Ship of Destiny
Ratings51
Average rating4.4
4.25 out of 5 stars – see this review and others at The Speculative Shelf.
Ship of Destiny shows the convergence of 10+ main characters and their storylines, which was mostly satisfying, but sometimes felt muddled because of how many moving pieces were suddenly occupying the same space. Nevertheless, author Robin Hobb has built an incredible world with a boatload of characters, all of whom, no matter how small, have important roles to play in the end.
I loved the addition of Tintaglia the dragon and just the overall direction that dragon-kind appears to be taking in the long-term series — having the creatures be intelligent instead of beast-like is always my preference. Hobb writes Tintaglia in a way that makes you believe her to be more enlightened and significant than any mere human we've come across so far. Not every writer can successfully cultivate that voice.
After two novels of carefully plotted set-up, Ship of Destiny delivers an action-packed conclusion to what was a wonderfully epic trilogy. The final book of the preceding Farseer trilogy meandered about until everything was tied up at the very end, but Ship of Destiny balances the payoffs to hit evenly throughout the course of the book. Overall, the whole of the story feels greater than the sum of its individual book parts and the Liveship saga is an absolute feat of storytelling. On to the Tawny Man trilogy!
I couldn't seem to put this book down. It is very imaginative and captivating. The world-building and magic are excellent. Robin Hobb does excellent character work. You really hate the bad guys but also have sympathy for them. No one is all bad or all good in these books.
I do caution that there is a lot of violence, sexual assault and it is very dark.
Robin Hobb is amazing at ending her stories. This book took me a while to get through because i was so nervous about how it would end and also not wanting it to end. But wow that ending was amazing.
Cant wait to get my copy of Fools Errand.
This is how you finish a trilogy: setup the story and characters in the first two books and then concentrate on wrapping up the plot for the finale. As with the first two books, a strong feature is the way the characters develop over the course of the story, however this doesn’t get in the way of action. I’d say this was Sanderson-esque in its conclusion, but that is not really fair as Hobb published first. Having not been overly wowed by the Farseer Trilogy, the Liveship Traders trilogy has given me a new found appreciation for Robin Hobb.
It's hard to put it all into words without using spoiler tags everywhere, but safe to say that everything that made me love The Mad Ship continues into this one. Absolutely loved it.