The Traitor might be the worst book I’ve read all year. I saw it recommended as a must-read for fantasy lovers, but I would barely call it fantasy. I have four main issues:

1. If you’re going to write a book based on a world of your own creation, it is essential that you thoroughly explain that world to the reader. Unfortunately, we did not get this - we’re just told that The Masquerade are there and taking over these different countries (? States? Counties?) because they can. I’m sure that telling us nothing about The Masquerade was meant to build intrigue for the later novels, but as someone who has no intention of reading the other novels, it’s extremely frustrating.

2. The characters were some of the most underdeveloped I have ever seen. If you’re going to have a whole host of important characters with several names, you should probably make sure that each one stands out. Even Baru barely had a personality beyond “look at me, I’m a savant!”, and she was the protagonist. Additionally, we were also introduced to several seemingly important characters who then just disappeared? It just added to the confusion and eventually I’d split everyone into two categories: Baru and Others. I can’t even remember their names to give examples in this review (and I literally just finished the book).

3. Speaking as someone who identifies as queer, I found Dickinson’s use of the lgbt+ community as a vague plot device extremely troubling. First of all, making it illegal to be queer does not make a novel fantasy - unfortunately, it is still a reality for many individuals. Secondly, the constant use of terms such “sodomist” and “tribadist”, alongside casual reference to genital mutilation, was uncomfortable. Maybe if this had been properly incorporated into the story and not purely tokenism, it would have worked - but it wasn’t, so it didn’t. (view spoiler)

4. I hate maths and I hate accounting. If I’d known this was an accounting textbook, I would have immediately dropped it. I’ve seen reviews praising the use of accountancy to win wars as a unique plot device, but I personally found it boring.

Despite this, there were two great bits to the novel: the beginning, and the very end. Unfortunately, several dozen pages does not make up for the other three hundred, and it still gets one star. I have a copy of The Monster, but I won’t be reading it. If you ask me in a year about The Traitor, I won’t remember it. If Dickinson wrote a different series, I might try it - but I’d double check to see if any accounting is involved before committing to it. Definitely would not recommend.

If you had ever taken me aside and told me that one of my favourite fantasy characters of all time would be an accountant, I would have laughed. I’d have laughed so hard that I would have missed the part about the book being a geopolitical fantasy that dealt with economics as a weapon and a way to subdue the masses. And I would have been wrong. If there’s one thing I love it’s an MC who wins via intelligence. Baru Cormorant is that heroine and what a journey she goes on. Do not expect happy endings here. This is brutal, bitter and heart wrenching. Like the cited parable from within the book, the author lets you believe you’ve escaped only so you’ll learn how thoroughly trapped you really are. Baru starts off as an exceptionally intelligent child who sees injustice when the Empire of Masks comes to her small back water island. The Empire does what colonists have always done – oppresses the native people and educates their children to think differently. Baru believes she can beat the Empire at their own game by becoming one of them, but power corrupts or at least attracts the venal. And Baru has a deadly secret. This was simply amazing. The most intelligent SFF I’ve read since Dune – more intelligent I should say (occasionally with Dune you get the impression that Herbert has out thought himself and is spiralling through the dark.) It was both terrifying and fascinating to see how numbers being moved around in a ledger could result in the crushing of an entire people. And the understanding the author shows in Baru’s desire to win, her very enchantment with her own intelligence, being the thing which trips her up was perfect. I loved this book. I feel like I need to read it another three or four times to fully understand it. Simply wonderful.

My thanks to Pan Macmillan/Tor for a digital edition via NetGalley of ‘The Traitor’ by Seth Dickinson in exchange for an honest review. It was first published in 2015 and in the USA it was published as ‘The Traitor Baru Cormorant’.

I had already been approved for its sequel, ‘The Monster’ but realised very quickly that I would be completely lost without reading ‘The Traitor’, which thankfully was still available to request.

I quickly was impressed by Dickinson’s world-building. The overall title of this series is ‘The Masquerade’ and it is the Empire of Masks that conquers the island where Baru Cormorant lives with her mother and two fathers. The Empire’s approach is to rewrite the island’s culture and criminalise its customs. The Empire is deeply homophobic deeming anything outside of their perceived norms as ‘unhygienic’.

