del precedente libro) non sgombra il campo dal perenne dubbio sul fatto se sia carnefice di Falcrest o vittima troppo ottusa per scoprirsi tale?

Insomma, The Monster Baru Cormorant è un disastro annunciato contenuto fino a diventare un’ardua impresa che ripaga il lettore che vi si sottopone. A differenza di The Traitor Baru Cormorant – che comunque consiglierei con molti se e molti ma dato il livello di violenza, angst e disperazione ivi contenuto – è un sacrificio che vale la pena fare solo per fedelissimi di Dickinson. Come la sottoscritta, che spera vivamente si spicci a scrivere il prossimo tomo perché mandare a memoria tutta questa rete di complotti, traditori e pessimi governanti non è una faccenda per nulla semplice.

I had a hard time remembering what was going on after so long from the last novel. More of a summary of past events would have been helpful.

Epic and convoluted in one breath.
Difficult to connect with. Overbearing, slow, too much detail.
Convoluted and lacked purpose. Bloated. Too much detail, not enough direction.

A pesar de que la experiencia de lectura de The Traitor Baru Cormorant no fue satisfactoria, pero el tiempo había hecho que se desdibujaran los peores recuerdos de la lectura y pensé darle otra oportunidad a Seth Dickinson. Creo que a veces mi cerebro me juega estas malas pasadas para que disfrute más de otros libros en comparación.

Es cierto que algunos de los problemas de la primera novela se solventan en esta aunque sigue girando alrededor de las intrigas geopolíticas de los distintos archipiélagos que conforman el mundo. La protagonista está mejor definida y ha perdido la poca inocencia que pudiera tener en un principio, pero ahora en vez de evolucionar en un ser despiadado, como sería lo normal, se ve envuelta en un mar de dudas que llega a resultas exasperante. Baru debe haber perdido por el camino, además de la poca inocencia que le quedara, más de la mitad de las neuronas que la hacían tan especial, porque cae en todas las trampas una detrás de otra. Es que hasta el pinche de cocina del bar de al lado de la embajada está más espabilado que ella.
Las intrigas políticas que están en plena ebullición a lo largo de la novela distan mucho de ser sutiles, por lo que ese es también un punto de desinterés. He llegado a estar leyendo la novela con el piloto automático puesto y eso es muy triste para un libro que pretende engancharte a base de complots. Pero es que la introducción de elementos fantásticos, especialmente el vehículo utilizado para lograr una supuesta “inmortalidad” es, a mi entender, tan ridículo como obsceno.
En el primer libro apenas se hablaba sobre la homosexualidad de Baru, un pecado oculto que apenas se atrevía a admitir en sus pensamientos, mientras que ahora lo va pregonando a los cuatro vientos. Mucho ha debido cambiar la política de la Masquerade cuando permite que su representante contradiga tan abiertamente uno de los puntos fundamentales de su doctrina. En consecuencia, las escenas de sexo pierden valor, son simples intercambios de fluidos con menor importancia que escribir una carta.
Y es una lástima porque la prosa es bella, pero el contenido no está a la altura. Definitivamente, no os acerquéis a Baru, ni como traidor ni como monstruo.

Great follow up to the first book. Baru is a complex and compelling antagonist she compliments the world Seth Dickinson has built. The world building is excellent, the characters all feel very real and believable.

Decided to give this book another try. Unfortunately, it still didn't work out. There won't be a full review from me here or anywhere else for this book.

There is not a thing in Seth Dickinson's books that he hasn't thought about. The most complex, fleshed-out, and developed world, characters, and plot that has graced the face of the earth in latest decade.

The first book in the Empire of Masks series – The Traitor Baru Cormorant – was one of my favourite books I read last year so the bar was set high here. Dickinson does not disappoint and Monster picks up straight after book one. In fact it overlaps just a bit so we get to relive the terrible thing that happened at the end of Traitor in all its agonising glory. (Thanks for that.) Monster takes a slightly different tack to Traitor in that the narrative has more viewpoints than just Baru’s and it reads a bit more like an adventure story. The world building, politics and intrigue are possibly even denser in this book so if you haven’t read book one recently, either reread before going into this or check out Dickinson’s list of things you need to know in order to read it on his website! This was just as intense and all immersive as book one with Baru walking a fine line between sanity and madness as she tries to balance the acquisition of power against her initial desire to do right and remake the world in the way she thinks it should be run. There is just as much emotional torture too. All in all a great sequel to a very hard act to follow. Full marks.

