Ship of Magic Review

This is one of the books that I’ve been meaning to read for what feels like forever. Okay, not literally forever but about 8 years ago I wrote down a list of all the book series I needed to read but hadn’t yet and this (as in the entirety of Hobb’s Realm of the Elderlings, not just Ship of Magic or the Liveship Traders trilogy) was on it. More about the list another time. I read the first Hobb trilogy, the Farseer books, in 2016 while on vacation and they were fabulous. In fact, I read one of them while we were in Helsinki, Finland and it was so easy there to imagine the cold and inhospitable setting. In fact, it was so easy to imagine that I didn’t want to jump straight into the next trilogy because I was so darn cold the whole time I was reading. So I put it off and then put it off some more, then moved and continued to put them off. Then late last year I read the back and noticed… Hey! These aren’t going to be so cold, it’s a totally different (and warmer) part of the world! Which makes them great winter reads, to keep my mind warm while it’s snowing outside. And yes, it was the perfect book for that purpose. And now to the review!

Being written in the late ‘90’s, this book straddles the ‘old style’ of writing fantasy with the newer and usually more fast-paced writing. So it has some great action scenes, and fantastic characterization, and the setting is so well done I feel like I’m there. But it does also have more than usual for today’s standards of the ‘infodump’. I’ve gotten a little out of the habit of reading those and so it took me a bit longer than normal to get into this story. Also of note is that this is Epic fantasy, with quite a large scope and character list. I LOVE epic fantasy, but jumping into a new series takes some work. This book starts with one new character after another, for nearly 100 pages, with little in the way of explanation on how they fit together (or if they don’t). This does NOT make it a bad story, but it is an uphill climb for the first while. But by around page 100 it was all good and everyone was working together (or more likely not) in more or less all the scenes. 

While this is the same world as Hobb’s Farseer trilogy, as I mentioned above it’s really not the same at all. There’s only one or two named places that are the same where the worlds meet. They’re just in a different part of the world doing different things than the OG series. And it’s a lot of fun, honestly.  It feels a lot like a caribbean trading story, including pirates, slaves, and sailors and all that go with the lifestyle, plus some magic. Because these guys have ships that are alive. Well, not everyone has one. But most Bingtown Traders families do, and they take generations to both pay off and fully quicken to life. And they’re cool. The carved figureheads are alive and like to do people things like listen to music or play dice. As well as being the best sailing ships ever since they can find currents and help balance their own loads, among other things. Except for the one that’s insane and kills its crew.

As for characters, this story is really about a family. Ephron and Ronica Vestrit are the older generation. Ephron passing away on the deck of the liveship Vivacia brings her to life and really sets off the story. Ronica is left behind to deal with not only the debt of the liveship but also the family estates, which aren’t bringing in enough wealth since they won’t use slave labor which is becoming common in Bingtown. Ronica also has two daughters to manage: Althea and Keffria, who is married to ship captain (and total SOB) Kyle Haven. Kyle, who is an outsider in Bingtown, tries to take over everything and manage it all, as Keffria is left with the total inheritance. He soon takes off with Vivacia to go make money to save everyone though, taking his son Wintrow but leaving daughter Malta and a younger son home. Wintrow wants to be a priest not a sailor but the ship won’t go without someone of the Vestrit family line so he’s recruited against his will. Malta wants to be grown up but doesn’t have a clue what’s going on in society and gets herself in trouble repeatedly. As for Althea, all she’s ever wanted was to be captain of the Vivacia and she’s not gonna get it now. She goes off to sea to learn to be a real sailor so she can get her ship back. All these characters are always pushing to do what they think is best. And it always gets them into more and more trouble. It’s fantastic and also makes you want to throw the book. Because nothing works out right the first time. Or the second usually. And by the end the whole thing is going up in flames in the most deliciously terrible way. I can’t wait to get into the next book and see what they do to fix it all. Or maybe make it worse?

Spoilers Because here’s the thing. Wintrow got made a slave, and the Vivacia was filled with slave cargo. Until Wintrow inadvertently started a slave uprising that killed all the crew except his dad and then they got captured by PIRATES!! Kennit the evil pirate who wants to be king, to be exact. This is going to be interesting for sure. Althea has the means to get her ship back from Kyle, but how is she supposed to get it back from the pirates? Also, Malta is officially courting one of the Rain Wild Traders’ sons that can get them totally out of debt if she can not mess it up. Which she probably will tbh. Spoilers end

So yeah, gotta get back to this one. Hopefully by next week I’ll be starting Mad Ship and then I can tell you how it goes down. These books are long slow burns but completely fantastic. The more Hobb I read, the more I want to. Which is good, because I have her next 2 series still waiting!