Meanwhile, an unusually eloquent and cultured pirate captain
named Kennit schemes to become King of the Pirate Isles. His plotting involves liberating
slaver ships, winning the hearts and minds of the people...and finding and
capturing a liveship.
Ship of Magic is
the first novel in the Liveship Traders
trilogy, which takes place in the same world as The Farseer Trilogy but in the lands to the south. There's an
almost completely new cast and setting (one major Farseer character does show up in disguise), with most of the
action taking place on ships or in dingy port towns. This shift to a nautical
setting is refreshing and makes for a very different-feeling novel to the
previous books.
The structure of the book also changes. Farseer was told in a first person point-of-view from FitzChivalry
Farseer, but The Liveship Traders is
told from a rotating POV structure. The major characters are Kennit, Althea,
her mother Ronica, sister Keffria, niece Malta
and nephew Wintrow, but other POV characters include the Vivacia herself, the beached,
mad liveship Paragon and Brashen, another crewman on the Vivacia. This immediately makes for a grander, more epic story as the
author moves between different characters.
Whilst this loses the immediacy of the Farseer books and the deep connection with Fitz, it does allow Hobb
to cover the story from more angles and explain things more clearly rather than
filtering all of the exposition and information through Fitz alone. It's a good
move, justifying the novel's impressive page count (over 870 pages in
paperback) rather more convincingly than the Farseer books, which felt rather padded out to reach such lengths.
Indeed, although I've only to date read Hobb's first six
novels, Ship of Magic is easily the
best. The story is epic, but it feels tight with naturalistic character
development of a large cast and events proceed at a steady clip. Hobb's main
skill has always been in the development of a convincing emotional connection
to the characters and that skill is in impressive form here. We share Althea's
frustration and betrayal, Wintrow's shock and hurt at his relationship with his
father Kyle and the casual betrayal of his calling, Ronica's uneasy dealings
with the Rain Wild Traders as she tries to protect her family's holdings and
Kennit's ambitions as he strives to make his people more than what they are.
Kennit is easily Hobb's most fascinating character to date.
He is greedy, selfish and arrogant, but he also has a fast-moving intelligence
and wit and altruistic outcomes see to flow from his self-centred acts.
Kennit's ability to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances on the fly and
ensure that he always comes out on top is impressive. Kennit clearly has
negative characteristics, but it's not entirely clear in Ship of Magic if he is supposed to be a villain. Indeed, it is Kyle
Haven who more readily fulfils that role in this book.
Ship of Magic (*****)
is an outstanding fantasy novel, and an impressive return to form after the
disappointing slog that was Assassin's
Quest. The book moves with pace and vigour despite its length, the cast of
characters is fascinating, the worldbuilding subtle but convincing, the
background politics intriguing and the book moves with tremendous purpose. The
ending will leave you eager to read the next book, The Mad Ship, immediately. The novel is available now in the UK
and USA.
