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A review by stephanieridiculous
Mad Ship by Robin Hobb
2.0
It pains me to rate this so low, but I just strongly dislike this trilogy.
The world? So interesting and fascinating. The Liveships? Exactly what I want them to be. The Dragons? Such a great take on them. The Characters??? W I L D L Y hit or miss.
We're still strugglin' and strainin' over the vastness of the cast, many of which you aren't supposed to like & Hobb does a great job of making that the reality. Our female cast continues to be used and abused, brutally and on page, and the suffering of all is boiling over at this point. I so desperately want to love this trilogy, and I do appreciate what it adds to the Realm of the Elderlings in a grander scale, but this segment has unfortunately shifted where Hobb stands in my list of favorites.
I appreciate that the Realm is populated by cultures with wildly different values and systems, but I just can't fathom the need for so much sexual violence on page. It is possible, believe it or not, to establish the struggles of women - and make really powerful commentaries on those realities - without abusing them on page. And certainly without repeatedly showing us that women are most effectively subdued by raping them. It's so unimaginative & unnecessarily triggering for potential readers. The cost of using such situations absolutely does not pay off for me; it mostly feels like lazy writing to invoke an emotional reaction that I know for a fact Hobb is capable of producing without resorting to such base tropes. The ongoing establishment of unbalanced relationships, be that via power or age or a combination, is a growing concern for me with Hobb's writing, and it's a sad discovery that I missed my first time through the Realm books, but is now a glaring issue at every turn. This existed in Buck with Verity/Kettricken, but is now coming to full heights with Malta/Reyn and Kennit/Etta, and I know continues with other pairings in later books. It's creepy, and I don't like it.
I sincerely doubt I will ever recommend the Liveship Traders series to people, and when discussing Hobb's work at large I'll be encouraging people to just read the wiki and skip it when engaging with the Realm.
The good here is a small list, but worth pointing to - Amber as always, I adore. Matla coming into her own is great. More dragons? Yes, please. More Rain Wilds? Heck yea.
I am committed to finishing this series, but I just can't wait to move on to Tawny Man.
The world? So interesting and fascinating. The Liveships? Exactly what I want them to be. The Dragons? Such a great take on them. The Characters??? W I L D L Y hit or miss.
We're still strugglin' and strainin' over the vastness of the cast, many of which you aren't supposed to like & Hobb does a great job of making that the reality. Our female cast continues to be used and abused, brutally and on page, and the suffering of all is boiling over at this point. I so desperately want to love this trilogy, and I do appreciate what it adds to the Realm of the Elderlings in a grander scale, but this segment has unfortunately shifted where Hobb stands in my list of favorites.
I appreciate that the Realm is populated by cultures with wildly different values and systems, but I just can't fathom the need for so much sexual violence on page. It is possible, believe it or not, to establish the struggles of women - and make really powerful commentaries on those realities - without abusing them on page. And certainly without repeatedly showing us that women are most effectively subdued by raping them. It's so unimaginative & unnecessarily triggering for potential readers. The cost of using such situations absolutely does not pay off for me; it mostly feels like lazy writing to invoke an emotional reaction that I know for a fact Hobb is capable of producing without resorting to such base tropes. The ongoing establishment of unbalanced relationships, be that via power or age or a combination, is a growing concern for me with Hobb's writing, and it's a sad discovery that I missed my first time through the Realm books, but is now a glaring issue at every turn. This existed in Buck with Verity/Kettricken, but is now coming to full heights with Malta/Reyn and Kennit/Etta, and I know continues with other pairings in later books. It's creepy, and I don't like it.
I sincerely doubt I will ever recommend the Liveship Traders series to people, and when discussing Hobb's work at large I'll be encouraging people to just read the wiki and skip it when engaging with the Realm.
The good here is a small list, but worth pointing to - Amber as always, I adore. Matla coming into her own is great. More dragons? Yes, please. More Rain Wilds? Heck yea.
I am committed to finishing this series, but I just can't wait to move on to Tawny Man.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Trafficking, Medical trauma, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail