verlkonig's review against another edition
5.0
JEEBUS I love you Robin ❤️ Full review to come when I have the time to flail properly!
Reasons to love Ship of Magic:
+ Talking ships
+ Mean, handsome pirate captain who sets his skin on fire for angst reasons
+ Almost cried 20% in
+ Character development like a boss
I just cannot COMPREHEND how Hobb is able to make each and every character so multi-faceted?! Like even vile Kyle is doing what he thinks is right.
Reasons to love Ship of Magic:
+ Talking ships
+ Mean, handsome pirate captain who sets his skin on fire for angst reasons
+ Almost cried 20% in
+ Character development like a boss
I just cannot COMPREHEND how Hobb is able to make each and every character so multi-faceted?! Like even vile Kyle is doing what he thinks is right.
lapislazuli's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
This book has a large cast of vivid characters and it does a great job at introducing them without overwhelming the reader. Each character has their own arc and the reader gets to know them very well. Some realize their mistakes and are able to grow, while others are a train wreck watched in slow motion. The ending is not that of a standalone book and does not provide resolution, so I'll be continuing with the second book right away.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Slavery
Minor: Torture
preostferox's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
lia_kim's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
jordanoshan's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
leclyn01's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
inspiring
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
gogolovercoat's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
evybird's review against another edition
3.0
Well.... I finished.
I would like to come back and write down more thoughts later, but for now my main thought is.... this is the most boring long book I have ever managed to actually finish.
I really don't get all the glowing praise.... like.... at all.... how were all those people not bored? This book feels like a 35-hour prologue. There is no direction.
Usually books move... towards... something... there's some kind of.... thing pushing the action along.... you have a sense of... direction... a sense that... the characters are all trying to do something... move toward something...
But in this book, things just happen to the characters, for 35 hours of audio. They do have motivations, don't get me wrong, but none of them can actually do anything about what they want, so they're all just sort of floating around and we float around with them, wondering where we're going, for 35 hours, while the characters stumble into various miserable situations without every having any clear direction, for 35 hours.
And then it ends seemingly randomly, at a clear point but a random point that doesn't end anything, because there was nothing to "end' because we were not moving towards anything. Because it was always going to end kind of randomly, because there was no sense of what an "end" would be, because it wasn't moving towards anything in particular.
Anyway. I did really love some of the characters, like Wintrow, and the Vivacia, and Althea, and their arcs were at times compelling when things happened to them although again they were kind of directionless.
But other characters were... rough. Like Malta. Malta! Malta almost did me in. I almost couldn't keep going. Like, she was a well-developed character for what her character was, but miserable to read about, and I understood the point of her story immediately, where it was going, how it was going to end up, but then it just kept going on, and on, and on, for like 400 pages of Malta being Malta. Like. "I get the point," I wanted to say. "X is gonna happen, can we just get there already" but no we had to be weirdly, confusingly subjected to a large amount of time with Malta.
In the end this book is in a very similar camp to Game of Thrones for me (though better, slightly) in that I felt like I was always reading just waiting to get to the interesting, bearable characters. Whose parts ended far too quickly, sending me back to the unpleasant characters.
Honestly, though, that would've been fine, if the book had some kind of overarching plot or direction....
Will still read book 2
I would like to come back and write down more thoughts later, but for now my main thought is.... this is the most boring long book I have ever managed to actually finish.
I really don't get all the glowing praise.... like.... at all.... how were all those people not bored? This book feels like a 35-hour prologue. There is no direction.
Usually books move... towards... something... there's some kind of.... thing pushing the action along.... you have a sense of... direction... a sense that... the characters are all trying to do something... move toward something...
But in this book, things just happen to the characters, for 35 hours of audio. They do have motivations, don't get me wrong, but none of them can actually do anything about what they want, so they're all just sort of floating around and we float around with them, wondering where we're going, for 35 hours, while the characters stumble into various miserable situations without every having any clear direction, for 35 hours.
