Today I finished the latest book in the Baru Cormorant series (fourth book remains to-be-released), The Tyrant Baru Cormorant. Y'all, Baru is so back.
! Spoilers for books 1 & 2 below !
! Spoilers for books 1 & 2 below !
If you've looked at other reviews for the series, you may have seen book 2, The Monster Baru Cormorant, referred to as the series' "sophomore slump." I disagree, but I understand where the feeling comes from. The Monster feels like a prelude, a setting of the board, for The Tyrant. The Monster puts all the pieces in place for the cascade of schemes and plays that come in The Tyrant. They almost feel like one book split into two (which is fair—taken together, they represent about a thousand pages and would make for one mammoth novel).
If you felt like Baru was too passive in The Monster and that there wasn't enough scheming going on, I can happily report those things are wholly rectified in The Tyrant. Having located the infamous and quasi-mythological Cancrioth at the end of The Monster, Baru wastes no time in whipping into full savant plotting mode.
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The day after finishing The Traitor Baru Cormorant I had to rush over to the library to pick up book 2, The Monster Baru Cormorant, which I finished earlier today.
Spoilers for The Traitor Baru Cormorant below!
Spoilers for The Traitor Baru Cormorant below!
The second book of a fantasy series of any kind often bears a very difficult burden. It is most often the place where the scope of the story grows significantly. A conflict which before was local to the protagonist's home and surrounding area may expand, often to the extent of the known world. New players are often added to the cast, bigger and scarier problems and challenges arise. The protagonist may have gone up in the world, wielding new power and influence, with new responsibilities. As a result, this is where many series lose their footing; a tightly-woven book or season 1 may give way to a muddled, watered down part 2 as the writers struggle to juggle this expanded focus.
The Monster suffers from none of those things. It is the place where Baru's story expands—in The Traitor, her focus was almost entirely on Aurdwynn; it was the full field of play and outside players mattered only as they influenced events on Aurdwynn. In The Monster, Baru has become a true agent of the Imperial Throne of Falcrest, and with these new powers, the entire field of the empire is opened up for her play, and it is fascinating to watch.
In The Traitor, Baru was narrowly focused on managing the situation in Aurdwynn; everything she did was to that end. In The Monster, Baru can do whatever she wants, and we get to see her finally on the open field. Even where she flounders and flails, it's delightful to watch the machinations of her mind constantly at work. Her cleverness rows against her bursts of sentimentality to produce some impressively chaotic effects, but she is as slippery as an eel to pin down, even when her rivals think they've gotten the best of her.
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On Saturday afternoon, on the bus ride home, I finished The Traitor Baru Cormorant, because I couldn't wait until I got home to reach the end, despite a long history of reading-induced car sickness. It was totally worth it.
The Traitor Baru Cormorant is all fantasy politics. There's no magic or fairies or prophecies, just Seth Dickinson's invented world and the titanic machinations of Empire. And it is electric. Tentatively, I'd make a comparison to The Goblin Emperor, except that where TGE is about how Maia, completely unprepared for his role, is thrust into a viper's nest of politics, Baru Cormorant is about how Baru has painstakingly taught herself the ways of the empire and enters into the game fully prepared to rewrite the rules to her liking.
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I was hanging on every page by the end, and first thing Sunday morning I was off to the library to pick up the sequel, which I started the same day. I cannot wait to see how Baru's story progresses! Hats off for Baru Cormorant!
Crossposted from my main and![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fffriday
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I was hanging on every page by the end, and first thing Sunday morning I was off to the library to pick up the sequel, which I started the same day. I cannot wait to see how Baru's story progresses! Hats off for Baru Cormorant!
Crossposted from my main and
fffriday from amazon;
deborah is the youngest of the mitford sisters, her sister jessica wrote about the family in hons & rebels that i posted about a while back. she writes about her childhood feeling far removed from the oldest 4 of her siblings because of the age difference.
her sister unity introducing her to hitler where she played interpreter at a tea in his apartment. and goes into what it was like after her sister's suicide attempt. jessica's husband didn't like the family and after their marriage they were separated by distance (they moved to the u.s.) as well as politics (they were communists). deborah talks about the speculation that pam was a lesbian, but says she didn't understand people's interest in that & it's no one's business
she married andrew cavendish, younger son of the 10th duke of devonshire, in 1941. his older brother william, who was married to JFK's sister kathleen, was killed in WW2 & left him heir to the title, as well as several houses. the most famous being chatsworth which she and her husband managed to save by the enhancement of the garden and the development of commercial activities such as chatsworth farm shop. she said they sell stuff grown or made from things produced on their property, other estates will have their "own label" but get the stuff from a factory that makes the same thing for 20 other places.
while looking at her wikipedia page, i discovered that she was the grandmother of stella tennant, the model who passed just before christmas 2020. stella had a bit of the midford sisters look, the mouth and a bit of the eyes & maybe chin. her height of 5 foot 11 inches reminded me that in jessica's book she said that unity was the tallest of the sisters and to use the term they use today "big boned".
