The Traitor Baru Cormorant

core novel 2015 The Masquerade

Record

First published	2015
Original language	EN
Work type	novel
Canon status	core
Reader rating	4.04 (27,174 ratings, collected 2026-08-24)
Page count	399
First-edition ISBN	9780765380722

Synopsis

The Traitor Baru Cormorant opens The Masquerade sequence on the small island of Taranoke, where Baru grows up amid a culture and set of customs that are steadily overwritten after the imperial Empire of Masks, known as the Masquerade, arrives bearing coin and ink, doctrine and compass, soap and lies. The occupation costs Baru one of her fathers, and she resolves, even as a child, to one day free her people from imperial rule. Rather than resist openly, Baru makes the calculated choice to join the empire's civil service, excelling within its schools and bureaucracy in order to climb as high as possible within the very system she means to destroy.

Where it sits

• Universe: The Masquerade
• Series: The Masquerade core; position 1 of 3 in the series' recorded order
• Author: Seth Dickinson

Notes

• From the series record (The Masquerade): Geopolitical/economic epic fantasy following Baru Cormorant's infiltration of the Empire of Masks. A fourth and concluding novel has been discussed by the author since 2018 but remains unwritten and unannounced as of this research (2026); correctly excluded as unpublished.

Neighbouring works

Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings and are never conflated: a book's place in one says nothing about its place in the other.

• Publication order, within the series The Masquerade: position 1 of 3: next The Monster Baru Cormorant (2018)

Sources

• https://www.sethdickinson.com/the-traitor-baru-cormorant/
• https://reactormag.com/baru-cormorant-fourth-novel-seth-dickinson-the-masquerade/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Traitor_Baru_Cormorant

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