The Monster Baru Cormorant

A little sloppier in arc than its predecessor (something the title character comments upon towards the end of the book), but no less propulsive. It's also pulpier and more brutal, even as Baru's betrayals become more intimate and horrible. My ideal review of this would be a picture of me making a face as if to say "I can't take any more of this! Please, god, give me more!" My fingers curled around an invisible ball as if to suggest a total clench of the heart.

The only reason it works is that Dickinson is such a strong writer of character. It'd collapse under its own weight were the characters not so idiosyncratic and weird, with fully-formed personalities.

Thinking back now on something I wrote earlier about David Mitchell, a phenomenal character writer whose "all genres existing equally" principle is betrayed by his meager approach to the fantastic. Seth Dickinson pulls it off. (And ends it with a cute BARU CORMORANT WILL BE BACK! cliffhanger note, to boot.)

I enjoyed the beginning of this book more than I did the first one but by the cliffhanger at the end I'd stopped enjoying it as much.

I liked that the main protagonist started seeming less overpowered in this book as other characters point out that she's claiming more power than she actually has t.i. Baru probably didn't actually orchestrate everything she imagines she did, some of it was put in motion over a long period of time way before her.

Somewhere along in the middle I started wondering what genre is the book supposed to be? And isn't it cheating if the names of things have different meanings to me than they (seem to) do to the characters. There's a "bad magic" thing that's called uranium, and the characters react to that name as if it's a primitives' superstition.

I am pretty sure I would have enjoyed this book more when I was younger. It's still all right now, but the interesting questions Is Baru doing her teachers will? And will she keep sacrificing people in a kind of sunk cost fallacy? seem kind of irrelevant to me now. And the book ends in the middle. I don't think anything is resolved in a satisfying manner.

While the first book can stand alone, this is very much a sequel. You need to read the first book to understand what's going on in "Monster."

The first book ends with Baru making a terrible sacrifice to secure her power. This book picks up there and twists the knife further before moving on with the plot. Baru is sent on another mission, but a lot of what she's dealing with is other people conspiring to kill her or gain power over her. She is dealing with the trauma of her previous decisions, and it seems like this book represents a turning point for her. The end of the book though, makes me wonder if she's going to make another life-changing decision in the third book.

We get to see more of the world, and especially more of the Oriati people and culture. The world gets a little weirder than what we saw previously, and there is magic in this book that wasn't present in the first one. There is also the Cancrioth, which can't be described without spoilers, but it is definitely in the speculative realm. This book doesn't have the major twists of the previous one, but there are a few small twists, and the end is still powerful

In the first book there was some nuance about colonialism, but overall the colonizers were treated as evil and the natives were good. In this book, the lines are blurred a little more. Baru learns that the world is interconnected, and while the empire still does terrible things, its collapse could destroy civilization.

The first book dealt with sexuality, but I don't recall any actual sex scenes (just characters waking up in bed together, etc.). In this book, Baru can be more open about her attraction to other women so there are sex scenes, but they are not very explicit. There is also a major character who is non-binary, referred to with "they/them" pronouns.

4.5 rounded up

I've sat on writing a review for Monster for nearly a month, which was unfortunate. In short, I don't think it was perfect, but it was pretty damn good and I sure as hell enjoyed it.

Traitor was almost an impossible act to follow, and I believe the way the first novel dealt with Baru's sense of self is similar to the way she continues that journey in the second book. The weight of the first book, all the intrigue and action, built to her betrayal at Sieroch, and her betrayal (perhaps?) of Tain Hu. Baru's was a traitor's struggle, working to justify her actions to herself and a reassurance that this stepping stone would deliver her to power, the destruction of the masquerade, and the liberation/restoration of Taranoke.

Similarly, Monster is a meditation on monstrousness like Traitor was a meditation on betrayal. Baru feels and reckons with what she has become in her campaign for/against the Masquerade. Her immediate foil is another monster, Tain Shir, the Bane of Wives - Cairdine Fisher's first attempt at a protege. Tain Shir rejects the precepts of the Masquerade, but does not work against them, preferring her nihilism and revenge. Like Baru, she is motivated by her love for Tain Hu, but cannot understand or accept that Baru both loved and betrayed Tain Hu. The possibility for that duality cannot fit into Tain Shir's world view.

The newly apparent Cancrioth then are another form of monstrousness, and the Oriati form of our beloved Cryptarchs. The Cancrioth are physically repulsive, but their motives are largely unclear.

Dickinson has given us one sword of Damocles for Baru's world in the Oriati - Falcresti war that may be brewing and could end all civilized life in the area. I'm not sure if Baru will be able to or want to set that inevitability in motion, but suspect that hers will be the ultimate decision.

I'm afraid this is will be the best book I'll read all year, which is frightening because it's so early in the year. And yet, I can't see something else surpassing it.

This book blew me out of the water. I've never seen a social critique so apt, yet set in a fantasy setting so devoid of our current culture. I've never seen worldbuilding so in-depth yet so thoughtfully in-sync with the themes of the book. I've never seen such complex characters who felt both authentic to the totally fictional cultures and struggles created for them, yet completely understandable and sympathetic to the reader.

It is, in short, a masterwork.

It's not a light, happy masterwork. This book is dark, depressing, about how imperialist structures like racism and sexism and homophobia live inside us all and in turn destroy us all, not just 'us' as individuals but 'us' as in our society and the bonds we make within society.

Without going into too much detail, there are two central metaphors in the book: the bounds of society and what they mean, and cancer. Both are incredibly apt. There is a huge amount of discussion dedicated to what family and culture and society and obligation mean to every person and every culture and every person within that culture. There is a huge amount of discussion dedicated, as well, to the nature of cancer, tumors and radiation, and whether or not these are actually a force for good or evil. The metaphor is clear: this alien thing lives inside you, contributing nothing, slowly killing you and those around you, as it slowly and painfully separates you from others and keeps you sick and unable to contribute to the society around you. A tumor only infects one person, but it affects everyone. The book is in places disgusting, gory and painful, but the kind of exorcism that we as readers need, especially in the current political climate.

Which is to say, if you don't want politics in a fantasy book, this isn't the book for you. Yes, this book is a fantasy, but it's also very, very, very real. Baru and her struggles mirror our own in a way that can't be understated. The characters in this book use different words, have different cultures, and different concepts, but they're going through the same struggles we are now.

I once took a film course in college, and one of the lessons that stuck with me the most was the idea that 'all movies made durring wartime are inherently war movies'. While obviously not film, this maxim applies here. This is not a book 'about' the current political climate, but it also undoubtedly, inarguably is. I'm generally reticent to make wide sweeping generalizations about the nature of people's understanding of books and films and the like, but I'll make an exception in this case: If you don't think this book is about where we are now as a culture, you've missed the entire point.

In short: If you want the best written political fantasy I've ever read (and I've read quite a few), with fantastic and thoughtful forward motion, pacing, worldbuilding, characters, and nuance? Get this immediately. It may make you feel sad, or uncomfortable, or scared, or frustrated, or uneasy... but if you're living in the world we are now and you don't already feel those things? You're not living in Baru's world anyway.