The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson got a lot of hype when it came out back in 2015. Apparently, I bought into the hype enough to pick up a copy, but not enough to actually read the damned thing until ten years later. Was it worth the wait? Ehh, not really.
An expansionist empire greedily conquers its neighbours. Not by the traditional means of armies and swords, but economically and socially, by sending traders and educators. In some ways, they improve the lives of the people they invade, but it comes at a terrible cost. Baru comes from an island where the empire took over when she was a young girl, and she was enrolled in one of the schools to assimilate the children into the empire’s culture. As a mathematical genius, she becomes a high-ranking accountant, and upon graduation is sent to Aurdwynn, another land that was conquered by the empire and frequently rebels against it.
I like the premise, and the themes and plot are my usual cup of tea. It was pretty disappointing, then, that I just didn’t vibe with this book. I had to force myself through the first half as I was very, very bored. Something about the narrative voice was cold and unfeeling, and I know that Baru herself is meant to be a bit of a distant character, but it meant that I wasn’t really able to connect with her and what she wanted. The ending had a twist that I believe was supposed to be shocking, but I saw it coming from a mile away and it didn’t really have the emotional impact I think it was intended to have.
Overall, I appreciated the ambition of what this book was trying to do, but I don’t think it executed well on that premise. Would my opinion have been different if I’d read this back in 2015? Maybe.