Reviews - Ship of Magic | The StoryGraph

4.46k reviews for:

Ship of Magic

Robin Hobb

4.26 AVERAGE

halftimelord's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous dark sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I had very high hopes for Ship of Magic after reading the Farseer trilogy last year, and at first I thought this wasn't going to match up - it took me a while to get into the ideas (talking boats?) and warm to the characters. Once I did though (which was a fair way through) I couldn't put it down!

Hobb writes brilliant, believable characters and relationships, and I can't wait to read the rest of this trilogy and find out what terrible things await them!

Content Warnings

colesuds's review against another edition

4.0

Some random on Twitter listed Robin Hobb as one of his favorite authors and I thought her writing sounded up my alley. Totally true! I love the world of the Liveship Traders. This audiobook was 35 hours and I had to borrow it from the library twice to finish it! Totally worth it. Super fun concept, great writing. Love the characters, no one is perfect. I love the ships.

lamergirl's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: N/A

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

The rage Hobb is able to stir in me with her antagonists is literally off the charts.

My reading of this book can be boiled down to:
WHAT THE F*CK IS UP, KYLE? NO, WHAT DID YOU SAY? WHAT THE F*CK, DUDE?? STEP THE F*CK UP, KYLE!!!

armandmartell's review against another edition

5.0

25/4 update increased my original 4-star rating to 5 because i think it's well deserved. liveship traders you will always be famous.

really good and fast-paced if you compare ship of magic to the first one of the farseer trilogy. robin hobb’s improvement in her writing and characterisation is obvious, and reading a book written by her in 3rd person narrator with multi-povs was exactly what i wanted. ship of magic is an amazing introduction for the new trilogy, establishing the main cast (which you get to know very well) and the plot that is going to be expanded in the next ones. there is a lot going on since the very beginning, we follow many members of the same family of merchants and a pirate, each one with their own individual conflicts and goals. the worldbuilding is great and unique, and very interesting.

apart from the narrative style, the thing that is evidently different from farseer is the introduction of a large cast of characters, each of them with their own point of view chapters and we, as readers, get to be in their heads, listen to their thoughts, and see through their eyes for a while. this is one thing i wished was done in farseer (i would have paid to have kettricken, verity and patience povs in certain points of the story). because of this, you get to know their motivations very quickly, you get familiar with them and can easily imagine how they are going to react to a certain situation, or how they feel towards the conflicts they are facing. i like this a lot, and i like it even more that in this trilogy we follow characters that end up meeting in the end, crossing paths and having to work together.

overall, i liked it a lot! maybe it is because i felt more connected to fitz and his life story, but i kind of still like assassin’s apprentice better, which i think is a bit of an unpopular opinion. i think liveship traders is very promising and the ending has opened so many questions and interesting plotlines that i can hardly wait to pick up the next book.