Ship of Magic

The Liveship Traders, Book 1

By: Robin Hobb

Narrated by: Anne Flosnik

Length: 35 hrs and 20 mins

Publisher's summary

Bingtown is a hub of exotic trade and home to a merchant nobility famed for its liveships---rare vessels carved from wizardwood, which ripens magically into sentient awareness. 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 unjustly denied her---a legacy she will risk anything to reclaim.

For Althea's young nephew Wintrow, wrenched from his religious studies and forced to serve aboard ship, Vivacia is a life sentence. But the fate of the Vestrit family---and the ship---may ultimately lie in the hands of an outsider. The ruthless pirate Kennit seeks a way to seize power over all the denizens of the Pirate Isles...and the first step of his plan requires him to capture his own liveship and bend it to his will.

©1999 Robin Hobb (P)2010 Tantor

Critic reviews

“The characterizations are consistently superb.... Kudos to the author and encore!” ( Booklist, Starred Review)

great story

there are plenty of reviews on how great this series is, all I'll say is don't read the second fitz trilogy before reading this or you'll spoil a lot.

Outstanding story!

This was a well written and performed story that I enjoyed listening to from the first page to the last. I can not wait to start the 2nd book!

This narrator kills me!

The story's good, but it takes a while to get to it, and the narrator doesn't help.

Good story Bad recording

I have listened to Robin Hobb's work before and enjoyed his Assassin Apprentice series. I think this book was better. The story revolves around the Vestrit family who live in Bing town, a trader community, and own a magic ship called the Vevacia which is alive. The author switches viewpoints between all the family members and some other characters including a pirate captain bent on capturing their family liveship. The reader is exposed to a variety of conflicts including magic, finances, politics, pirates, and slaves.

My main criticism is with the way this audible recording was done. It was sometimes a little confusing to distinguish the transition between character perspectives if you are only casually listening. The perspectives do not just change via chapter but quite often a lot within each chapter without much of a pause or break. The narrator did a fine job and I couldn't imagine anyone but a female appropriate for this role considering this novel does favor a lot of female characters. There was more drama than I would have liked to have seen. Perhaps the issue is a lot of the story was drawn out as you might tell by the length of this book. But the author does paint a good picture with his words and has a well rounded cast of characters to draw upon. Although I have my favorites I didn't find any of the characters boring. On the downside, there isn't really much of an ending. Although I usually wait for sales this book has gotten me to consider downloading the next one right away as the ending leaves the reader/listener with much left to be resolved.

How can it get worse than this?

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

So many horrible things, each even worse than the last. Makes your own live seem positively charmed. The author is pretty good at thinking up horrors. If there is anything to be learned from them, you won't find it in this book.

Has Ship of Magic turned you off from other books in this genre?

No. It is an example of the author who has not hit her stride as a writer.

Did the narration match the pace of the story?

no, it was too slow

Was Ship of Magic worth the listening time?

if multi-tasking

Any additional comments?

This author has written some great books. This wasn't one of them.

Hobb fans will enjoy- regardless of the narrator

I've read the reviews, and everyone's biggest complaint is the narration. Really, it's pretty terrible. It's mind-blowingly slow and drawn out (AT REGULAR SPEED). Crank it up to 1.5 and her bizarre pace and inflection actually become almost enjoyable. Like the title says, if you're a fan of her other book, the story is more than enough to overcome shortcomings in narration. 1.5 speed!!!

i read Dragon Keeper before i read this,

Where does Ship of Magic rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

It was a good story, little bit winded but like ever bit. i would suggest you read it.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

It was an adventure you can image, with a prelude to the dragons, I loved all the ships as they were real to me in the story.

hate to love

I've finally had to concede that as much as i love Hobb's imagination, I emphatically loath her characters. her stories are wonderful, the tales are imaginative, complex, compelling, and subtle in their moral purpose. but as much as the story itself is fantastic and complex the characters come across as one dimensional tropes being bludgeoned into submission to fulfill their story purpose. as the outsider looking in, i invariably spend the bulk of all her tales yelling at the pages filled with the insufferable "choices" of vain, vacuous, self involved, meek, spineless, disinterested, shortsighted, gullible, stupid, and every other possible human trait with enough self destruction to serve their trite purpose, characters.

yet i subject myself to this time and time again because once i start one of her stories i simply have to finish watching the train wreck happen in its slow inexpertly crawl and ultimate tidying up. because make no mistake, once Hobb has thoroughly used up her characters she will sweep the lot up in her dustbin and tidy everything up into a nice neat ending, and it is galling in its satisfactory nature.

Excellent story

Any additional comments?

Absolutely excellent story telling, character development, mix of action vs. story development. Hobb spins a story and develops the characters so that you connect with them. The story line isn't interrupted with skips back and forth in the timeline, always hard to grasp.

The characters he develops have depth, and you can picture them. You yearn for them, feel for them, hope for them, despise them. He gives enough interaction in the peaceful scenes to propel you through the action scenes.

This book satisfies the desire for characters through description and conversation while balancing action with anger, fighting, and battle.

Patently, he wrote this as a beginning book in a series, but the lack of answers in this first book doesn't leave you banging your head against a desk. Somehow he manages the frustration of lack with a burning desire to purchase the next book to get the answer.

Very Interesting

After reading the Farseer trilogy it is nice to see more of her expansive world. The same artistry of characters is carried on and anticipated. I cant wait to read the rest of this series.