Had they been a fiddle and bow, she reflected, he would have smashed them together over and over again, demanding that they make music.
Following on from Robin Hobb’s Farseer Trilogy, Ship of Magic makes it clear right away that this new series is going to be very different. It’s a deeper, broader, braver narrative, and while I held some trepidation at the start, Hobb once again managed to suck me in by the end. Bold is the word I’d use to describe this novel. It takes more risks than the Farseer Trilogy, and while I’d say it stumbles more often as a result, it also succeeds in ways Hobb’s previous novels weren’t able to. The gambles are worth it. Though I was left with more criticisms this time around, the praise I have for the novel more than makes up for it.
The first new change hits us right off the bat; rather than a single viewpoint character, we rapidly cycle through five different perspectives within the first few chapters. By the end of the novel, this number expands to more than ten. Initially, this threw me off. I’m never a fan of stories that have to start multiple times over before the threads start to converge. Thankfully, we’re not left waiting for long. Hobb swiftly draws almost all of her characters together into one central narrative that follows the liveship Vivacia, a magically animated trading ship with a mind of its own. The lore surrounding the liveships is fascinating, yet it’s the human conflict binding Vivacia to the Vestrit merchant family that forms the heart of this novel. We follow several of the Vestrits, all with their own motivations and flaws, along with a handful of side characters whose storylines crisscross over the course of the narrative. It’s hard to talk about favourite characters this time, because I liked all of them. From the hard-nosed matriarch of the Vestrit clan to the heartless pirate captain whose luck somehow turns him into a folk hero, I was gripped by their stories from start to finish.
Two characters do deserve special mention, though. The liveships Vivacia and Paragon, a bright new vessel and a traumatised old husk, both get several chapters from their perspectives, and they’re among the most fascinating in the book. There’s something simultaneously childlike and ancient about the liveships, beautiful yet tragic. I adore novels that cultivate empathy with alien perspectives, and Ship of Magic handles this brilliantly. It’s another testament to Hobb’s fantastic character development that she manages to pull off such a consistently strong cast while still managing to have a couple of unique stand-outs.
Another thing that impressed me was how quickly I got emotionally invested in the story. Almost all the viewpoint characters are intensely passionate about something, and within a few chapters, that passion is either challenged or ripped away from them. This puts everyone on distinct paths centred around the plot of the liveship, none of which feel tertiary or superfluous. I was as invested in the Vestrit matriarch trying to manage her estate as I was her pious grandson butting heads with his cruel father, questioning whether I should be rooting for the pirate captain or praying for his downfall, groaning at the selfish whims of the family’s youngest daughter, and heartbroken at the tragedies that befell the liveships.
This does lead to my one complaint with the story. Emotionally gripping though it is, the effect is mostly achieved by having the characters stumble into tragedy after tragedy. Towards the end of the novel, this risked compromising my investment as the misfortunes started to become routine. As much as I love a good harrowing ordeal, it’s important to contrast the bleak with the uplifting so the reader doesn’t become numb to a character’s plight. One particular sequence had me predicting an entire string of tragedies as soon as the first hint of them came to light, because by that point, it was expected. This dulled a lot of my investment in the subsequent sequence, and at times made it feel like we were retreading the same story beats. There’s only so much you can grind down a character before it feels rote.
That being said, this wasn’t enough of a problem to overshadow my enjoyment of the book. With so many intense storylines unfolding, the pacing is never dull. When reading the Farseer Trilogy, I occasionally felt the drag of Fitz’s journey, but with such a full bag of characters to juggle this time around, there’s barely any time for padding. Despite being almost as long as Assassin’s Quest, this novel flew by, and the ending set up a new hook that left me ravenous to start the next novel. It’s clear this time around that Hobb set out to write a sprawling trilogy from the start. Ship of Magic is very much the setup, and while there are loose conclusions to some minor story threads, most are left wide open.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book despite its faults, perhaps more so than Assassin’s Apprentice. If the rest of the trilogy keeps up the pace, it might well become a new favourite of mine. It’s bolder, braver, more ambitious, and a touch messier as a result, yet the payoffs are worth it.
Kelly River 