Ship of Magic

 Series: The liveship traders #1 

Author: Robin Hobb

Original publication date: March 1998

Book description:

Ship of Magic begins an epic tale of pirates, sentient ships, magic, sea serpents, slave revolts, dashing heroes and bloody battles.

On the northernmost point of the Cursed Shores lies Bingtown, a bustling hub of exotic trade and home to a proud merchant nobility famed for its extraordinary vessels.

Only Bingtown liveships can negotiate the perilous waters of the Rain Wild River and plunder the riches found upstream, but such vessels are made from the most precious commodity in the world – a material with the ability to become sentient – and so are extremely rare.

The fortunes of one of Bingtown’s oldest families rest on the newly awakened liveship Vivacia. For Althea Vestrit, the ship is her rightful legacy. But the fate of Vivacia – and the Vestrits – may ultimately lie in the hands of the dark and charming pirate, Kennit, who lusts after such a ship and has plans of his own.

Thoughts:

It is a slow start. We are getting introduced to the Vestrit family, mainly Athea. The introduction is long, we follow several perspectives, the snakes, Athea in the ship and her crewmates, members of the family at land. It is still hard to know why we need each of their POVs. 

Athea is not my favorite character, her attitude gets on my nerves really. She is pretentious and selfish. She is the daughter of the captain in many people's eyes and she has been sailing with him for years. She believes herself a very capable sailor. She seems to be ok or good but not the exception being she thinks herself to be. I mean she is destined to be the Captain so no need to be doing all the heavy lifting. 

There is the Haven family, her older sister married him and they have a few kids together. Captain Haven was given command of the Vivacea while the father is resting at home a sickness preventing him from sailing. There is no lost love between Athea and Haven, at all. He thinks women are beneath him and are only good to get married, stay at home, and care for the house. They should not be expected of more, he looks down on them greatly.

The Vestrit's have a very different POV. The mother has been handling the family economy for years since she got married. The husband busy sailing and she handled everything. Of course, Athea is even more willful than her mother and she was the father's favorite. She did as she pleased in the eyes of the rest of the family.

This book is filled with family drama, sibling jealousy, mother-daughter competition, disregard of elders, and disrespect from daughter to the rest of the family and family traditions. 

We follow very flawed characters. I had initially Brashen the second in command aboard the Vivacea in very high regard. But then one single attitude and behavior made me dislike him greatly. So far he was not able to overcome that. Since the moment he showed up, I assumed there was going to be a romance between Athea and Brashen. Both are very stubborn and set on their ways, it gave me the feeling like Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. 

It might be I dislike the purity issue men and society seem to have in this culture. Women are supposed to be pure and virgin until they marry God forbid they have sex simply because they want to. If you do it's because she is a whore. Brashen wants to have sex with Athea then he's angry that she's a slut. I mean come on! Seriously dude, it's fine if she only sleeps with you but the thought that she had sex before angers him and makes her look bad in his eyes. Double standard, damn.

We have a few more stories taking place we follow Amber and the other ship, one who does not sail, as its considered a crazy cursed ship. The ship is funny and I like them. Also, there is a crew of pirates. By the end, you know why you follow the pirates at least.

This is a good start of a series it just took me a while to get into the story. It feels like too much happens and nothing at all as we are just getting to know them so we can start to care about the problems each of them faces. 

I am looking forward to the rest of the story. Now I am invested and the next one I'm sure to enjoy even more.

I should really strive to finish the started series but well I am starting another one. Well, that's it for me, see you guys later.

Stay safe!