Ship of Magic – Robin Hobb

Bantam Spectra, Copyright 1999, 809 pages.

ISBN: 0-553-57563-5

Read: September 2011 (at age 32)

Re-read.  I read it first in University sometime.

If you haven’t read it:

This is the first book of The Liveship Traders trilogy, which also contains Mad Ship and Ship of Destiny.  This trilogy follows after The Farseer trilogy, but doesn’t rely on it.  It does, however, lead into events occurring in The Tawny Man.  I didn’t notice it until I read Golden Fool, when I felt like I was missing out on some background.  Probably reading in publication order is best (The Farseer, The Liveship Traders, The Tawny Man)  There is another, four-book series on its way,  The Rain Wilds Chronicles, which apparently runs concurrently with The Tawny Man.  It’s a big commitment, but I really enjoy the series.  Each trilogy (that I’ve finished) does end well, and would be a reasonable stopping point.

From the back cover:

Bingtown is a hub of exotic trade and home to a merchant nobility famed for its liveships – rare vessels carved from wizardwood, which ripens magically into sentient awareness.  The fortunes of one of Bingtown’s oldest families rest on the newly awakened liveship Vivacia.  For Althea Vestrit, the ship is her rightful legacy unjustly denied her – a legacy she will risk anything to reclaim.  For Althea’s young nephew Wintrow, wrenched from his religious studies and forced to serve aboard the ship, the Vivacia is a life sentence.  But the fate of the Vestrit family – and the ship – may ultimately lie in the hands of an outsider.  The ruthless pirate Kennit seeks a way to seize power over all the denizens of the Pirate Isles… and the first step of his plan requires him to capture a liveship of his own and bend it to his will…

My reactions (spoilers!):

One Rave:

The writing continues to be spectacular, and we (finally, after 5 books for me) get out of Fitz’s head, his relationships, and his introspection.

One Rant:

Man, do her characters have it rough.  I think I’d like it a bit better if there was a bit more “win” and a bit less pain.

Characters:

Characters seem to be a strong part of Ms. Hobb’s writing.  The main characters were all interesting, each in their own ways, but I preferred the Althea storyline (scrappy female sailor tries to get back her birthright) to Kennit (pirate captain tries to become king) to Wintrow (boy tries to get over the abrupt changes in his life).  I liked the viewpoint characters pretty much in that order.  The secondary viewpoints (sea serpents, the Vestrit women on shore) were good for interludes, and if my memory serves me correctly, become much more important in the later books.

Almost everybody in the book felt pretty real to me –main characters, secondary, and bit parts.  Some were pretty odd (Kennit, and Etta, for instance) but they stayed true to themselves.

Premise: 

Essentially, there was a trading family that’s having hard times as a result of a huge investment in a ‘liveship’, a sentient vessel that takes on some of the characteristics of the people on board, but there was a lot going on in this book.  It was densely plotted, and I can see the shape of some of the upcoming arcs, but certainly not their entireties.  We dealt with three main storylines (briefly listed above) and countless others, and none of them seemed strained.

Setting: 

This book is set in the same world as The Farseer, but somehow, it doesn’t feel anywhere near as small.  There are many different cultures in conflict, and I think that helps.  In this book, between the ocean, the pirate isles, the trading post mentality of Bingtown, and the mystery around the Rain Wilds, this setting fairly sparkles.

Plot:

There was a complex plot, weaving a bunch of strands of story around each other, using different plot lines to counterbalance each other, and setting up all kinds of different storylines that don’t come to fruition in this book, and not necessarily even in this series.  I ended the book itching to continue on.  It was very well done.

Readability:

This book/series is written in third person, which is quite the departure from the tight first person of both The Farseer and The Tawny Man.  It was a welcome break, as I was getting tired of seeing the world filtered through our good friend Fitz.  The book flowed well, and yet again, I was up much too late reading.  Not even to finish off the book, but just reading a chunk in the middle.

Overall:

I found this to be an excellent book.  It was well paced, interweaving three main storylines, one secondary, and laying the groundwork for a whole lot more.  There was always something going on, but unfortunately, there was a whole lot of putting the characters through the wringer.  Things get very bad for pretty much all of the characters at points throughout the book.  The ups in one storyline were balanced or overwhelmed by defeats in other storylines, and the knowledge that the characters were going to learn about the bad stuff we see coming eventually sours the small victories. 

I’m also finding the author’s messages a bit heavy-handed – I just finished the one on discrimination versus non-visible minorites (gays, anyone?), and now we’re headlong into a pretty heavy-handed anti-slavery discourse.  The characters more than make up for that, though. 

Rating: 5

Other Opinions:

There are a lot of reviews out there!  Here are some I liked:

Gossamer Obsessions - the reviewer is an unabashed Robin Hobb fan, but wrote a wonderfully thorough review.

Steven Wu’s Book Reviews – Positive review.

Mostly Fiction - Another positive review, covering the full series.

Suite 101 A common complaint seems to be that this book isn’t self-contained - that's it's the first part of one book in three volumes.  This review put it very nicely.

Vacuous Wastrel - Long, but thoughtful and well-written review.  A bit more less positive than the rest.