Seth Dickinson is an American writer of fantasy and science fiction, known for his 2015 debut novel The Traitor Baru Cormorant and its sequels The Monster Baru Cormorant and The Tyrant Baru Cormorant.

Dickinson graduated from the University of Chicago, where he received the Dell Magazines Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing in 2011 for his short story "The Immaculate Conception of Private Ritter".^[1] He has published short fiction in Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, Lightspeed and Beneath Ceaseless Skies, among others.^[2] He also contributed writing to video games, including Destiny: The Taken King (2015).^[3]

His debut novel The Traitor Baru Cormorant, a hard fantasy expansion of a 2011 short story, is about a brilliant young woman who, educated in the schools of the imperial power that subjugated her homeland, sets out to gain power to subvert the empire from within. It was published in September 2015 and was well received by critics.^[4][5] Dickinson has blogged about addressing issues around gender and feminism, race, homosexuality, and imperialism in the world of Baru Cormorant.^[6]

The Traitor Baru Cormorant is the first novel in a series called The Masquerade.^[7] Dickinson completed the draft of a sequel, The Monster Baru Cormorant, in July 2017,^[8] submitting a manuscript of 1,104 pages.^[9] The final version, published in 2018, comprised half of this material. The remainder was published in 2020 as The Tyrant Baru Cormorant. As the series was originally planned to be a trilogy, a fourth novel has been announced.^[10][11]

In 2023, Tor Books announced that Exordia, Dickinson's fourth novel, would be published in 2024. It is a standalone science fiction novel.^[12] It was released in January 2024 to positive review. Publishers' Weekly wrote, "With cool alien technology, admirably hopeful heroes, and SFF pop culture references littered throughout, this will have readers hooked^[13]". In an interview with BookPage magazine, Dickinson said that the book was inspired by the LEGO Bionicle toy line, as well as novels Andromeda Strain and Sphere by Michael Crichton.^[14]

Dickinson has said "I try to be private about matters of identity, in part because I want other writers to know that they don’t have to figure this stuff out in the spotlight; there’s room to keep part of yourself to yourself if you need to, whether for your comfort or your safety."^[15]

• Official website
• Seth Dickinson at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database