The Tyrant Baru Cormorant (The Masquerade Book 3) Kindle Edition

This was so much better than I expected- I was so terrified of more horrific things happening to Baru that I was afraid to get get my hopes up, but I felt quite satisfied at the end of Baru the Tyrant. Baru 3 retains all the lovely social commentary/mannerpunk elements of the previous two books and adds a generous dose of New Weird.Baru the Tyrant felt like the lovechild that resulted from an orgy hosted by China Mieville, Ellen Kushner, and Ursula LeGuin. Kameron Hurley may have popped her head in the door at one point, too. Much of the plot of Baru 3 revolves around the Cancrioth, and after the absolutely gonzo reveal at the end of Monster, Seth D does not let us down. He’s pulled out all the weird dark frondy squiggly scrabbly screeching grotesquerie from the back of his clever brain and nimbly set it spinning aloft into an already complex juggling maneuver involving the political and economical machinations of the Oriati Mbo, Falcrest, Aurdwynn, Kyprananoke, and the Stakhieczi.Without spoiling the plot, I will say that Tyrant is a bit more compassionate toward the reader in the long run but still has its share of nail-bitingly intense tension. It was considerably gorier and gooier than previous installments, so I’d avoid reading any scenes set on the Eternal while you’re eating. Still, it wouldn’t be a Baru novel if you didn’t spend pretty much all of it terrified that Dickinson is about to kill or maim someone you really care about, so grab your blankie while you read this one.Another element that Baru 3 really nails is the exploration of the effect of gaslighting, trauma, and grief on both identity and memory, doing so in a way that really invites the reader to consider what it is to be human. This places Tyrant in a category I’ve come to think of as “tenderpunk,” along with Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch, Elizabeth Bear’s White Space, N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth, and of course, Iain M Banks’ Culture, just to name a few.Dickinson assures us that Baru 4 will come one day, but leaves us with enough plot resolution to bear waiting a while. He clearly put a lot of heart into this one, so he’s earned a rest. Baru the Tyrant has great energy and is a wild ride for all of its several hundred pages and has a damn satisfying conclusion while still leaving us with plenty of speculation about what will happen in the final book. I really enjoyed this one. Great work, Seth Dickinson!

If you liked the second book in this series, The Monster Baru Cormorant then you will probably like this book. The converse is true. If you didn't like the second book you will not like this book either.I loved Seth Dickenson's first book in the series The Traitor Baru Cormorant. When The Monster Baru Cormorant came out, I re-read The Traitor Baru Cormorant. I liked it just as much on a second reading. Unfortunately, I didn't like the second book, the Monster Baru Cormorant as much. I found it a tedious slog. The book got mired in minutia. It is not unusual for a second "bridge" book in a three book series to drag (the classic example being The Two Towers in the Lord of the rings series). I still had hopes that the third book, The Tyrant Baru Cormorant would be as good as the first book. I have been disappointed.In the interests of full disclosure, I am 10% of the way through The Tyrant Baru Cormorant (according to my Kindle reader app). The book is, if anything, even more tedious than the second book. I have lots of other books waiting to be read. I just couldn't continue.

The follow-up to "The Traitor Baru Cormorant", and "The Monster Baru Cormorant", Tyrant follows the titular Baru on her complicated journey to undermine or destroy the empire of Falcrest, by accumulating power and influence in that empire. The series so far has been profoundly bleak, but in a far more real way than stories like A Song of Ice and Fire, where misery is seemingly inflicted in pursuit of more dramatic tension. In the Baru novels, misery arises as a natural consequence of a colonialist empire using all its powers to control its citizens and expand its control around the world, with all-too-real adaptations of similar conditions in our own history.The previous book, Monster, was an exceptionally bleak and dark book, even compared with Traitor, which had a devastatingly impactful ending I won't spoil here. Monster tells the story of how Baru, now one of the paramount masters of the empire, tries to learn how to use her newfound influence, discovers their limits, and competes with her peers to achieve her goals. This competition results in even more sacrifices along the way, and it was hard to keep going. I initially stopped reading Monster about a third of the way through, when it was simply too terrible to continue, but did push on and finish prior to Tyrant's release.I came into Tyrant worried it would be more of the same, that the series was just going to chronicle the downward spiral of power corrupting ethics and ideals. It doesn't tell that story at all. Somehow the book manages to be hopeful despite all the terrible things the characters are doing and enduring. It adds humanity to many characters that seemed to be only monsters. I really enjoyed this book, and it's probably my favorite of the past year, in which there have been a number of excellent fantasy and science fiction novels. It makes this journey, as harrowing as it's been, more worthwhile.

In this book, we finally see Baru truly grapple with the cost of what she has done with her life. Both in terms of those people who she has destroyed or discarded, but also in the lives freely given. She has the opportunity to make choices and have real allies. She plots and schemes, but finally understands that other people are actual people and not just pieces to be moved around a board. If you care about Baru, this is a sometimes-tough read, but very worthwhile.It is also a book about Empire and its cost. Both in the creation of empire and the cost of the inevitable resistance. It continues to ask the important question of whether the master's tools can ever destroy the master's house, and whether or not we can every truly change something from inside of it. The book does not provide the answer to that question, although it suggests a partial possibility.

My sister bought me book one, The Traitor Baru Cormorant, as a birthday present. I went in completely blind and fell in love with the story and characters, but more importantly, something NEW in the fantasy genre, to which I gave the horrible logline of "Low Fantasy Economic Thriller". Book 2, Monster, continued the story while introducing new characters and expanding the setting with nuanced and believable nations that act realistically. Tyrant continues this story further, satisfyingly wrapping up thread introduced in the previous books while new revelations beg to be expanded in further books.

I enjoyed the first two books in the series but this one was a slog. For long sections I couldn't figure out where the story was going. Only stubborness kept me reading.

Fantastic book. Amazing trilogy (Quadrilogy ?). Adored Baru 1. Baru 2 suffered from being split up by the publisher but Baru 3 paid off the setup from the second book. Somehow Dickinson has weaved together disparate threads into something super engrossing. 4.5/5

Amazing book !