Deborah Devonshire is a natural writer with a knack for the telling phrase and for hitting the nail on the head. She tells the story of her upbringing, lovingly and wittily describing her parents (so memorably fictionalised by her sister Nancy); she talks candidly about her brother and sisters, and their politics (while not being at all political herself), finally setting the record straight.
Throughout the book she writes brilliantly about the country and her deep attachment to it and those who live and work in it. As Duchess of Devonshire, Debo played an active role in restoring and overseeing the day-to-day running of the family houses and gardens, and in developing commercial enterprises at Chatsworth. She tells poignantly of the deaths of three of her children, as well as her husband's battle with alcohol addiction.
deborah is the youngest of the mitford sisters, her sister jessica wrote about the family in hons & rebels that i posted about a while back. she writes about her childhood feeling far removed from the oldest 4 of her siblings because of the age difference.
her sister unity introducing her to hitler where she played interpreter at a tea in his apartment. and goes into what it was like after her sister's suicide attempt. jessica's husband didn't like the family and after their marriage they were separated by distance (they moved to the u.s.) as well as politics (they were communists). deborah talks about the speculation that pam was a lesbian, but says she didn't understand people's interest in that & it's no one's business
she married andrew cavendish, younger son of the 10th duke of devonshire, in 1941. his older brother william, who was married to JFK's sister kathleen, was killed in WW2 & left him heir to the title, as well as several houses. the most famous being chatsworth which she and her husband managed to save by the enhancement of the garden and the development of commercial activities such as chatsworth farm shop. she said they sell stuff grown or made from things produced on their property, other estates will have their "own label" but get the stuff from a factory that makes the same thing for 20 other places.
while looking at her wikipedia page, i discovered that she was the grandmother of stella tennant, the model who passed just before christmas 2020. stella had a bit of the midford sisters look, the mouth and a bit of the eyes & maybe chin. her height of 5 foot 11 inches reminded me that in jessica's book she said that unity was the tallest of the sisters and to use the term they use today "big boned".
This season's holiday shopping on Kickstarter went very well.
Amazon: In addition to the thing you actually asked about, here are 20 more books that all sound the same.
Me: Meh.
Kickstarter: Here is a book about an autistic Yeti. Or perhaps you'd prefer a Neanderthal comic book?
Me: Shut up and take my money!
So, the Neanderthal comic book arrived today: The Tale of Tal: a Neanderthal graphic novel by Dr. Gianpaolo di Silvestro and Luca Vergerio. It includes introductory materials by Prof. David Caramelli from University of Florence ("The Neanderthals"), Dr. Fabio Bona from University of Milan ("The Cave Bears"), Dr. Fabio Fusco, a researcher/consultant palaeontologist ("Flora and Fauna"), and Prof. Mauro Mandrioli from Unimore ("Science and Graphic Novels"). These parts are bilingual in Italian (black text) and English (blue text). The scientific bibliography is all in black, but a mishmash of languages since it draws on publications from diverse countries.
I am particularly charmed by the descriptions of Neanderthals in the flyleaves. "Neanderthal was an alternative way of being human, with all its diversities and fragilities." Not less than human, just differently human. It reminds me of what we lost, when we lost our cousins on the hominid family tree: a concrete example of wholly different, yet equally functional, ways of being human. We know that three species cohabited in Africa. Modern humans carry DNA from at least three relatives: Neanderthals, Denisovans, and one unknown ("I didn't get his name, but wow what a night!"). We just tend to ... forget.
There are spoilers below.
( Read more... )
Amazon: In addition to the thing you actually asked about, here are 20 more books that all sound the same.
Me: Meh.
Kickstarter: Here is a book about an autistic Yeti. Or perhaps you'd prefer a Neanderthal comic book?
Me: Shut up and take my money!
So, the Neanderthal comic book arrived today: The Tale of Tal: a Neanderthal graphic novel by Dr. Gianpaolo di Silvestro and Luca Vergerio. It includes introductory materials by Prof. David Caramelli from University of Florence ("The Neanderthals"), Dr. Fabio Bona from University of Milan ("The Cave Bears"), Dr. Fabio Fusco, a researcher/consultant palaeontologist ("Flora and Fauna"), and Prof. Mauro Mandrioli from Unimore ("Science and Graphic Novels"). These parts are bilingual in Italian (black text) and English (blue text). The scientific bibliography is all in black, but a mishmash of languages since it draws on publications from diverse countries.
I am particularly charmed by the descriptions of Neanderthals in the flyleaves. "Neanderthal was an alternative way of being human, with all its diversities and fragilities." Not less than human, just differently human. It reminds me of what we lost, when we lost our cousins on the hominid family tree: a concrete example of wholly different, yet equally functional, ways of being human. We know that three species cohabited in Africa. Modern humans carry DNA from at least three relatives: Neanderthals, Denisovans, and one unknown ("I didn't get his name, but wow what a night!"). We just tend to ... forget.
There are spoilers below.
( Read more... )
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