And then it ends seemingly randomly, at a clear point but a random point that doesn't end anything, because there was nothing to "end' because we were not moving towards anything. Because it was always going to end kind of randomly, because there was no sense of what an "end" would be, because it wasn't moving towards anything in particular.
Anyway. I did really love some of the characters, like Wintrow, and the Vivacia, and Althea, and their arcs were at times compelling when things happened to them although again they were kind of directionless.
But other characters were... rough. Like Malta. Malta! Malta almost did me in. I almost couldn't keep going. Like, she was a well-developed character for what her character was, but miserable to read about, and I understood the point of her story immediately, where it was going, how it was going to end up, but then it just kept going on, and on, and on, for like 400 pages of Malta being Malta. Like. "I get the point," I wanted to say. "X is gonna happen, can we just get there already" but no we had to be weirdly, confusingly subjected to a large amount of time with Malta.
In the end this book is in a very similar camp to Game of Thrones for me (though better, slightly) in that I felt like I was always reading just waiting to get to the interesting, bearable characters. Whose parts ended far too quickly, sending me back to the unpleasant characters.
Honestly, though, that would've been fine, if the book had some kind of overarching plot or direction....
Will still read book 2
regnarenol's review against another edition
4.0
This is a tough one for me. Everything about the book I wouldn't have liked a few years ago, and even now I took an absolute age to get through it but... there's something about it. First, Robin Hobb can write bloody well. Second, she creates deep, deep characters. Third, the 'story' that happens in this book can be compressed into fifty pages if you trim down all the 'characterization'. And therein lies the crux of my dilemma. This book isn't an exciting read by any means. But its characters starting with a wilful young woman called Althea who's deprived of her rightful inheritance to her selfish and money-minded brother-in-law Kyle to the pirate Kennit who wants to become the king of all pirates, all these characters straddle a very narrow portion of the good-evil spectrum. Nobody's faultless, and everybody has some good in them.
The upshot of all that middle-grounding of course is that this book is an immensely frustrating read. There are so many occasions when you feel like grabbing hold of one of those stubborn people that populate the story and shake some sense into them! I guess that's what makes these characters real though. Having said that, I will not gloss over the slow pace and the real lack of suspense in the story. (I'd pretty much worked out the ending of this book in the first fifty pages.) This book isn't for everyone - there isn't real action, in fact there is no action. If you can't associate with one or more of the characters in this book, then you're going to despise this book. But I did, and I didn't.
A note on the fantasy element of this book - the fantastical elements in the story - the liveships and the serpents aren't pivotal to the development of the story but they do work as intended. They offer a counterpoint to what would otherwise have been a plain old sea and sailing adventure yarn. And they offer mystery too, mystery the rest of the story doesn't. What exactly is a liveship? (No spoilers, so I don't want to speculate.) Are the serpents really dumb creatures that feed on human carcasses? I think the other two books in the series should answer those questions.
The upshot of all that middle-grounding of course is that this book is an immensely frustrating read. There are so many occasions when you feel like grabbing hold of one of those stubborn people that populate the story and shake some sense into them! I guess that's what makes these characters real though. Having said that, I will not gloss over the slow pace and the real lack of suspense in the story. (I'd pretty much worked out the ending of this book in the first fifty pages.) This book isn't for everyone - there isn't real action, in fact there is no action. If you can't associate with one or more of the characters in this book, then you're going to despise this book. But I did, and I didn't.
A note on the fantasy element of this book - the fantastical elements in the story - the liveships and the serpents aren't pivotal to the development of the story but they do work as intended. They offer a counterpoint to what would otherwise have been a plain old sea and sailing adventure yarn. And they offer mystery too, mystery the rest of the story doesn't. What exactly is a liveship? (No spoilers, so I don't want to speculate.) Are the serpents really dumb creatures that feed on human carcasses? I think the other two books in the series should answer those questions.
rieman_93's review against another edition
4.75
I loved this book. I loved seeing the struggles of the Vestrit family, the mystery surrounding Paragon and the Rain Wilds, and the magic system.