The Liveship Trader's Trilogy takes place in Jamaillia, Bingtown and the Pirate Isles, on the coast far to the south of the Six Duchies. The war in the north has interrupted the trade that is the lifeblood of Bingtown, and the Liveship Traders have fallen on hard times despite their magic sentient ships. At one time, possession of a Liveship, constructed of magical wizard wood, guaranteed a Trader's family prosperity. Only a Liveship can brave the dangers of the Rain Wild River and trade with the legendary Rain Wild Traders and their mysterious magical goods, plundered from the enigmatic Elderling ruins. Althea Vestrit expects her families to adhere to tradition, and pass the family Liveship on to her when it quickens at the death of her father. Instead, the Vivacia goes to her sister Keffria and her scheming Chalcedean husband Kyle. The proud Liveship becomes a transport vessel for the despised but highly profitable slave trade.
Althea, cast out on her own, resolves to make her own way in the world and somehow regain control of her family's living ship. Her old shipmate Brashen Trell, the enigmatic woodcarver Amber and the Paragon, the notorious mad Liveship are the only allies she can rally to her cause. Pirates, a slave rebellion, migrating sea serpents and a newly hatched dragon are but a few of the obstacles she must face on her way to discovering that Liveships are not, perhaps, what they seem to be, and may have dreams of their own to follow.
A review of the series from RPG.net
Anyone who read and loved Robin Hobb's "Farseer Trilogy" (Assassin's Apprentice, Royal Assassin, and Assassin's Quest) will delight in this first book of "The Liveship Traders." Ship of Magic showcases Hobb's impressive ability to blur the lines between the good guys and the bad, creating flawed protagonists and sympathetic antagonists. Such rich characterization coupled with a unique milieu makes this novel a must-read for fantasy fans who want more than business-as-usual in their personal libraries.
Althea Vestrit has waited her whole life to become captain of the liveship Vivacia, a vessel constructed in the magical but dangerous Rain Wilds near Bingtown. Built specifically for her Old Trader family several generations back, Vivacia will become completely sentient when three Vestrits have died upon her decks. But a dying Ephron Vestrit, Althea's beloved father whose own death is that necessary third, stuns his younger daughter by willing her inheritance, the captaincy of Vivacia, to his newcomer son-in-law Kyle. A hard man determined to pull the family out of debt, Kyle banishes Althea from the liveship and brings aboard his son Wintrow to develop the Vestrit bond with Vivacia. The adolescent boy despairs when he is torn from his studies to become a priest of Sa, but his father is relentless in pushing him to become a passable sailor.
Althea, desperate to regain the Vivacia, signs on as a ship's boy on a slaughter vessel to get at least one other captain to vouch for her abilities. With her is her father's first mate Brashen, the disinherited older son of another Old Trader family whom Kyle also dismissed from the Vivacia. A budding intimacy between the two could be Althea's undoing. While at home Kyle's daughter Malta vexes her grandmother with reckless behavior, endangering the Vestrit family's standing back in Bingtown, Vivacia's new captain threatens the newly quickened liveship's sanity by preparing to haul the surest money-making cargo available: human slaves. Althea's hope to reclaim Vivacia, and Wintrow's longing to return to his devotion to Sa, ultimately lies in the hands of the ambitious pirate Kennit. The man's two highest aspirations? To become King of the Pirate Isles and to procure a liveship.
Ship of Magic teems with magic, mystery and heartbreak. Teasing glimpses of deeper secrets and profound revelations ensure that readers, despite this first book's length, will be eager to jump headfirst into the second volume of "The Liveship Traders." Hobb proves once again (as if there were any doubt after "The Farseer" books) that hers is one of the most original voices in contemporary fantasy.
From Curled Up with a Book
Robin Hobb's second "Liveship Traders" installment builds richly upon the foundations laid in the first, adding layered nuances of character, political climate and ancient history. Mad Ship, like Ship of Magic before it, is at the very least a ripping-good sea yarn. A look at a different part of the "Farseer Trilogy" world, this series exhibits the author's deft hand with both characterization and world-building. As the scope of the story broadens, Hobb's editorial discipline slips a bit. The prose occasionally seems distracted, as if the author were looking out a window daydreaming while composing. Fortunately the imperfections are far too few to detract appreciably from an engrossing tale.
The women of the Vestrit Trader family wait in vain for the return of the liveship Vivacia. Her cargo of slaves, normally taboo for one of the sentient vessels, may be the family's last chance to hoist themselves out of crushing debt. Althea Vestrit, courted by Trader heir Grag Tenira but longing for the disgraced Brashen Trell, has proved her shipboard mettle on the Tenira's liveship Ophelia. She hopes to lay claim to her former inheritance from her domineering brother-in-law when the Vivacia returns to the Bingtown harbor. Althea's niece, Malta, waits longingly for her father's return, busying herself with Bingtown flirtations and her courtship with a young Rain Wild man.
