Ship of Magic (Liveship Traders #1) by Robin Hobb

I have read and reviewed three other books by the author this year. This was on the recommendation of two of my friends who have supposedly been fangirling these series’ for years without my knowledge!

Each cover link back to my reviews

  

Although they were not keen on this series based in the same universe, I had to go in chronological order so decided to take a chance. I was surprised to find that I enjoyed this book a lot more than I did the first of Fitz’s story. The plot seems very original and there are a lot of pretty important people who all seem very complicated.

I will try to explain a little better. We are in a sea-faring world with the usual suspects of trade and traders,pirates, bad weather, sea monsters in the form of serpents. The additional spice on top are boats made with wizardwood, called liveships and the family’s who they belong with. ( see the use of with and not to in the previous sentence).

This felt very refreshing to me and I actually spent all day today reading more than 3/4th of the 600 page book ( I almost did nothing else). I will be as brief about the plot line as I can be in order to give the author the full benefit of surprising you (as she is bound to do). We have one family struggle with grief and they are being torn apart by their natural tendencies, and strained circumstances do not seem to help much either. They have a Liveship in their family but the situation is precarious. A pirate is at large with big dreams and cunning to match along with casual ruthlessness. Their worlds may have to go into a war of sorts. Then there are then the serpents who only make brief appearances in order to stoke our curiosity. I love the question of self that multiple people have as their make their twisted way through the troubles. It makes for interesting reading and feel that the people (many with quite a few unlikable characteristics) are those that you would like to read about to watch them (possibly)grow. No one is a master of their destiny but they try all the same.

I cannot wait to read the next in the series, but considering my current load it will most probably be in the next year.

P.S: In this book there is only one mention of the previous series and the six duchies so I can comfortably advise this as a standalone series as well.