Clearly there are echoes of real world ideas such as conversion therapy; though the Empire takes a more drastic approach. Dickinson also explores themes of colonialism, racism, and sexism. It is a unrelenting dark tale.

Baru elects to swallow her hatred of the new regime and to join it, excelling in their education system and entering their civil service. Her plan is to climb the rungs of power and work from the inside to free her people.

After graduation Baru is assigned as the Imperial Accountant to the distant Aurdwynn, a hotbed of intrigue and rebellion. Her own sexuality is something that she has to suppress as any whisper of it could lead to disgrace and mutilation.

Having been employed in accounting for most of my working life, I have felt underrepresented in fiction or stereotyped as grey and boring. So naturally I was excited about Baru.

I found it an intelligent, powerful tale though I had expected more fantasy elements. It’s really more a work of geopolitical intrigue in an alternative world.

However, I did feel engaged throughout even if not blown away and I now feel prepared to read ‘The Monster’. I understand that Dickinson is planning to continue with The Masquerade series with the next title due in 2020.

Ok, so, I am definitely in the minority on this, so it is highly likely that you may disagree with me, but... I was deeply disappointed by this book. I went in with very high (maybe too high) expectations and I desperately wanted to like this. But I just didn't.

I guess there were quite a few things that just didn't work for me personally. For starters, the writing style didn't quite manage to catch my attention. It wasn't objectively bad, mind you, but it just didn't draw me in... This is of course an incredibly personal thing, but I found it heavy at best, and had real issues in keeping concentrated throughout the book. This was made worse by the fact that for about 25% of the book, I actually had no idea who anyone was.

Now, I am notoriously bad at learning names, but apart from our main character, Baru, I had just about no clue who we were talking about... And more than a quarter into the book is just too late for me to start figuring out who's who. The main flaw, for me, was the fact that several characters were presented at once, with no real chance for me to actually associate names and roles before the next one came in. And, as any fantasy book worthy of this name would have it, each character just has to have a more complicated name than the one who came before... It must be some sort of rule. Throw in some geographical locations too (though points for having a map at the beginning!) and... voilà! You now have a throughly confused reader just hoping she'll eventually figure out what's happening.

This was all just extremely frustrating for me, and it did impact on my enjoyment of the book as a whole. It's definitely something that relates to my personal taste, but reading is an entirely personal experience, so it's possible it won't bother you at all...

BUT! Not all was bad here, there were actually things I did enjoy, starting with diversity. There is an incredible variety of characters in this book, starting with Baru herself. She is a strong, independent woman, who'll stop at nothing to achieve her goals. And she just so happens to be an LGBT and black character. I loved the fact that the diverse characteristics weren't the main focus of Baru's character: they are just a part of who she is, no more and no less than her mathematical abilities, her fierceness, or her focus. However, I had real issues in getting attached to Baru, although it is possible that I was just so focused on navigating the rest of the book that I didn't take enough notice of her... Still, I hardly ever felt anything for her, good or bad. The rest of the characters (when I eventually managed to figure them out) were just sort of "there", and didn't really give me that much emotion... Which was a shame, because there was some real potential there.

I also liked the themes this book touches on and the reflection points it raises. Aside from Baru's personal mission, which is the main focus of the book, several questions are raised in relation to important and relatively unexplored themes, such as the rights of minorities; the issues relating to conquest and the relationship between conqueror and indigenous peoples; progress vs civil liberties, and so on... For me, this was probably the best thing in the whole book, and possibly the only reason I actually got to the end of it.

All in all, I had a very difficult relationship with this book. I had to seriously force myself to see the end of it, because for a very big part I was tempted to DNF it. Contrary to the majority of books, this one had no sprint in the beginning, picked up a lot in the middle, started lacking tension again towards the end and exploded at the very end. This continuos increase and decrease in tension, coupled with confusing characters and settings made this a very difficult read for me personally, even though I adored the themes explored by the author and the questions he raised. As I said, this book just didn't work for me based on my taste, so if it still makes you curious, by all means give it a try! It may be that the things that didn't work for me won't actually be an issue for you.