The Traitor (Masquerade, #1)

by Seth Dickinson

Shortlisted for the 2016 David Gemmell Morningstar Award for Best Debut

[Published as The Traitor Baru Cormorant in the US]

Baru Cormorant believes any price is worth paying to liberate her people - even her soul.

When the Empire of Masks conquers her island home, criminalizes her customs, and murders one of her Fathers, Baru vows to hide her hate, join the Empire's civil service, and claw her way up enough rungs of power to put a stop to the Emperor's influence and set her people free.

As a natural savant, she is sent as an imperial agent to distant Aurdwynn - a post she worries will never get her the position and power she craves. But Baru soon discovers Aurdwynn is a complex and secretive country, seemingly on the brink of rebellion. All it would need is a match to the tinder . . .

Drawn by the intriguing duchess Tain Hu into a circle of seditious aristocrats, Baru may be able to use her position to stoke a revolution that will threaten to bring the Empire to its knees.

As Baru maintains a precarious balance between the rebels and a shadowy cabal within the Empire, she orchestrates a do-or-die gambit with Aurdwynn's freedom as the prize. But winning the long game of saving her own people may be far more costly than Baru imagines.

• ISBN10: 1447281187
• ISBN13: 9781447281184
• Publish Date: 14 July 2016 (first published 15 September 2015)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Pan Macmillan
• Imprint: Tor
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 400
• Language: English

Reviews

[smartflutist661]

The lowest of low fantasy, with nary a creature out of myth or mysterious magical artifact to be seen, this book is set in a world not our own, but it may as well be, with the main forces at work commerce, cultural indoctrination, and betrayal. The driving characters are well fleshed out, at least motivationally speaking, with complex webs of loyalty and friendship underlying most decisions, though I would certainly not suggest this is anything but a plot-driven novel. And what a plot. Scheme layered upon scheme layered upon scheme, all (for Baru) pointing toward the same goal.

If you want Machiavellian political machination with a realistic historical backdrop, this is the book for you.

Obviously the Masquerade never intended to let the rebellion succeed. I am left to wonder, though: Baru was brilliant, despite her tendency to overlook the agency of those around her. Could she have made the rebellion succeed anyway? Yes, the Masquerade would just come back, but had the rebellion succeeded in throwing them out for even a decade, the Aurdwynni had seen enough to learn many of their most valuable techniques (sanitation and healthcare, technological advances, etc.). Especially if they were aligned under a powerful queen, with an alliance with the renascent Stakhieczi mansions (who are implied to have relatively high technology of their own), they could have rejected future overtures of the Masquerade and had enough clout to make it stick. Which then gives Baru a powerful base from which to maneuver in order to bring down the Masquerade and free Taranoke.

[kalventure]

🤝 Birthday buddy read to celebrate Melanie!