Kennit, the pirate who would be king, has captured the Vivacia, along with Captain Kyle Haven and his studious son Wintrow. Kennit promises Wintrow and his father that they will live if Wintrow can heal the festering remains of the pirate's leg, a wound taken in an attack on the ship by increasingly bold sea serpents. Wintrow agrees, and as time passes he becomes more convinced of the importance of Kennit's destiny. The pirate is carefully wooing the liveship, and Vivacia may not be so willing to be reclaimed by Althea Vestrit if that comes to pass.
Althea, Brashen Trell and the enigmatic wood-carver Amber manage to acquire the abandoned liveship Paragon, a beached hulk left by his Trader family after a series of disastrous journeys. Most of Bingtown believes that Paragon is mad, but he is the last hope of the Vestrits for regaining the Vivacia. While the three friends and a motley crew of drunks and layabouts take to sea to rescue the family liveship, Bingtown becomes embroiled in a violent political upheaval against the corrupt Jamaillian leader and his rapacious Chalcedean allies. Malta is spirited away to the Rain Wilds by her fiance Reyn as the docks and warehouses on Bingtown harbor burn. There, she will become a part of something greater than she ever imagined: the release of the last dragon from her wizardwood cocoon.
With an unfolding story as rich as that of "The Liveship Traders," Hobb's latest series cannot fail. The depths to which she plumbs her characters' psyches ensure the author's place among the greats of contemporary high fantasy -- few can match her in that arena. Mad Ship may not be the pinnacle of Robin Hobb's achievements, but it still tops much of what shares shelf space with it.
From Curled Up with a Book
With the concluding volume of her "Liveship Traders" trilogy, Robin Hobb is once again at the top of her form; in fact, she's right on top of the whole sf/f heap. Ship of Destiny shines, its dual themes of self-realization and selflessness twined throughout and binding a profusion of plot lines with surprising elegance.
Bingtown lies smoldering, the strata of its citizens as embattled with one another as they are against the invading Chaldedeans. Ronica Vestrit, the matriarch of a once-proud Trader family, finds herself destitute and labeled a traitor. She is the last of her line in the fiercely independent port city, and with nothing to lose but her life, resolves to remove the blight from the Vestrit name. As battles rage and infighting eats away at the heart of Bingtown, Ronica desperately tries to bring Old and New Traders, Three Ships folk and the ex-slave Tattooed together to save their city and themselves from being apportioned out to the greedy outsiders intent on destroying and looting their livelihoods.
While Ronica's heastrong younger daughter Althea sails on the mad liveship Paragon in hopes of retrieving the family liveship, Vivacia, from the would-be pirate king Kennit, the other Vestrits find themselves in equally untenable positions. Althea's sister Keffria, still grieving over the disappearance of her seafaring husband and their eldest son, now mourns the apparent death of her daughter Malta, last seen in the bowels of a huge underground city as a massive earthquake struck the strange and wonderful Rain Wilds. With the sudden emergence from the ruined subterranean city of a single legendary dragon, Malta's betrothed, the native Rain Wilder Reyn, dares hope that he might yet find his love alive. The haughty Tintaglia, an arrogant and magnificent creature, has only one goal, and only one use for the otherwise insignificant humans: to keep her kind from extinction.
Malta is alive, but damaged -- a wound to her head is bearing for fruit a disfiguring scar. Her beauty suddenly taken from her, the difficult girl comes into her own as a young woman, finding withing herself a burning desire to make the most of her life. Held captive with the petulant figurehead ruler of Jamaillia known as the Magnadon Satrap, she discovers that her worth to their captors is only as high as her erstwhile companion's. When they are taken from the treacherous Chalcedeans by a ship of Kennit's pirate fleet, Malta takes a desperate gambit to not only preserve her own life but to try to salvage her ruined family.
Wintrow, forcibly bound to the Vivacia by his father, has grown to love her. He's also grown to respect the destiny of her new captain, the pirate Kennit, and to secretly love Kennit's woman Etta. He stands behind Kennit in his quest to become King of the Pirate Isles, but when Vivacia learns the secret of her origins, the ship flees to a secret part of herself and Wintrow finds himself suddenly shut out of the most important relationship of his life. As the destinies of the Vestrit family members converge asea, escorted by a roiling tangle of monstrous sea serpents, the secrets of the liveships and of their humans collide, leaving the fate of their future teetering precariously in the balance.
Robin Hobb weaves a daunting mob of plot lines expertly into one of the best stories seen recently in the genre. The characters living the tale throw the weight of their secret shames and their driving passions against what holds them back, and the complexities of their fears and hopes are what really drive Ship of Destiny to the heights of near perfection it attains. Hobb is well on her way to inclusion in the genre pantheon, and Destiny's stunning conclusion only leaves readers hungry for more from her pen. Indeed, a few well-placed references to the Six Duchies of the "Farseer Trilogy" whets eager appetites for the rumored continuance of FitzChivalry Farseer's tale.
From Curled Up with a Book
This is my favorite Hobb cover. Amber and Paragon.
No comments:
Post a Comment