Bantam Spectra, Copyright 2000, 789 pages
ISBN 0-553-57565-1
Read November 2011, at age 33
Re-read - Originally read c. 2002
Ship of Destiny is the (interim) conclusion to the trilogy started with Ship of Magic -
Unique dragons, merchant marine solutions, and satisfying character arcs. This series concludes well, but the story
also continues with The Tawny Man trilogy.
From the back cover:
As Bingtown slides toward disaster, calm matriarch Ronica Vestrit branded a
traitor, searches for a way to bring the
city's inhabitants together against the Chalcedean threat. Meanwhile, Althea Vestrit, unaware of what
has befallen Bingtown and her family, continues her perilous quest to track
down and recover her liveship Vivacia from the ruthless pirate Kennit. Bold though it is, her scheme may be in
vain. For her beloved Vivacia will face
the most terrible confrontation of all as the secret of the liveships is
revealed. It is a truth so shattering,
it may destroy Vivacia and all who love her, including the boy-priest Wintrow
Vestrit, whose life already hangs in the balance...
Again, the back cover fails any mention of the whole 'save the endangered
dragons' story-line, which is a HUGE part of the book.
My reactions: (and some spoilers)
Characters:
The characters were basically the same as in
Mad Ship, with the
addition of Tintaglia, the dragon. She, like all the characters in the book, was well done. Alien, strange, and wonderful. I
enjoyed this conception of a dragon, and am interested to see how the parts I thought were
somewhat overdone (how she responds to praise, for instance) will come to bear
in the next series.
Setting:
Basically unchanged from
Mad Ship, although the author doesn't just
put her characters through the wringer - the setting gets it too. Bingtown, a thriving trading center
through the first couple of books, basically gets burned to the ground, and
Trehaug's raison d'etre - wonderfully explained through
Mad Ship, - gets trashed. It fits in with the
theme of facing up to adversity to overcome it that runs through the book.
Plot:
Other than a few dangling threads, the storylines get tied up
satisfactorially. There weren't too many
big surprises, but the story was well-told.
The "hand of destiny" was a bit heavy throughout the climax -
too many things happening in the patch of ocean where a couple ships just
happened to be for me to easily believe it, but it works, I guess. It was somewhat obvious that
"destiny" would play a big role, just based on the title of the book.
Lots of discussion of slavery and rape along the way - not that I know much about
either, but these themes felt reasonably well-handled.
Readability:
Excellent - nothing fancy, but consistently well-written and paced. Unlike The Farseer trilogy, I'm not
getting tired of it at all - I think that had to do with the third-person
viewpoint, where we could skip between a bunch of different stories and heads,
as opposed to
The Farseer and The Tawny Man, where I'm getting
tired of being in Fitzchivalry's head.
Overall:
I really liked this book. I ended up
staying up way too late on three occasions (not a good idea with an
almost-three-year old as well as a three-month-old keeping me up) and missing
out on prep-work for a game that I'm DM'ing in order to read it. It didn't even just grab me at the end - I
was up late reading in the first quarter of the book.
Technically, I don't think that it was one of the better books in the
series - all the various plotlines coming together in a patch of open ocean
seemed to be a bit of a stretch, and some things got glossed over in the
confluence of all the storylines, but the quality of the character arcs and how
everyone felt like real people (even when they were alien - the liveships and
especially the dragon) vastly overshadowed that weakness.
Rating: 5
Other Opinions:
As with the rest of the series, there are many reviews of the book. Here are some that I enjoyed:
Long, rambling, and thoughtful review.
Love it! Fantastic insight and snark.
Very brief, and a big spoiler in the middle.
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