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Sign up todayThe Traitor Baru Cormorant
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“One of my all-time favorites - a geopolitical fantasy about a girl from a colonized island who tries to rise within the ranks of the empire to free her home. Itโs a brilliant, thorough examination of how empire and power work. My favorite parts are the writerโs voice - clever, sharp, and unique - and all of the intricately crafted characters ”
— Autumn • Copperfield's Books
In Seth Dickinson's highly-anticipated debut The Traitor Baru Cormorant, a young woman from a conquered people tries to transform an empire in this richly imagined geopolitical fantasy.
Baru Cormorant believes any price is worth paying to liberate her people-even her soul.
When the Empire of Masks conquers her island home, overwrites her culture, criminalizes her customs, and murders one of her fathers, Baru vows to swallow her hate, join the Empire's civil service, and claw her way high enough to set her people free.
Sent as an Imperial agent to distant Aurdwynn, another conquered country, Baru discovers it's on the brink of rebellion. Drawn by the intriguing duchess Tain Hu into a circle of seditious dukes, Baru may be able to use her position to help. As she pursues a precarious balance between the rebels and a shadowy cabal within the Empire, she orchestrates a do-or-die gambit with freedom as the prize.
But the cost of winning the long game of saving her people may be far greater than Baru imagines.
SETH DICKINSON is the author of the Baru Cormorant novels and many short stories, as well as much of the lore and backstory of Bungie Studiosโ Destiny. Seth lives in New York City.
Reviews
โSmart. 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. Highly recommended.โ โKameron Hurley, author of The Mirror Empire
โNot many books have me literally flailing with delight. The Traitor Baru Cormorant did. Fascinating characters, a world imagined with wonderful depth, and storytelling that succeeds on both an epic and a powerfully intimate scale. This is really something special.โ โSunny Moraine, co-author of Line and Orbit
โA beautiful, perfectly formed crystal of a novel borne out of a tight plot mated with elegant language.โ โJohn Chu, Hugo Award-winning author of โThe Water That Falls on You from Nowhere"
โSeth Dickinson skillfully combines intrigue, action, and philosophical musings to create a suspenseful and deeply satisfying read. An intelligent and accomplished first novel reminiscent of Le Guin in its reflections on imperialism, colonialism, and the attractions and corruptions of power.โ โUna McCormack, New York Times bestselling author of The Crimson Shadow
โDickinson has written 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.โ โMax Gladstone, author of the Craft Sequence
โAn extraordinary debut--powerful, complex, and passionate. I was blown away by it.โ โKij Johnson, Hugo Award-winning author of "The Man Who Bridged the Mist"
โAmazing and inventive.โ โTobias Buckell, New York Times bestselling author of the Xenowealth series
โA provocative work, the sort that makes readers wonder: just what is the author doing here?โ โLocus on the short fiction of Seth Dickinson