It goes about as well as anything else does, really. The Beard: Baru bullies Bel Latheman into being this for a while.

You have The Stag Duchy, the army of the coyote and later the army of the wolf, as well as the general association of birds with Taranoke and Baru herself. Monochrome Casting is thereby consciously averted.Aminata's descriptions feel vaguely Asiatic.There is a nation of pale-skinned people in the far north, but they are a rare and exotic appearance in the Masquerade's sphere of influence.

Baru herself, as a Taranoki, has brown skin, but the novel never otherwise describes the appearance of the Taranoki (as the novel is told from her point of view, she has no reason to comment on it).

Ambiguously Brown: Nearly everybody in the world of the novel is portrayed as being of decidedly non-European appearance, including the people of Taranoke, Aurdwynn and even the Masquerade, which is itself racially diverse.

Arcadia: Baru's home country of Taranoke has shades of it, but this is probably the result of us seeing it through Baru's eyes when she was a child.The following tropes have been found in this work: The sequel, titled The Monster Baru Cormorant, was released in October 2018. In order to earn the power that will free her people, Baru must navigate Aurdwynn's treacherous politics while keeping her true motives and her sexuality hidden, and in doing so learn that the price of liberation will be exacted on her conscience. After her graduation, she is selected for an exceptional post as the new Imperial Accountant for the recently conquered feudal nation of Aurdwynn, a powderkeg of sedition and rebellion. While the Empire dismantles Baru's island society, Baru dives headlong into Masquerade education, where her talents catch the eye of an Imperial agent. However, Baru is a savant, talented with the calculus of numbers and power, and she sees that the only way to defeat the Masquerade is by changing it from within. Baru, lured away by the Empire's promise of a more prosperous society, watches from within the Imperial academy's walls as the Masqerade rewrites Taranoke's culture and criminalizes the island's customs. Do not read this short story if you plan on reading the book, as this short story spoils the novel in full.Īrmed with science, economics, and bureaucracy, the Imperial Republic of Falcrest, or the Masquerade as it is called by its detractors, slowly conquers Baru Cormorant's seaside homeland of Taranoke. Previously known for numerous short stories on science fiction and fantasy magazines, his work with the Freespace mod Blue Planet, and Destiny's Grimoire, Seth Dickinson's debut novel is an extension of his short story 'The Traitor Baru Cormorant, Her Field-General, and Their Wounds', which has been adapted as the novel's concluding chapter. It is the only way to take a piece of their power for our own.'

The traitor baru