We were stuck in Fitz’s head (in first person, no less) for the entirely of the Farseer trilogy, but here, if one narrator was irritating or infuriating, we would move onto the next. We follow multiple POVs, and that worked so well here, really giving insight into the world and the cultures. The Vestrit family’s liveship is named Vivacia, and the real story here kicks off as she quickens upon the death of the family patriarch, Ephron Vestrit. The big thing with trader families is Wizardwood, a magical wood that can quicken into life, and when ships are made out of them, the ships come alive, too (after three members of the same family die while aboard). The people who live directly on the river are physically altered, such that they cover themselves with veils when entering polite society. The magic in the area means beautiful things exist there, but also things like blood plagues born of magic, and one out of four human pregnancies endigh with a non-human baby being born. Most of our main characters are part of the Vestrit family, who are traders living in the Rain Wilds, an area rife with danger and magic that ancient trader families survived, largely by working together and living by a strict code.

Not only do they have different cultural values, but our characters live in a place that is very alien in comparison to the rest of the world they inhabit. Ship of Magic is set in the same world as the Farseer books, but feels like it takes place in another one entirely (the characters make note of the culture that Fitz lives in, and they are hilariously contemptuous of them). I have honestly not been this emotionally engaged with an epic fantasy series in a very long time. Which is not a feeling I have ever experienced with Robin Hobb’s books before! I then went and bought the stupidly expensive paperbacks ($27 for a paperback!!! What!) because I just want to be able to zoom through the story and not have to listen to thirty-five hours of audiobook. Ironically, I went into those books fully expecting to love them.īut much to my surprise, and despite the book having quite a strange audiobook narrator (I never quite clicked with her, but listening was still oddly satisfying? very hard to describe), the more I listened to the book, the more I wanted to listen to the book, and by the end I had this desperate need to just find.

This is because I did not end up liking the Farseer Trilogy very much at all, for a variety of reasons (despite having rated the first book in that series four stars, which I should honestly revisit and lower). I will be honest, I went into this book with as open a mind as I could muster, but I did not really expect to like it that much.

Ship of magic trilogy