I Read Books: Ship Of Magic
Robin Hobb followed up her Farseer Trilogy with The Liveship Traders, set in the same world. The Farseer Trilogy ended with a substance, skill-stone, being vital to the conclusion. This series has a related yet very different substance, wizardwood. You can build a ship from wizardwood and after three generations of the family who own it die on deck, the ship comes alive (speaking through the figurehead).
Wizardwood is rare and expensive and a monopoly of the Bingtown Traders. Their independence is threatened as their nominal overlord the Satrap has given permission for new settlers. Their economy is threatened by spreading slavery. But this is mostly about the Liveship Vivacia and people who have an interest in it. These include members of the Vestrit family. Althea the daughter of the captain who died on her deck to awaken it is cut out as new captain by her brother-in-law, who forces his son to stop his studies to be a priest to go on the ship (a blood relative is a requirement for Liveships, maybe). There’s also the landbound members of the family, who owe the Rainwild Traders for the wizardwood, and Captain Kennit, a pirate who seems to be destined to be king of the Pirate Isles, and wants a Liveship of his own.
Also going on is a cursed Liveship, blind and hauled out on the beach, a mysterious wood carver named Amber, the former mate of the Vivacia (a disgraced Trader's son) and the sea serpents, once legends, and who are not the mindless mankillers everyone thinks.
As is always the case with Hobb, characters make bad decisions and refuse to back down. They don’t talk to each other and when they do they don’t listen to each other and even when they do they refuse to accept any of the other person’s points. Althea refuses to accept her brother in law Kyle Haven can be captain of the Vivacia as she is blood-family and sailed on her for years. Kyle quite rightly makes the case that she isn’t experienced enough to be captain, and (less rightly) women shouldn’t and can’t be sailors and captains. And they never sit down to discuss it, just storm off and yell at each other, and if they did sit down then they still wouldn’t agree.
It’s going to take murder and piracy and revolution and revelation and two more books in the trilogy to resolve the issues.
Read This: For a slightly dark fantasy adventure about pirates and traders
Don’t Read This: If following half a dozen people down paths that inevitably get darker and that they really ought to know better, with magic ships, seems too much
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