The Traitor Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson

Read The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson, which wasn't what I expected— for one, I'd gotten the impression that it was sci-fi (the cover looks very android-y??) and was surprised to discover it was actually fantasy (in a secondary world/( slight spoiler )

way, rather than "here be dragons")— but I ended up really liking what it was. Set in a brutal empire built on eugenics and Clockwork Orange-esque reconditioning for failure to conform, Baru is a child when her homeland is colonized, her family torn apart, and she is groomed for a future as a "technocrat" within the imperial bureaucracy; she is determined to get revenge, however she can and whatever it takes, and fortunately, her first professional assignment places her in a land known for its (so far, failed) rebellions. It felt like a chess game - or a war room, where generals move little figurines across a map - in book form, but compellingly so.

( Vague but major spoilers )