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Ship of Magic

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What to expect

From the author of the classic Farseer trilogy, Ship of Magic is the first part of the Liveship Traders. Set in a land bordering the Six Duchies, Robin Hobb begins her epic of pirates, talking ships, magic, sea serpents, slave revolts, dashing heroes and bloody battles.

Wizardwood, a sentient wood. The most precious commodity in the world. Like many legendary wares, it comes only from the Rain River Wilds.

But how can one trade with the Rain Wilders, when only a liveship, fashioned from wizardwood, can negotiate the perilous waters of the Rain River? Rare and valuable, a liveship will quicken only when three members, from successive generations, have died on board. The liveship Vivacia is about to undergo her quickening, as Althea Vestrit’s father is carried on deck in his death-throes. Althea waits for the ship that she loves more than anything else in the world to awaken. Only to discover that the Vivacia has been signed away in her father’s will to her brutal brother-in-law, Kyle Haven. . .

Others plot to win, or steal, a liveship. The Paragon, known by many as the Pariah, went mad, turned turtle and drowned his crew. Now he lies, blind, lonely and broken on a deserted beach. But greedy men have designs to restore him, to sail the waters of the Rain Wild River once more.

Critics Review

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'Hobb is one of the great modern fantasy writers… what makes her novels as addictive as morphine is not just their imaginative brilliance but the way her characters are compromised and manipulated by politics.'
The Times

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Assassin's Apprentice:
'A gleaming debut'
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

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Assassin's Quest:
'Assassin's Quest achieves a bittersweet, powerful complexity rare in fantasy' LOCUS

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'Robin Hobb writes achingly well'
SFX

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Praise for The Liveship Traders series:
'Even better than the Assassin books. I didn't think that was possible'
George R R Martin

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'Hobb is a remarkable storyteller.'
Guardian

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User Reviews

Book 4.1
Narration 2.1
3.0
1.0
Agree with others - don't bother getting this as an audiobook, the quality is insanely bad. The paragraphs are frequently cut off awkwardly, it's very uncomfortable to listen to. A sad continuation after the fantastic narration of the first Robin Hobb trilogy.
Nikita.E.Groot 15/07/2025
5.0
3.0
Thoroughly enjoyed this book that was spoiled by the very bad recording and a fairly poor narration. Words are skipped often spoiling the flow.
amagicdrag0n 16/01/2024
4.0
3.0
A good book. Engaging characters, interesting world, and storylines that pull you in.

A real negative of this title is the actual quality of the audio as the last syllable of a paragraph was often clipped off, which was rather disappointing and took me out of it.
joduncan 04/01/2024
3.0
1.0
Im sure the itself is fine but this narration is intolerable. Monotone and nasally. There were a few bits where the story was enough to distract me from her, but any time the pacing dragged, her voice became torturous. This will likely be a DNF for me
Krumplin 01/10/2023
5.0
1.0
I've had to abandon this audio and read the physical version due to the narrator. There doesn't seem to be any life to the words, and I'm so focused on how much I dislike the reading that I'm not listening to the story.
Lana 11/06/2023
4.0
1.0
Great book, but could not get through this audio narration of it. The narrator sounds like a robot with a cold, and there are odd cuts which make it sound like the audiobook has skipped a paragraph, page or chapter for example the first sentance in the preface does this. Very distracting. Shame as the Robin Hobb collection is amazing.
Christina 08/08/2022
5.0
5.0
hitresa@hotmail.com 05/07/2022

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