Call of the Bone Ships

We need more nautical fantasy. RJ Barker has certainly found a niche where fantasy is under served with this series. His creativity in his creatures is matched by his brilliant world building and relationships between the crew members on the Tide Child.

Fantasy is at its best when it manages to be both huge and small at the same time - epic drama but focused in on a small tight nit group. A boat is almost the perfect setting for this as the crew provides the ‘found family' closeness whilst the ocean provides a vastness and scale.

Call of the Bone Ships is an excellent second outing. Following the character development of Joron in the first book we are presented with a much more competent and confident ship officer as our main protagonist. This allows the focus to switch to some of the larger political machinations at play in the world. There is not really a sense of second book malaise that sometimes affects trilogies - this book is confident and has a proper drive to it, always feeling more than a mere stepping stone to the finale. The stakes are rising and the real peril and risk is always underlying. RJ is not frightened of killing of important characters and it really adds to the sense of drama and brutality to the setting

As you can probably tell I thoroughly enjoyed this. High quality fantasy that deserves its increasing recognition!