Ship of Destiny (The Liveship Traders #3)

The Liveship Traders trilogy is an epic piece of storytelling by Robin Hobb. I was completely enthralled by all three books. Despite how long and complex this story is, there are very few slow, boring parts. I even enjoyed the discourse of the sea serpents (I’ll admit I’m a very patient reader). The first book, Ship of Magic, was my favorite because of the way in which the story unfolded quickly and unexpectedly. Mad Ship and Ship of Destiny were slower to develop and were more predictable but were excellent nevertheless.

However, I have some criticism. Stop here and come back later if you haven’t finished the series.

The character of Kennit was flawed in my opinion. Throughout the story, he oscillates between being a scheming, greedy, cutthroat pirate and a wise, gentle philanthropist. You never know whether you should hate him or love him. Will he eventually fall into the flames of a moral abyss? Or will he ascend as a selfless hero? Well, in the end, he’s a raping, malicious thug consumed by his primal lust and abused childhood. I expected him to die a harrowing, morbid death to pay for his evil deeds. Instead, he dies rather instantly and stupidly by accidentally taking a sword for the Satrap while trying to steal him back from the Jamaillians. Worse still, his name becomes honored as the sage king who sacrificed himself. Boo!

Just as bad is the role of Kyle Haven. He’s a controlling tyrant who blames everyone else for the consequences of his own stupid, greedy decisions. His son Wintrow understandably hates him and never thinks twice when Kennit exiles him in chains. But why didn’t Kennit just kill him? Why leave him on that island with his mother? Well, you would think it’s because Hobb is saving him for a critical cog in the plotline, but what happens? Inexplicably, Kennit’s mother takes him with her to “the showdown”, and then while all the fighting is going on, he gets killed incidentally by indiscriminate enemy arrows. Pardon the pun, but what was the point? Moreover, throughout the second and third books, Malta (a teenager and the only one who loves Kyle) dreads and grieves over the unknown fate of her father, but she never reunites with him, and when she learns of his death, she callously shrugs it off and goes about her business of deftly negotiating a truce between the warring factions. Weird.

One more picky point. Throughout the story, the Rain Wilders are depicted as being so grotesque they have to wear veils and gloves to not shock others. But at the end, Reyn and Malta are depicted as “exotic”, with their scales being considered attractive and the Jamaillians taking up fashion that mimics their look. Strange?? It never was clear to me why the Rain Wilders had to be scaly, anyway.

Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed the ride through this adventure, and I liked the way it all settled out in the “D-day” episode. I think the Liveship Traders is better than the Farseer trilogy (which had quite a wimpy ending).

I was reluctant to read this series for years but I finally did because I’ve read so many reviews that said this trilogy was Robin Hobb’s best. I have to disagree. She reached for a big, sweeping epic and lost her way at the final leg of journey – kind of like a dragon trying to reach the spawning grounds and failing.

Hobb’s expertise lies in creating distinctive and vivid characters and involved political plot lines. There are four different geographies in play: rainwilds, bing town, Pirate isles and jamaillia. There are different people factions: rainwilds, bing town traders, new town traders, the tatooed, the three ship families, pirates, Chalced mercenaries, the Satrop and his companions not to mention dragon and serpents. Then we have the politics from large to small: internal civil war in Jamaillia, aggression from Chalced, the maneuvering of the Bingtown factions, the relationship of the rainwilds with the rest of the world, the unification of the pirate isles and the impact that dragons may have on everything. Then we have the personal stories and interpersonal conflict between key families. That’s a lot of moving parts and pieces.

