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A review by guppyur
The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson
2.0
CAUTION: SPOILERS
I have extremely mixed feelings about this one, for a few reasons.
The biggest is that Baru is a genius, a savant, a brilliant mind playing four-dimensional chess, except when for plot reasons it's necessary for her to do something dumb, which happens every time she turns around. She trusts someone for no good reason and is betrayed. She gets drunk and says something she shouldn't. Whatever the ostensible reason, the reaction is always the same: Why did I say that? Why did I do that? And the answer is, who knows, it doesn't fit. I do quite like the maneuvering, but the plot never quite aligns with what we're told of its protagonist.
The other big complaint is that you can divide the book into two halves, and most of the second half, the rebel war campaign, drags. Interminable stretches where little happens, Baru surrounded by dukes with minimal character development. They have their archetypes — the smart one, the hot-headed one, the sailor one — but they're pretty two-dimensional.
I saw the ending gambit of the last few pages coming, but by the end when it hadn't happened, I assumed I was wrong. So I was simultaneously surprised, and not. It did pique my flagging interest, so the next book is back to a maybe.
For most of the book, I thought I wanted Baru to be cleverer and do more political maneuvering. By the end, the plot has retconned itself so that she is and has, but the writing in between doesn't support it.
Might wind up revising my review score on this one. Strange book in a lot of ways.
I have extremely mixed feelings about this one, for a few reasons.
The biggest is that Baru is a genius, a savant, a brilliant mind playing four-dimensional chess, except when for plot reasons it's necessary for her to do something dumb, which happens every time she turns around. She trusts someone for no good reason and is betrayed. She gets drunk and says something she shouldn't. Whatever the ostensible reason, the reaction is always the same: Why did I say that? Why did I do that? And the answer is, who knows, it doesn't fit. I do quite like the maneuvering, but the plot never quite aligns with what we're told of its protagonist.
The other big complaint is that you can divide the book into two halves, and most of the second half, the rebel war campaign, drags. Interminable stretches where little happens, Baru surrounded by dukes with minimal character development. They have their archetypes — the smart one, the hot-headed one, the sailor one — but they're pretty two-dimensional.
I saw the ending gambit of the last few pages coming, but by the end when it hadn't happened, I assumed I was wrong. So I was simultaneously surprised, and not. It did pique my flagging interest, so the next book is back to a maybe.
For most of the book, I thought I wanted Baru to be cleverer and do more political maneuvering. By the end, the plot has retconned itself so that she is and has, but the writing in between doesn't support it.
Might wind up revising my review score on this one. Strange book in a lot of ways.