Jennifer Jackson – Literary Agent

Exordia by Seth Dickinson

“Survival is the measure of success for people overwhelmed by alien forces in this adroit alternate history of first contact from fantasist Dickinson (the Baru Cormorant trilogy). Anna Sinjari, a Kurd living in 2013 New York City, finds an eight-headed extraterrestrial casually snacking on turtles in Central Park. Bound soul to soul by a mysterious alien force, Anna and Ssrin, who turns out to be a rebel from the Exordia galactic empire, attempt to recover a crashed spaceship and avoid the enforcers coming to nab Ssrin. The trail leads them back to Kurdistan, where Anna must confront her mother, Khaje, and fellow villagers, who are all still wary of Anna after she made a devil’s bargain to help them survive an Iraqi-led genocide. The rest of the world notices their struggle, bringing in a swarm of special forces units and nuclear-armed aircraft to an otherwise peaceful countryside. Layering in a bromance, an odd-couple pair of female physicists, an Iranian fighter pilot with a Top Gun obsession, and mother-daughter conflict, Dickinson skillfully puts the cosmic scale of the Exordian rebellion into manageably personal terms. With cool alien technology, admirably hopeful heroes, and SFF pop culture references littered throughout, this will have readers hooked.” — Publishers Weekly

Exordia by Seth Dickinson

“Anna sees an alien casually dining in Central Park’s Turtle Pond. On a lark, she confronts the alien and thus begins a relationship, and soon an NSA operative and his lifelong colleague in quasilegal intrigues take her back to her birthplace in Tawakul, Kurdistan. The Exordia have set off electromagnetic pulses (EMPs) all over Earth, taking most of the world back to the eighteenth century. But humanity isn’t entirely helpless. Canadians were the first to reach the site of a huge alien artifact that the Exordia wish to claim or destroy. Then the Ugandans arrived, then the Chinese, and Russians, and each group suffered losses. When the Americans arrive, they join forces with the remnants, but by bringing Anna, they’ve brought her renegade Exordian friend. Another alien operative is also on the ground, opposed to Anna. Now, the humans have 14 hours to activate the artifact or the Exordia battlecruiser will start nuking cities. Dickinson brings the same richness of characterization that made his Baru Cormorant series (The Traitor Baru Cormorant, 2015) so compelling, but this one reads like a Michael Crichton thriller on psychedelics—in a good way.” — Booklist, Starred Review

The Tor.com Reviewers’ Choice: The Best Books of 2020 list includes Machine by Elizabeth Bear, Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, Network Effect by Martha Wells, and The Tyrant Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson!

The Tyrant Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson

“The book under our gaze today is even more jam packed with action, reveals, reversals, and Machiavellian plots and counterplots, but it moves rather more linearly and stepwise towards a truly fine and resonant and surprising climax, one which, not to give too much away, revolves around, of all anti-swashbuckling maneuvers, a stock-market scheme. Thus does Dickinson remain true to the first book’s original presentation of Baru as Stealth Accountant.

Before we get there, Baru and company will have to traverse infinite perils, which include but are not limited to keelhauling, lobotomies, meningitis, a pandemic deliberately unleashed on the island of Kypranoke, with microbes whose source species is bats (timely indeed!), naval battles, swordfights, drug dreams, and more. Baru gets a reunion with her parents, for whom she has been doing all this, and it proves less than ideal. Her neurological deficit is shown to be a surprising and even touching survival adaptation. She reconciles with enemies and falls out with friends. The Cancrioth, a creepy, sorcerous biopunk cabal of sorts, venture out of hiding to become a force on the chessboard. And after rough times afield, Baru finds even more deadly, albeit superficially genteel challenges in the imperial city of Falcrest.

[…]

Dickinson can construct a five-page fight scene that never falters, and then turn around and describe that emotionally charged parental reunion with some tenderness. He tops himself with a vision that Baru has towards the end of the book, after all the dust has settled and she’s achieved a mixed victory: she sees the future she’s ensured as a kind of glittering utopian reward for all the suffering people of the Empire. But will it come to pass, given the mystery embedded in a small coda that posits more challenges just ahead?” — Locus

The Tyrant Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson

“The dense but brilliant third volume of Dickinson’s The Masquerade series (after 2018’s The Monster Baru Cormorant) sees Baru Cormorant, haunted by memories of the woman she loved and lost, pushed even further into her self-destructive, all-consuming quest to save her family. In Baru’s effort to destroy the Imperial Republic of Falcrest from within, she has risen to the position of cryptarch, part of the invisible cabal that controls the Throne from the shadows. But as Baru pretends to serve her master, Cairdine Farrier, in his attempts to conquer the empire of Oriati Mbo, she privately plots against him. Baru has discovered the secrets of the Cancrioth—a cult of cancer worshippers secretly ruling Oriati Mbo—and the plague they’ve weaponized to wipe out their enemies. Caught between two implacable empires and facing betrayal at every turn, Baru must sacrifice everything and everyone she loves in order to bring down Falcrest. Dickinson weaves a byzantine tapestry of political intrigue, economic manipulation, and underhanded diplomacy. The narrative oscillates between past and present and alternates between numerous perspectives to create a harrowing picture of social conflict on a monumental scale. This staggering installment pushes the series to new heights and expands the fascinating fantasy world.” — Publishers Weekly, Starred Review