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 !
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.
The book starts off strong, with a clever framing: Baru is recollecting her encounter with the Cancrioth and what came after to a troublingly gentle Farrier, who is probing her for certain specifics. (And by the way, Dickinson takes the cake for the most creative use of cancer I've ever seen in a fantasy novel.) This, combined with the occasional flashback continuing the story of Prince Hill, make for a beautifully chronologically 3D look at our story, as past, present, and future all orbit around each other until they finally connect fully.
Here we really see Baru and Yawa's rivalry take off, and it's delightful to watch these two go at it: the young upstart savant and the time-tested, battle-scarred old schemer. Even when they're aiming for the same goal they can't help but be at odds! And Dickinson never lets either of them slouch to give the other an easy win: he continues to excel at making sure the players around Baru are working actively towards their own goals, presenting reasonable challenges even to Baru's quick mind.
Tau-indi continues to be a standout character for me, and I'm not convinced their take on the world won't win out in the end. As they continue to press the importance of personal connection, and Baru questions who she's helping (or hurting) with her plans, and what the real victory will be, everyone around can't seem to stop themselves from wondering if Tau has a valid point about trim. This is perhaps nowhere truer than in the final reveals that bring the full story of Farrier, Cosgrad, and the Prince Hill trio into the present timeline. These interpersonal relationships formed when all these people were much younger are still echoing around Falcrest, the Mbo, and the Ashen Sea as a whole.
The Tyrant perhaps more directly than the other two novels asks Baru what she is willing to sacrifice to destroy Falcrest. Already she has given up Tain Hu, her first love, to wield power as an unbound cryptarch. But in The Tyrant, Baru is confronted head-on with the civilian cost of taking Falcest out at the knees. Not of members of Falcrest's ruling class, but the everyday people both of Falcrest and of the other parts of the empire—of Aurdwynn, of Taranoki, of the Occupation. The Tyrant makes Baru confront whether she considers those lives a necessary loss to ensure Falcrest's downfall. In this way, the story never loses sight of the stakes, which Baru is constantly weighing—on one hand, the suffering and death caused by Falcrest itself, and on the other, the suffering and death which may result from knocking Falcrest out of play entirely. Dickinson balances them well.
Baru underwent a lot of change in The Traitor, but remained largely static throughout The Monster. Her character is much more dynamic in The Tyrant, and she undergoes a lot of character growth both within and in how she relates to others, and even in how she processes the memory of Hu. She's forced to confront parts of her past that drive her reckoning towards the above question about sacrifice, and I got the feeling by the end that Baru had finally truly positioned herself, clear and steeled, for the fight with the empire.
Also, we finally get a masquerade party—and really, how could we have a series called "The Masquerade" without having at least one masque? It goes just as well as you might imagine.
Based on the author's note, I'm not expecting to see book four anytime soon, but I will eagerly await it nonetheless—I absolutely
must see this conclusion.
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