"Imagine if Immanuel Wallerstein and Edward Said wrote a fantasy novel. This is real imperialism portrayed here—the kind that conquers with trade and finance, not with arms. Our hero Baru Cormorant is raised and educated by the new colonial powers-that-be while her homeland and culture are quickly rendered unrecognizable. Raised by empire, she vows to join its ranks and bring the system down from within. I was blown away by this book's power and its truth."
Publisher Tor Books
Publication Date 2015-09-15
Section Science Fiction / All Staff Suggestions / Fiction Suggestions
Format Hardcover
ISBN 9780765380722
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.
