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It’s the last Friday of the month, so it’s time for my Most Captivating Character of the Month post. This month, I don’t think I have any choice but to select Baru Cormorant, who is likely the most captivating character I’ve read this year. She’s the protagonist from The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson, I posted about it earlier today.

Please note that I said, “captivating.” Not: heroic, likeable, sympathetic, honorable, valorous, fun, or anything else. She is those at some times, but generally, “captivating” is the appropriate word. She’s also, according to the title of the book we meet her in, a traitor. Later titles suggest that she becomes a monster, a tyrant, and something to be disclosed in the title of book four. I bet none of those take away from the captivating.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

When Baru was a child, an Empire came and took over the island she and her family lived on–and had for generations. Without a lot of fanfare or violence, the Empire established its power by bringing medicine, fiat currency, vaccines, dental care, clean water, education, and a particularly strict form of morality–and all the people of Taranoke had to do was to embrace the benefits and let their culture be methodically wiped out.

Baru is an exceptionally bright child and is enrolled at a local school–despite what that does to her family–and through that education, she understands what’s happening. She decides to destroy the Empire, who “could not be stopped by spear or treaty, she would change it from within.” She’s bright and she also has a pretty good ego. And a vengeful streak wider than her body.

I’m not going to walk you through what happens after school in detail–she’s sent to another conquered land to act as the Imperial Accountant. And she does a great job of manipulating the economy to the benefit of the Empire, and does many, many other things to prove that she deserves to get close enough to the center of Imperial power that she can change it from within. She cuts herself off (almost as much as she thinks she does) from emotions, concern for others, and basic decency to accomplish her goals.

But Baru doesn’t do this through the traditional means of a Fantasy novel–she takes a quiet (at least for her), cerebral approach. The book is full of places where she’s quietly thinking by herself. The reader gets to know some of her thoughts and feelings–but not all of them (especially her thoughts). She seems always to be a few steps–if not miles ahead–of her opponents. She has the driven focus of Darrow of Lycos and the cunning of Darrow of Lykos, Sand dan Glokta, Zhu Chongba, and Baldrick combined. That’s probably underselling it–but it’s the best I can come up with. Basically, do not cross her. Your doom won’t come from her hand–but she’ll be behind it, I can promise you.

She’s not perfect. Baru frequently stumbles–part of that is due to her (young) age and lack of experience, part of that is due to her ego, and part of it is that she frequently forgets that other people will not necessarily act the way she thinks they will or that she wants–more than once, she forgets to account for the agency of others. Watching her recover (mostly) from those moments and pivot to a new plan is really quite something.

One quick quotation from one of her biggest times of self-doubt shines a lot of light on her as a character:

The terror that took Baru came from the deepest part of her soul. It was a terror particular to her, a fundamental concern—the apocalyptic possibility that the world simply did not permit plans, that it worked in chaotic and unmasterable ways, that one single stroke of fortune, one well-aimed bowshot by a man she had never met, could bring total disaster. The fear that the basic logic she used to negotiate the world was a lie.

Or, worse, that she herself could not plan: that she was as blind as a child, too limited and self-deceptive to integrate the necessary information, and that when the reckoning between her model and the pure asymbolic fact of the world came, the world would devour her like a cuttlefish snapping up bait.

(a few pages later, and you’ll have trouble believing she ever thought this)

Now, I’ve only read one book of the three published (with at least one to come) about Baru–so I don’t know where all she’s going. But the deepness, the richness, the unique way she’s depicted all makes her my captivating character of the month.

What character would you name for last month?

It’s the last Friday of the month, so it’s time for my Most Captivating Character of the Month post. This month, I’ve decided to go with Ruslav, a thug from Adrian Tchaikovsky’s City of Last Chances.

When we meet Ruslav, he’s a despicable person. Truly. And by the close of the novel… he’s still a despicable person, but we’ve discovered a vein of decency in him, and he’s prevented from acting on most of his despicability.

Ruslav makes his money by beating people up for a pair of crime lords–well, doing more than beating people up, but let’s just leave it at that. It’s not just his profession–it’s his passion; he really enjoys inflicting pain. Off the clock, Ruslav falls for women–hard. Once he “has his way with them” (a phrase that makes my skin crawl, but it’s the best I’ve got), he falls out of love with them and really doesn’t give them another thought. He doesn’t love and leave them, because leaving seems to indicate a lot more active distancing from the women than I think he’s capable of.

This is spoilery, so feel free to skip down to the final paragraph, but I don’t think it’s that bad. In the pursuit of his latest “true love,” Ruslav goes to an art show put on by some college students. One painting there catches his eye–he buys it, and is later seen in his quarters staring at it. I don’t think we’re supposed to get the idea that this is great art–maybe not even good art. But it speaks to Ruslav in a way that I don’t think he knew art could. It doesn’t change him–but it reminds him of a younger version of himself and what motivated him then.