Book three begins with most characters in chaos. Bing town is destroyed. The Vestrit family is beleaguered and rumored to be traitors to the traders. Malta, the self centered and selfish girl is in a desperate situation – she must learn to think of others or die. Althea, a doggedly singleminded person incapable of truly imagining the hopes and dreams of others must face a future that might be different from the one she always thought she wanted. Athea and Etta have put their hopes and identities into thier loves – Althea a ship and Etta a man. But what happens when that need for love is not reciprocated? Will the pirate King Kennit achieve his dreams and who will he sacrifice to get what he wants. Will we ever know what truly drives him? Wintro has given his heart and loyalty to Kennit. Will that blind him to Kennit’s ruthlessness and turn him from the compassion of Sa? The dragon and her serpents are desperate to reach the turning grounds, but the serpents grow weak and the way is blocked. Tintinaglia cannot find and safeguard the serpents on her own. Will she be able to compel humans to aid her? What’s really up with Amber? What’s the deal with Kennit’s wizardwood charm?

Hobb’s story gets ever more rich as she creates such distinctive places and people. The storyline is complicated, but you could feel the build up. But in the last 20% of the book, It is like Hobb jumped on a dragon’s back to fly through the rest of the story. A huge political tangle is solved in a few meetings. Suddenly characters that were too dense to know themselves or others for three books suddenly saw the light. I know that is somewhat Hobb’s style. She builds up tension and then when the dam bursts everything rushes to conclusion. But some of the conclusions are wholly unsatisfactory. Why did she keep Kyle alive for book 3? We learned so much about Wintro’s struggle with his life and his relationship with Kennit. But he is basically another Soccor at the end…a first mate to his own story and his own ethics. The story introduces us to the reintroduction of dragons to the world….but skips over the story and goes right to the ‘happily ever after’ end.

Certainly there are a lot of loose ends to leave plenty of room for news books, but after such derailed story telling, this seems like the author got bored and just decided to end it.

SPOILER below……

For those of you who know another identity for Amber, I struggled with her role here. She seemed to be the catalyst here. It was she who tamed Paragon, she who provided the funds to buy him, she that created the spy network of slaves, etc. At first I thought it was Paragon that was the catalyst to choose a different identity for himself, but in all honesty, nearly every character became someone else. Etta the whore-queen. Wintro the priest-pirate. Brashen the screw up-captain. Keffria the passive mouse-ambassador and leader. The ones that died didn’t change. While I LOVE the Fool, here his machinations take away from the story for me. On one hand it shows how hard it is to choose the path that will change the world, but on another, it feels like telling the Fool’s story through a veil…that all the other characters and plot lines exist so you can get glimpses of the prophet’s story.

Was I happy about the Liveship Traders saga? Yes I was! The proof in the pudding was simply for me that I had hard time putting any of these 3 books down.
Was I fully satisfied? Mostly because she did a good job providing a suitable ending yet, there was a sudden rush towards the end of the book to get there. It is as if she was still cruising in her story and suddenly was told to finish with the last 30 pages.
So she did not leave much stone unturned but in the same time, considering how long the saga was, the ending felt a bit rushed…

A satisfying conclusion to the Liveship Traders Trilogy. This is one of my favorite stories, and made immeasurably better since I have started reading the in order. The Assassin’s Trilogy flowed into the Liveship’s and made sense of all the things that had confused me the first time I read the Liveship Trilogy. I confess I have a weakness for dragons. To bad I can’t have one for myself 🙁

If you’re reading a review on Hobbs’ final book of this series I’m sure you need no introduction to this wondrous story. I encourage you to follow on and wrap up on this glorious tale of talking figureheads and sea serpents traversing the Cursed Shores.

However you might wonder as to why only 4 stars?

Well I’ve noticed Hobb ends her books in a sort of weak manner. This holds true for her Royal Assassin series also which again consists of 3 books. She sets us out following a harrowing journey with major plots to be completed with everything travelling at a rapid tense pace leaving the reader craving more and nore approaching the terminus until BAMN everything slows.

You feel like you know everything that’s needed but there’s still a hundred plus pages left and you don’t even feel like making it through even though you’ve eagerly gobbled up the first 2000 or so pages over the series (page measurement approximate by Kindle standard)

For this reason I can only give 4 stars.

Galaxyaudiobook Member Benefit

- Able to comment

- List watched audiobooks

- List favorite audiobooks

- Bookmark will only available for Galaxyaudiobook member