It is based on Dickinson's short story "The Traitor Baru Cormorant, Her Field-General, and Their Wounds" (2011), which was published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies.

They kill one of Baru's fathers and institute their own rigid belief system focused on hygiene and puritanical sexual ethics.

Baru uses her financial powers to grant loans to the commoners, which enriches Aurdwynn and ensures that her rebellion will gain popular support.

Publishers Weekly appreciated the "seductively complex", ambitious worldbuilding and the "subtle language" of Dickinson's "compelling, utterly surprising narrative".

[4] At NPR, Amal El-Mohtar praised the "crucial, necessary" novel for its brutality in looking "unflinchingly into the self-replicating virus of empire", noting in particular the unexpectedly "viscerally riveting" portrayal of economic conflict.

[5] Dickinson has blogged about explicitly addressing issues around gender and feminism, race and homosexuality, as well as imperialism in the world of Baru Cormorant.