The Mad Ship : Book 2 of The Liveship Traders - Hardcover

Hobb, Robin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0002254794 ISBN 13: 9780002254793

Publisher: Harper Voyager, 1999

Synopsis

The magic and mayhem continue in this thrilling second instalment of Hobb’s new series.

Althea Vestrit has found a new home aboard the liveship Ophelia, but she lives only to reclaim the Vivacia as her rightful inheritance. However, the Vivacia has been captured by the pirate, ‘King’ Kennit, and is acquiring a keen bloodlust. Meanwhile in Bingtown, the fading fortunes of the Vestrit family lead Malta deeper into the magical secrets of the mysterious Rain Wilds Traders. And just outside Bingtown, Amber dreams of relaunching the Paragon, The Mad Ship...

The second volume in this superb trilogy from the author of THE FARSEER TRILOGY continues the dramatic tale of piracy, serpents, love and, above all, magic.

About this title

Review:

In Ship of Magic, Robin Hobb introduced us to the Bingtown traders and their comfortable world, just at the point where it starts to fall apart, a process which accelerates in this second book of the Liveship Traders series. Slavery and slave trading have come into fashion, and the old trading alliance with the strangely disfigured colonists of the Rain Wilds is falling apart. Their distant overlords in Jamailla are making demands of tribute and a slavery hating pirate captain has ambitions of his own. Hobbs' characters are complex and usually attractive; her sense of the conflicts that arise between imperfect goods is sophisticated. Above all, she shows a capacity for sympathy in unlikely places--Kennit, the pirate who constantly tries to deny that he has a conscience; Althea, who will sacrifice almost everything to her desire to get back control of the family ship; the ships themselves, intelligent beings whose grace and charm hide the fact that they are the victims of a crime nonetheless gross for being inadvertent. Like the Assassin trilogy before it, the Liveship Traders books take us to a world of beauty and strangeness, where actions plausibly have terrible consequences. --Roz Kaveney

Review:

Ship of Magic

‘Promises to be a truly extraordinary saga... the characterizations are consistently superb, and [Hobb] animates everything with love for and knowledge of the sea. If Patrick O’Brian were to turn to writing high fantasy, he might produce something like this.’
BOOKLIST

‘A wonderful book, written by a writer at the height of her abilities’
J V Jones

Assassin’s Apprentice

‘A gleaming debut’
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

Royal Assassin

‘Hobb continues to revitalize a genre that often seems all too generic, making it new in ways that range from the subtle to the deeply shocking...’
LOCUS

Assassin’s Quest

‘Assassin’s Quest achieves a bittersweet, powerful complexity rare in fantasy’
LOCUS

‘An enthralling conclusion to this superb trilogy, displaying an exceptional combination of originality, magic, adventure, character, and drama’
KIRKUS REVIEWS

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Voyager
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0002254794
• ISBN 13: 9780002254793
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 688