What can I say about this book that hasn't already been said? There's been so much discussion already on the pacing, the direction, that CLIFFHANGER . . .

But what drew me in wasn't any of these things. It was how much emotional energy just oozed from the writing. You see how others act around Baru - how they find her distasteful for letting Tain Hu die instead of saving her, how absolutely relentless she is in carrying out Farrier's plans - but we're so deeply entrenched in Baru's mind, in Baru's motives, to the extent of feeling her despair at their reactions to her.

Because, of course, we know her motives! We know that she doesn't want to be using people and she doesn't want people to die, but she's so driven by the idea of her island home! She's so driven by the idea of destroying the Masquerade! We see this, and we love her for it, and we despair with her over the people who do not know what really inspires her work.

And that, by far, is the best thing about this book.

Check out the rest of the review on my podcast!

Full disclosure: When The Traitor Baru Cormorant (or ‘The Traitor’ in the UK) came out, I raved about it to anyone who would listen. I still do. It was, easily, one of the best books of its release year. So I met the sequel with a great deal of anticipation, and, through no fault of its own, the story had some rather high expectation set for it.

Does it meet them?

I think so. The Monster Baru Cormorant (just 'The Monster' in the UK!) is a complex, thoughtful book. It examines identity and empire, the way people are shaped by the forces around them and what they can do about it. It looks at revolutions, their costs and consequences. It explores internal ethics, and the politics of judicial murder. It talks about trust, and about vulnerability. It’s a story of love and loss (often at the same time). And it doesn’t flinch away from making that loss bloody, figuratively or literally. It’s dense with personal examinations, with politics, and with the occasional poisoning.

It’s also a book about consequences.

Baru has, if not everything she wants, then certainly everything she worked for. She’s part of the elite of the great Falcrest imperial project, a guiding hand that can shift politics from afar, with gunboats or currency. Perfectly positioned to redirect or, perhaps, scupper that project. Baru is a titan. She is, however, also bereft. The story shows us how she copes with loss, and the answer is…not always well. However, as a character study, it’s incisive, insightful and unforgiving. Baru drinks too much. She makes impulsive, perhaps unwise judgements. She somehow manages to step out of herself and be something more, and crawl back into her own personal hell of internal judgment and second-guessing simultaneously. The portrayal of grief and loss, the process of, if not acceptance, accustoming oneself to a missing part, is played pitch-perfect.

This examination of love and grief is, I think, the emotional heart of the book, and it has the brutal, razor-edged honesty which compelled so much in the first book, but it’s backed by something new; we’re given different points of view here, from others around Baru. There are old friends, but also peers, and those who see her as a threat, or an enemy. Getting those distinct perspectives from time to time, seeing the world from another set of eyes, lets us see the harm living inside the protagonist, as well as how successful she is in masking it. These other viewpoints also invite consideration of what seem like good decisions through other eyes, and the picture they paint is equally intelligent, equally nuanced, and often not as accepting of Baru’s motives as she is. There’s a lot of introspection going on here; characters are questioning themselves and their motives as well as each other, which is always fascinating. Taking a deep dive into potential antagonists, and seeing them as the heroes of their own stories, of their own resistance, is wonderful – and makes the impacts they have on Baru (and vice-versa_ all the more terrible for our empathy.

It’s not all scheming and self-recrimination, mind you. It’s also the story of how Baru is off on a journey to look into some oddities and weirdness for her not-quite-superior in the cabal that runs the Falcresti empire. But there are people who look on her rather askance, and have their own schemes in play – and several of them are going with her. But they do see marvels and horrors along the way. We get to see the Mbo, sometime foils to the Falcresti, whose social system, based on mutual support and understanding may mask a certain amount of class division, but seems baffling to the remote, incisive cipher Baru wants to become. The Mbo are about people, about connection, about understanding and consensus – where Baru is a lone intellectual blade on the board, they’re a net. Whether they’ll snare her is another matter. But it’s marvellous to see a cultural antidote to Falcrest, even if it inevitably has its own demons.

