Ship of Magic

Title: Ship of Magic
Author: Robin Hobb
Published: 1998 by Voyager
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 880



First book in Hobb's Liveship Traders -trilogy! Yay! Let me tell you: these books are bricks. 800-900 pages, but they go down so fast! Like I wrote in the Assassin's Quest, page 200 just suddenly jumped at me. And the following ~600 pages went by as fast.

So what are these about? Set in the same world as the Farseer Trilogy, the Liveship Traders are some damn elite traders from Bingtown (a bit southwards from the Six Duchies of the Farseers). They're different from other traders in so that they have Liveships. As you may have guessed. Liveships are made of wizardwood, which comes alive, or quickens, after three generations of the owner's family (not whole generations; one peep per suffices) have died on its deck. And #3 of the Vestrit family is about to kick the bucket.

Meanwhile, pirate captain Kennit has large dreams of becoming the king of pirates. The other pirates aren't too impressed, but Kennit's figured that once he has one of the legendary liveships underneath his feet, it'll be smooth sailing for him.Y'all see where this is going?

But since this is Robin Hobb, things don't go down as they've been planned. There are plenty of other characters stirring the pot with their own spoons, debts to be paid, oracles, destinies and sea serpents! I love these books, and not just because I've lived by the sea most of my life and more than 50% of my blood is seawater. They're written beautifully, the characters are not made of cardboard, and the world around them is built to the tiniest detail.


   He waited there, in the stinging rain. When he heard her speak again, he did not start. He did turn his head slowly, to hear her better.
   'Ship? Ship, may I come closer?'
   'My name is Paragon.'
   'Paragon, may I come closer?'
   He considered it. 'Aren't you going to tell me your name?' he finally countered.
   A short hesitation. 'I am called Amber.'
   'But that is not your name.'
   'I've had a number of names,' she said after a time. 'This is the one that suits me best, here and now.'
   She could, he reflected, simply have lied to him and said it was her name. But she had not. He extended an open hand toward the sound of her voice. 'Amber,' he accepted her. It was a challenge, too. He knew how huge his hand was in comparison to a human's. Once his fingers closed around her hand, he'd be able to jerk her arm out of its socket. If he chose to.
   He listened to her breathe, to the sound of the rain pocking the packed sand of the beach. Abruptly she took two quick steps towards him and set her gloved left hand in his. He closed his immense fingers over her small ones. 'Paragon,' she said breathlessly.