Title: Ship of Magic (Liveship Traders #1)
Author: Robin Hobb.
Format: Audiobook.
Publisher: Harper Voyager.
Page count: 880.
Release day: March 1998.
Genre: Adult, Fantasy.
Rating: 5 stars.
What is it about? (Summary from GoodReads)
From the author of the classic Farseer trilogy, Ship of Magic is the first part of the Liveship Traders. Set in a land bordering the Six Duchies, Robin Hobb begins her epic of pirates, talking ships, magic, sea serpents, slave revolts, dashing heroes and bloody battles.
Wizardwood, the most precious commodity in the world, comes only from the Rain Wilds. But only a liveship can negotiate the perilous waters of the Rain Wild River, and liveships are hard to come by. They quicken only when three family members from successive generations have died upon their deck.
The liveship Vivacia is about to undergo her quickening: Althea Vestrit waits for the ship that she loves more than anything in the world to awaken. But her dream of taking her father’s place at Vivacia’s helm is not to be, for her family have other plans. . .
And the dark, charming pirate Kennit also lusts after such a ship: he well knows the power of wizardwood and has plans of his own…
Rating:
Characters: 9/10
Atmosphere: 9/10
Writing: 10/10
Plot: 9/10
Intrigue: 10/10
Logic: 9/1
Enjoyment: 10/10
Average: 9.43 (which means 5 stars!)
My thoughts:
Holy fuck I loved this book!
For a 900 page book, this book flew by! I could not stop listening to it, and every time I put it down I just continued thinking about it! (which was a bit of a disadvantage for the physical books I was reading at the same time..)
Before starting this huge ass book, I was a bit worried, since I really loved the farseer trilogy and I could not see how I would love another series by her without Fitz. But I worried for nothing! I loved this book even more then that I loved Farseer!
I think the farseer trilogy was a bit more ‘limited’ compared to this one, since there we only read from Fitz’s perspective, while in the liveship traders we read from quite many perspectives. There are a couple of ‘main’ perspectives and some side perspectives, and all of them are so interesting!
Althea was by far my favourite character! In the beginning of the book she expects to inherit her families ship upon her fathers ship. But it all takes a different path when the ship is inherited by her sister, and mainly her husband. We then see Althea fighting for what she thinks is her right, and she does this in such interesting ways! I love how she learns seeing things from a different perspective while learning lots of things about the world! (Staying purposely vague here!)
Another amazing character is Ronica, Althea’s mother! She made some big mistakes, which she realizes quite late, but it was so interesting to see her try and fix it all! I love how she deals with Keffria (Althea’s sister) and her granddaughter. But also how she is trying to keep the family together, and not lose everything they own!
Other big characters on this side of the story were Kyle and Wintrow. Kyle was such an amazing character to hate! He is the worst, he is absolutely awful to everyone, and still I enjoyed reading his perspective, just to hate him. Wintrow was one of my lesser favourite characters. I just wanted him to stand up a bit more, but I think we will get more from that in the next books!
In a bit of a side story, although they all mix in the end, we follow Kennit. Another not great character, as in his motives are not very good. I love how he is trying to become a pirate, but to get there he ‘accidently’ does all this great things. And people start to absolutely love him, and that was really not what he wanted/ his goal.
And then for both storylines we also read chapters/parts from less important persons, which really added a lot to the story!
And omg, reading from the ships perspectives?! Who would have thought that that was so interesting! I loved hearing the thoughts of the Vivacia and Paragon, they have such different views of the world. And it really added something extra to the story to read from their perspectives.
So obviously I loved the characters! Besides the setting was also amazing, I really enjoyed reading about them travelling on the ships. But also learn about a couple of different harbour cities!
I also absolutely loved the plot, and it was very intriguing! As I said earlier, I could not put the book down and I could not stop thinking about it! Which would also explain my 10/10 rating for enjoyment!
We also followed some Serptents, yes also their perspective, and I cannot wait to see more from that in the next book! And also this other character, Amber, I want to know what she has to do with the rest of the story. Oh and the ending, I need to continue ASAP. (This part was vague, I know, but no spoilers!)
Robin Hobb’s writing is absolutely amazing! I’m so happy I finally diving into her work this year!
I mostly listened to this book on audio. I enjoyed the narrator, but quite some sentences were cut of at the end. Which in the beginning really annoyed me. I got used to it after some point, but I can imagine it really setting people off!
Before I started writing this review I had no idea how to do that besides saying that I loved it. Now I wrote a 600 word review in like 15 minutes! I hope you will pick up this series, while I’m off ordering the next one!
Now, THIS is an endorsement!!
Hahah!