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Ship of Magic by Robin Hobb
Dec. 8th, 2024 09:27 pmI finished it!
I really thought I'd be reading this until the end of the year because it's such a thick book. Despite its length, it's not a daunting read at all. The story maintains a consistent pace and it never got too slow. It really feels as if every scene serves a purpose - whether to set the story in motion or to allow us to get to know the characters. I could see it benefiting from some trimming but even with it's current length, I would still say it's great as it is.
The latter half of the book really ups the ante. It starts to feel like a more mature book. It's easy to summarize it as a novel about ships and pirates but that really fails to capture the depth of the book's themes. Wintrow's journey is especially poignant, oftentimes heart-wrenching and seemingly hopeless. I can't help but hope that he comes out in the end as fundamentally unchanged in his love and faith. This seems a tall order since he is set to come face-to-face with Kennit, one of the most vile characters in the novel. There is no doubt that an even bigger change is going to happen to Wintrow.
There isn't much that I can deduce from what little is relayed about the serpents but that makes them more intriguing. I am looking forward the next installment in the series and what it says about the cryptic serpents and their relationship to liveships (or just Vivacia?).
Overall, this really made me fall in love with Fantasy as a genre. I've avoided it for so long because I had the mistaken impression that it would be juvenile. I am clearly very wrong since the Ship of Magic is able to talk about slavery, family and faith without diluting it while still having an entertaining story line.
I really thought I'd be reading this until the end of the year because it's such a thick book. Despite its length, it's not a daunting read at all. The story maintains a consistent pace and it never got too slow. It really feels as if every scene serves a purpose - whether to set the story in motion or to allow us to get to know the characters. I could see it benefiting from some trimming but even with it's current length, I would still say it's great as it is.
The latter half of the book really ups the ante. It starts to feel like a more mature book. It's easy to summarize it as a novel about ships and pirates but that really fails to capture the depth of the book's themes. Wintrow's journey is especially poignant, oftentimes heart-wrenching and seemingly hopeless. I can't help but hope that he comes out in the end as fundamentally unchanged in his love and faith. This seems a tall order since he is set to come face-to-face with Kennit, one of the most vile characters in the novel. There is no doubt that an even bigger change is going to happen to Wintrow.
There isn't much that I can deduce from what little is relayed about the serpents but that makes them more intriguing. I am looking forward the next installment in the series and what it says about the cryptic serpents and their relationship to liveships (or just Vivacia?).
Overall, this really made me fall in love with Fantasy as a genre. I've avoided it for so long because I had the mistaken impression that it would be juvenile. I am clearly very wrong since the Ship of Magic is able to talk about slavery, family and faith without diluting it while still having an entertaining story line.