What does change him–at least his actions, but not his core–is a deal he unwittingly entered into with a deity. I won’t get into the details, but he literally has to change careers permanently. There’s no change of heart, no road to Damascus moment, nothing like that at all–he just has to stop hurting people if he wants to live.

While remaining a vile person, there’s a moment when he has a heart-to-heart conversation with the man who made that painting. Ruslav opens up to him in a way I doubt he has to anyone in years–if ever. He’s able to talk to the artist about what that painting meant to him and to remind the painter what of him was represented there. It’s probably the best version of himself that Ruslav has been in years, if ever.

And it’s all possible because of the way a piece of art–likely a kitschy painting–struck him in just the right way. In a way that nothing else could. A way that reminded him of something more than being a brute. I find that captivating.

What character would you name for last month?

It’s the last Friday of the month, so it’s time for my Most Captivating Character of the Month post. This is actually my third choice of a character for this month–the first two are from a book that I really want to dig into, but I honestly didn’t have as much to talk about when it came to them as I thought. But DS George Cross? I think I could go on and on about him–and that’s just from the first book in his series. But before I get into this, let me point you to my post about The Dentist, where Tim Sullivan introduces the world to him.

George–as the novel tells us, has Asperger’s Syndrome (we’d say he’s on the Spectrum now). Obviously, this presents differently in each individual, and it’s reassuring that Sullivan didn’t play into stereotypes. Yes, George has almost no social skills, and that causes problems in the office. Or with people he’s interacting with in the course of an investigation. But when it comes to the Interrogation Room? He shines. He can focus on parts of a suspect’s statement in a way to get them to reveal details. He’s also good at exploiting his own social ineptitude to exasperate a suspect enough to slip up.

Beyond that, he’s methodical, he’s careful, he’s thorough. A case that’s not put together correctly will bother him on a level that goes beyond conscientious employee. But he’s not the obsessively-driven kind of detective like say, Harry Bosch. It’s just who he is.

His relationship with his father is odd (for an observer, anyway) and sweet. His hobby–playing and maintaining pipe organs–seems a little strange in the abstract, but when as you get to know George, it really fits.

The more you get to know George, the more fascinating–make that captivating–he becomes. At least through the first book–I’m willing to bet that continues in the next book, too.

What character would you name for last month?

It’s the last Friday of the month, so it’s time for my Most Captivating Character of the Month post. This is a tough one this month—I can think of a dozen I could talk about. I could cop-out and go with Harry Dresden—but what can be said about him that hasn’t been said 160 times? So, I’m going to go with Dancer from Jarod K. Anderson’s Strange Animals. She stands out in a way few others do (not that you could tell from my post about the novel, since I didn’t mention her, but…)

TV’s Boyd Crowder (I don’t remember the book version well enough), West Wing’s Ainsley Hayes, and The Cinder Spires‘ Folly–to name just a few–have ways of putting together a sentence while they’re talking that make you pay attention (at the very least). Between the vocabulary, word order, surprising figures of speech, etc., readers/viewers like me cannot help but be drawn to them. Dancer joined that company before her first conversation was over. I’d show you some samples if I hadn’t read a “please don’t quote from this” ARC.

She’s obsessed with making formless hats–and then selling/giving them away to people. She seems to be almost constantly armed with sarsaparilla tea (which I’ve never tasted, but by the end of the novel, was craving) and shares it when she has the opportunity. Also, if she enjoys your encounter, she’ll inevitably leave a tin cup of it behind, so you have to come find her to return it–and will then have another conversation and cup of tea (and likely, another cup to return sometime).

Dancer is a large woman, over 6’ tall, and in her mid-50s. She is probably the most Zen character I’ve encountered since Jeff Lebowski. She’s laid back, loves nature, is generous, seems to laugh at just about everything (not in a mocking way), cares about people…and generally, she abides.

Possibly the best thing about her is that in this world, she’s a Muggle. The most Muggle-y Muggle around, but she knows a person who insists she can see things that Dancer cannot. Dancer doesn’t argue with her (at least by the time we meet them), she doesn’t question her grasp on reality or anything like that. She accepts that it’s possible and lets them talk about it. And then when Dancer meets someone else saying he saw something like that, she just puts the two together and leaves it alone.

That’s a special kind of chill. And a sign of a captivating character.

What character would you name for last month?

It’s the last Friday of the month, so it’s time for my Most Captivating Character of the Month post. This is a tough one this month—I can think of a dozen I could talk about. I could cop-out and go with Harry Dresden—but what can be said about him that hasn’t been said 160 times? So, I’m going to go with Dancer from Jarod K. Anderson’s Strange Animals</strong>. She stands out in a way few others do (not that you could tell from my post about the novel, since I didn’t mention her, but…)