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The Traitor and Monster [Baru Cormorant] OPEN SPOILERS, read the books first!
Posts
Correct.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
So it's not enough that the characters go back and forth on the names but the narration does too which just confuses the shit out of me of who is who.
Is Tau Indi actually a hermaphrodite? I thought it was just a cultural thing like gender neutral?
It's not gender neutral. Tau-indi didn't have a defined sex, but the lamen(sp?) are a third separate gender. There is another character at least whose gender doesn't match their biological sex.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
I too was surprised when I saw the spelling
A third gender, okay cool. I thought it was a hermaphrodite thing or a man identifying as a woman thing.
I like these books but I'll need a reread sooner rather than later because I kept mixing up the characters and thinking there were multiple characters when it was multiple names for one person.
Itinerant: Farrier
Hesychast: Cosgrad Torrinde
Apparitor: Stir (I'm not even going to try the full name
Durance: Xate Yawa
Agonist: Baru.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
also there's a Stargazer, isn't there? Which one is that?
Its unclear. IIRC, in the first book there is a letter to Baru welcoming her to join the throne signed by Hesychast, Renascent, Itenerant, Apparitor, and Stargazer.
Stargazer is also mentioned twice in Monster, but w/o anyone being tied to it. Xate Yawa is definitely "Durance". Its possible that the author changed code names and forgot to fix it, or that there is a fourth operative on Baru's level of the scheme...
It could be Tain Shir?
Edit: phone autocorrected Svir to stir, but my comment was more that I didn't have the energy to look up his full name, which is Svirakir.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
Renascent.
Hesychast + Itenerant
Agonist + Apparitor + Durance + Stargazer (?)
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
I am going to be honest, the use of the singular they confused the heck out of me for a while because the book introduced the concept of the cancrioth at the same time, so for a while I assumed Tau was a gestalt consciousness.
Yeah, there were a couple of parts where it was talking about Kinda/Abdu and then he would write "they walked..." or w/e, and it always took me a second to figure out if it was singular Tau-indi or Kinda/Abdu as a pair.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
That and it kept sounding to me like Tau-indi really wanted to bang Kindala.
Yeah. The weird thing is I read Beckett’s Jyhad Diary shortly after which also used the singular they for a nonbinary character and didn’t have any problems understanding. I think it may be an issue with the author needing to work a bit more on avoiding ambiguity.
Xate was inducted around the same time as Baru. That's why she's not in the letter. I get the impression that, like Renascent, Stargazer is another character who Dickinson has kept kind of in his back pocket--we'll hear more about them in the next couple books.
Fuck.
I could continue reading about Baru for years tbh
I think the fact that it's used naturally and completely without comment is part of the point. In Tau-indi's culture, being non-binary is so widely recognized that it's codified as a third gender. This series has always made a point of being very socially progressive - everyone in the book understands it perfectly, it never requires explanation, it just is what it is.
I love that it just happens, but it's super confusing to read.
"Her marines hesitate and the surrendered Thronesmen look up in horror as if waiting for the world to amend itself in their favor.
Shir puts a knife to their leader’s skull. A chamberlain or director. He stinks of piss but his face is brave. He says, you won’t hurt us. I am the personal chamberlain of Agonist, agent of the Throne. Touch me and you know what will be done to your family. Shir looks down at him and considers the membranes that men grow to insulate themselves from the brilliant truth.
She punches the pommel of the knife and it goes into the man’s temple. The spies scream and call her mad. Tain Shir throws a gas grenade among them and they topple hacking so that they are as easy to slaughter as landed fish.
They were only distractions."
And
"She lifts herself onto the boardwalk and trains the crossbow on his back. One shot will kill him. The world is indifferent to the reputations of men. Beneath the veil of civilization the truth prowls on an older earth."
Yeah I am starting to think maybe she has some psychological damage, ya'll.
I wholly expect them to eventually come across horrifically malformed beings.
They already had the whale with a giant growth, with a human skull set in it, which had glowing eyes, and I think a fin that had been fitting with a steel edge to make a blade.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
Cancer cells carrying memory/consciousness is magic!
I mean
So is half of Star Trek
Tau-indi recalls a Cancrioth wizard coming up the hills, hands and eyes alight with blue-green uranium power.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
Canaat are a faction of Kypranananananoke, vying for control of the islands vs the current rulers. They were apparently being funded by the Oriati Mbo, which made is easy for a Cancrioth to step in, infect them with The Kettling, and set them loose on the party.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
What is the kettling? I thought it was the plague but came more like a zombie apocalypse.
The Kettling doesn't get super well explained, but its implied that it is a hemorrhagic plague that involves leaking blackish/green liquids (I think that part is outright stated), created by the Cancrioth (I think Baru basically asks Tau-Indi towards the end if thats true).
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn
so yeah I'm on that second book now
good thread good OP hi5
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This series desperately still needs a glossary and who's who appendix.
Ooh, is there a book three now? I loved book 1, but found book 2 a slog. Does the third one get us back to a more book 1 sort of pace/setting/feel?
It doesn't stay in one place, unlike book one, but everything else is a real return to form and the originality and quality of the prose is there to an even greater degree.