Mad Ship: 2 (Liveship Traders Trilogy) - Softcover

Hobb, Robin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0553575643 ISBN 13: 9780553575644

Publisher: Spectra, 2000

Synopsis

"A truly extraordinary saga . . . The characterizations are consistently superb, and [Hobb] animates everything with love for and knowledge of the sea."--Booklist

As the ancient tradition of Bingtown's Old Traders slowly erodes under the cold new order of a corrupt ruler, the Vestrits anxiously await the return of their liveship--a rare magic ship carved from sentient wizardwood, which bonds the ships mystically with those who sail them. And Althea Vestrit waits even more avidly, living only to reclaim the ship as her lost inheritance and captain her on the high seas.

But the Vivacia has been seized by the ruthless pirate captain Kennit, who holds Althea's nephew and his father hostage. Althea and her onetime sea mate Brashen resolve to liberate the liveship--but their plan may prove more dangerous than leaving the Vivacia in Kennit's ambitious grasp.

Praise for Robin Hobb and the Liveship Traders Trilogy

"Fantasy as it ought to be written . . . Robin Hobb's books are diamonds in a sea of zircons."--George R. R. Martin

"A major work of high fantasy, reading like a cross between Tolkien and Patrick O'Brian . . . one of the finest fantasy sagas to bridge the millennium."--Publishers Weekly

"Rich, complex . . . [Hobb's] plotting is complex but tightly controlled, and her descriptive powers match her excellent visual imagination. But her chief virtue is that she delineates character extremely well."--Interzone

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:

Praise for Robin Hobb and the Liveship Traders Trilogy

"Fantasy as it ought to be written . . . Robin Hobb's books are diamonds in a sea of zircons."--George R. R. Martin

"A truly extraordinary saga . . . The characterizations are consistently superb, and [Hobb] animates everything with love for and knowledge of the sea."--Booklist

"A major work of high fantasy, reading like a cross between Tolkien and Patrick O'Brian . . . one of the finest fantasy sagas to bridge the millennium."--Publishers Weekly

"Rich, complex . . . [Hobb's] plotting is complex but tightly controlled, and her descriptive powers match her excellent visual imagination. But her chief virtue is that she delineates character extremely well."--Interzone

About this edition

• Publisher: Spectra
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0553575643
• ISBN 13: 9780553575644
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 864