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A review by ohmage_resistance
The Bone Ships by RJ Barker
adventurous
tense
slow-paced
This book was pretty decent, but I think I liked Gods of the Wyrdwood more.
The real strength of this book is the worldbuilding. Most of the world is covered in ocean, with islands poking out, which are constantly at war with one another. There's no trees (and therefore no wood) to make boats out, so people make ships out of the bones of sea dragons. It also seems like childbirth is really common in this world (infertility, stillbirths, deformities, and deaths of mothers are all really common). Instead of talking this a sort of Handmaid's Tale direction, Barker decided that this culture would highly value women who gave birth multiple times without their children having any deformities, and that they would be political leaders as well. This wasn't a huge focus (most of the book is spent on an isolated boat away from any island), but that matriarchal attitude does carry through some wordchoice and stuff like that (people will say "women and men" instead of "men and women", etc).
That being said, I do have a few critiques of the worldbuilding. In a world where sea dragon bone is really rare, and therefore ships are really valuable, it feels very odd to me that the culture would just put a bunch of convicts on a ship to die with basically no oversight. Like, that seems like a really great way to loose a ship as people defect. Even if that ship is seen as unlucky, it's worth something. The culture also practices a lot of child sacrifice for good luck, but they specifically sacrifice firstborn children without deformities whose mothers survived their birth. I know it's religion and all, so it's not going to be super practical, but still, if abled bodied adults from good bloodlines seem relatively rare, why would you sacrifice those children (I'm not pro child sacrifice at all obviously, it just seems illogical and kind of gives me mixed messages about how difficult childbirth is actually on this world. Like how common is it for a woman to become bern?). This isn't a criticism, but I'll also note that the main culture is pretty ableist, as you might be able to tell from the previous paragraph, although disabled people are common.
The main downside to the book is that the author comes across as being a little bit too in love with his worldbuilding in the first part of the book, and by that I mean that the pacing is really slow and the focus is on the worldbuilding at the expense of the plot. (I thought that Gods of the Wyrdwood didn't have this issue at all, which is why I liked it better). IDKl, if you're really into navel fantasy specifically, I can see this not bothering you, but if you have low patience for that sort of thing, know that going in. Even when the plot starts, it's a lot of sea battles and stuff, which didn't quite totally grab me (I don't think I"m that into navel fantasy, ngl).
The characters grew on me over the course of the book. I liked Joron's development from being kind of a directionless drunk to being a good first mate in his crew. I liked Meas's character, although she was a little distant, and the Guillaume and Farys were probably my two favorites.
I will probably continue reading this series at some point (especially because I think the other books will probably have better pacing if they're a bit more chill on getting worldbuilding info across), but I'm not in a huge hurry to do it.
The real strength of this book is the worldbuilding. Most of the world is covered in ocean, with islands poking out, which are constantly at war with one another. There's no trees (and therefore no wood) to make boats out, so people make ships out of the bones of sea dragons. It also seems like childbirth is really common in this world (infertility, stillbirths, deformities, and deaths of mothers are all really common). Instead of talking this a sort of Handmaid's Tale direction, Barker decided that this culture would highly value women who gave birth multiple times without their children having any deformities, and that they would be political leaders as well. This wasn't a huge focus (most of the book is spent on an isolated boat away from any island), but that matriarchal attitude does carry through some wordchoice and stuff like that (people will say "women and men" instead of "men and women", etc).
That being said, I do have a few critiques of the worldbuilding. In a world where sea dragon bone is really rare, and therefore ships are really valuable, it feels very odd to me that the culture would just put a bunch of convicts on a ship to die with basically no oversight. Like, that seems like a really great way to loose a ship as people defect. Even if that ship is seen as unlucky, it's worth something. The culture also practices a lot of child sacrifice for good luck, but they specifically sacrifice firstborn children without deformities whose mothers survived their birth. I know it's religion and all, so it's not going to be super practical, but still, if abled bodied adults from good bloodlines seem relatively rare, why would you sacrifice those children (I'm not pro child sacrifice at all obviously, it just seems illogical and kind of gives me mixed messages about how difficult childbirth is actually on this world. Like how common is it for a woman to become bern?). This isn't a criticism, but I'll also note that the main culture is pretty ableist, as you might be able to tell from the previous paragraph, although disabled people are common.
The main downside to the book is that the author comes across as being a little bit too in love with his worldbuilding in the first part of the book, and by that I mean that the pacing is really slow and the focus is on the worldbuilding at the expense of the plot. (I thought that Gods of the Wyrdwood didn't have this issue at all, which is why I liked it better). IDKl, if you're really into navel fantasy specifically, I can see this not bothering you, but if you have low patience for that sort of thing, know that going in. Even when the plot starts, it's a lot of sea battles and stuff, which didn't quite totally grab me (I don't think I"m that into navel fantasy, ngl).
The characters grew on me over the course of the book. I liked Joron's development from being kind of a directionless drunk to being a good first mate in his crew. I liked Meas's character, although she was a little distant, and the Guillaume and Farys were probably my two favorites.
I will probably continue reading this series at some point (especially because I think the other books will probably have better pacing if they're a bit more chill on getting worldbuilding info across), but I'm not in a huge hurry to do it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Death, Violence, Xenophobia, War
Moderate: Ableism, Suicidal thoughts, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Child death, Domestic abuse, Infertility, Rape
Ableism is more apart of the worldbuilding than something the narrative endorces, but it's there.
Child death is due to child sacrifice for in-world reasons.