So, I’m a little late to the Robin Hobb party. My first experience with her work was when I read the first book and a half of her Soldier Son trilogy, sometime around 2008. I remember thinking the first book was okay, but I bounced pretty hard off of the second, and it left a bad enough taste in my mouth that I didn’t feel any particular need to pick up any of the rest of her works until recently (plus, I now know that this particular trilogy is widely regarded as far from her best). I read her Farseer trilogy (the first of set of series referred to collectively as The Realm of the Elderlings) late last year and enjoyed it (for the most part—the third book dragged on at times) enough to start the next set of books, The Liveship Traders, consisting of Ship of Magic, The Mad Ship, and Ship of Destiny.
The books are set in the same universe as the Farseer trilogy, but in a different part of the world. There’s some crossover between events and characters, but it’s more of an “easter egg” than a major continuation of the series, so I believe these could also be read as a “standalone” series, without reading any of the previous books.
Ship of Magic begins with the imminent death of the patriarch of the Vestrit family of traders. He captains the “liveship” Vivacia, a trading vessel made out of a special wood that will essentially become sentient when he dies upon it. There’s a bit of a Succession-style conflict over who will control the interests of the family (including the ship) and the main players in this struggle are Althea, his youngest daughter; Kyle, husband to his oldest daughter, Keffria, along with their children Malta and Wintrow; Ronica, his widow; and Brashen, his first mate. Also a major player in the world is Captain Kennit, a pirate captain with his own history and motivations related to the liveships.
I think these books are where I finally “get” Robin Hobb. The character work was fantastic and how the various characters evolved over the course of the series was vast yet believable. There were characters that I hated at the beginning of the series that I wouldn’t have expected to love by the end. The major villain of the series was especially well done—they’re truly evil and do despicable things, but the way the character is written and their interactions with the other characters makes them very compelling to read about.
One of my minor complaints about the Farseer trilogy was that at times, it was very slow. Part of this is that it was written in first-person from a single character’s point of view, so there was really only one main storyline to follow throughout. Liveship Traders is much more of an ensemble cast (though certain characters do get more “screentime”), so while the length of the books weren’t any shorter, there were more sideplots that kept the story moving along at a quicker pace.
Next up in this series-of-series for me is the Tawny Man trilogy, which I understand is more of a direct continuation of the Farseer trilogy.
