Sep 182015
 

Cover for The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson. A realistic porcelain mask of a feminine mask hits the ground, starting to shatter.Tor.com: Be she traitor or patriot by the end of the book — ­to who might be the more pertinent question­–Baru Cormorant must be the most memorable character fantasy fiction will feature in 2015. Happily, the narrative Dickinson designs around her is every inch as rich and convincing. His debut is paced like a race­–excepting some slight slowdown in advance of a surprisingly action-packed last act–­and never less than poetically put.

All told, The Traitor Baru Cormorant is a devastating debut­–and doubly so due to a twist in the tale I’ll be damned if Dickinson doesn’t nail. A financial fantasy reminiscent of nothing so as The Folding Knife, it’s filling, chilling and thoroughly thrilling.

Read the full review of The Traitor Baru Cormorant at Tor.com.