The character work isn’t just limited to Baru (and her enemies!) either. Aminata surfaces again, wondering if Baru is herself, or who she’s working for. Questioning her old friend’s motives, and wondering whether she needs to do her duty or put her trust in the Cormorant. But Aminata isn’t just a foil for Baru – she’s made her own choices in the meantime, has made her own reputation, her own legend, carries her own demons. Reading her parts hurts, because of what it shows us about people trapped inside a system they despise, and about the compromises they make within it, which can eventually break them.

This is (less directly) explored throughout the text; the question of when you’ve become so compromised by the system that you become the system is an undercurrent in a great deal of the dialogue. Each of the actors is making their own decisions about how far they’re willing to go, and who else they’re willing to sacrifice – and for what. It’s a slow simmer under the multitextual layers of prose, but it’s there.

I do want to talk about the prose for a moment. Dickinson brings the A-game here. I caught symbology, intellectual asides, callbacks. And that was on a first reading. It feels like there’s a lot here to unearth, a lot of meanings sliding in the subtext in the dialogue, a lot of understandings that need further parsing before I can really say I get the book. That it reads as cleanly and clearly as it does is a triumph. There’s a heck of a lot going on, even from an initial read; I ‘m looking forward to digging into the text again to see what other gems I can sift out of the text.

Coming back to my initial question – does this meet my expectations of a sequel to the superlative The Traitor? Yes, I think it does. It’s a different book though, structurally and narratively, as much as Baru is a different person. Much of the first two thirds feels like a slow simmer, as the pot gets warmer by inches, as Baru struggles to find her agency in a situation where the more power she hands out, the less she actually has. It’s interesting, mark you – seeing the world through other eyes, seeing Baru fall into a well of grief but try to function like a person. Seeing her pay price after price, and justify it to herself when others pay it – it’s painful, emotionally honest, and it kept me turning pages. And the back third is an absolute joy of dangers braced, horrors met, and Baru trying to understand herself and the world a little more.

This isn’t always a positive story. There’s blood and death and moral qualms and philosophy and more than a little atrocity. But it always had interesting things to say and interesting ways of getting there. I think it’s built a solid foundation under its feet for whatever comes next; or, if you prefer, built a damn good fire which I suspect is going to set the world ablaze.

If you’re coming to this fresh: Stop. Go and read The Traitor Baru Cormorant. You need the context that gives you, to feel the passion and pressure and despair and hope sliding around here under the words. If you’re coming in after reading the first book in the series: yes. It is good. Let it pick you up and carry you along in the story it has to tell. Even now I’m not sure if it’s the story you might expect, where Baru does amazing smart things to save the world. But it’s certainly one where a hurt and lonely woman drives herself to succeed against the odds, while asking herself what it is she actually wants.

It’s a complicated, complex book, but then, Baru’s a complicated person, and the world she lives in is, er, complex. There aren’t any easy answers, except perhaps to the question of 'Should I read this?'
Yes, yes you should. You should read this.

I absolutely loved The Traitor Baru Cormorant, so I was incredibly excited to dive into her world yet again with the next book in the series, which I believe has been extended to four.
Much like the first book, this one is excellent at world-building and exploring cultures, especially when it comes to the Oriati Mbo. Dickinson does a great job bringing their society, culture, and rich history alive. Baru is not quite herself in this novel, she is hobbled by what I perceive as PTSD. Where she was once sure of herself and confident, playing her games and biding her time in Aurdwynn, waiting to strike, she's now unsure, and pretty much constantly outmaneuvered. It seems a bit ironic, that she made it as a cryptarch but now seems to have lost her control over her world.
Perhaps because of this, I did not connect with Baru as much as I did in the first novel. In addition, the pacing feels a bit off, at times too much attention is paid to long-winded descriptions instead of actions. There's far too many characters to fully be able to care about all of them. The political machinations are still present, just not as subtle as before, but still enjoyable. Overall, I think this was a solid second book, as they are notoriously difficult, and it did not diminish my anticipation for the rest of the series at all.