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A review by wickham
The Monster Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson
adventurous
dark
funny
informative
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Dear god! Dickinson has taken Whitman as a challenge - when Whitman wrote "Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes." Dickinson took his words and kept running! Drawing from cultures across the great swaths of history, The Masquerade series paints in the colors of indigenous North America, of Southern Asia, of East Africa and more still, creating perspectives as vast and multifaceted as reality.
Yet this is not historical fiction. It is political intrigue and fantasy without the fantastic. With an empire reminiscent of both the Mongolian and British (a wholly fascinating combination!) the reader sees how the machinations of people impact the machinations of the world. Sense-making is only the human application of reason to the vast and inexplicable fabric of lived experience, and Dickinson allows every perspective a chance to apply its own logic. The repellant is treated with no less deference than the genuinely good-hearted, and thus the world of Baru Cormorant becomes one as obscure and opaque as our own. There is no right, and there is no wrong, only competing motivations and goals which help and hurt in turn.
With the level of detail lovingly carved into this new world, The Masquerade series could easily have been a thick, sluggish novel composed of more exposition than action. And yet! Every page is steeped in action - whether that action be composed of veiled conversation setting in place complex political strategy or good old-fashioned violence. Every character is moving at once, like the gears behind the placid face of the clock, and the resulting movement of the plot on its face is swift and devastating. I blinked and the final page was before me - now on to the next, with excitement and fear!
Yet this is not historical fiction. It is political intrigue and fantasy without the fantastic. With an empire reminiscent of both the Mongolian and British (a wholly fascinating combination!) the reader sees how the machinations of people impact the machinations of the world. Sense-making is only the human application of reason to the vast and inexplicable fabric of lived experience, and Dickinson allows every perspective a chance to apply its own logic. The repellant is treated with no less deference than the genuinely good-hearted, and thus the world of Baru Cormorant becomes one as obscure and opaque as our own. There is no right, and there is no wrong, only competing motivations and goals which help and hurt in turn.
With the level of detail lovingly carved into this new world, The Masquerade series could easily have been a thick, sluggish novel composed of more exposition than action. And yet! Every page is steeped in action - whether that action be composed of veiled conversation setting in place complex political strategy or good old-fashioned violence. Every character is moving at once, like the gears behind the placid face of the clock, and the resulting movement of the plot on its face is swift and devastating. I blinked and the final page was before me - now on to the next, with excitement and fear!