varjohaltia | Robin Hobb: The Liveship Traders (Ship of Magic, The Mad Ship, Ship of Destiny)

The Liveship Traders trilogy is set in the same world as the Farseer trilogy, but a later time and different geography. It is a heavily maritime series with traders and pirates and all that. The titular liveships are sailing ships which have been imbued with life; their figureheads are alive, speaking and able to use their hands and representing the ship itself.

The concept, to me, sounds goofy at first blush, but Ms. Hobb pulls it off quite well. Much of what I said for the previous trilogy applies here as well. The maritime slant is interesting and well done, although in general a medieval maritime setting isn't a particularly kind one, and there's little that can be done to make it so. While the conflicts arising from the machinations of man would be plenty, here we encounter non-human entities as well. For a large part they do their things in parallel with the human story line without intersecting too directly.

One of the more interesting and mysterious characters from the Farseer trilogy carries over to this one, and I was hoping to find out more about said character. While featured in the books, virtually nothing of their origin and future is revealed. Instead, Ms. Hobb sets out to further develop an interesting ecology that was hinted at in the Farseer trilogy. Dragons and the ability to imbue inanimate objects with life become close to obsessive fetishes. Even so, the ideas are fascinating and interesting and solidly continue to build the world she started to explore in her previous trilogy. Moral issues are rife for exploration, ecological analogies come to mind, but aren't really followed up.

Unfortunately, as before, the characters we follow seem only tools to allow for exploring the world; their eventual fates remain just as, if not more, unsatisfactory as the protagonists in the Farseer trilogy. The moral and social issues raised and barely tackled and the rounding out of an interesting setting do not come even close to off-setting the disappointment felt as events unfold to their relative conclusion. The non-human story line for most of the series was boring. I found myself barely skimming over those pages, and I don't think I missed much of anything.

One out of five, with a consolation extra star for technical merit.