I Read Books: Ship Of Destiny
The final volume in the Liveship Traders trilogy.
There’s a dragon back in the world, and the awful secret of the origin of the Liveships has been revealed. Bingtown is in chaos, various factions, the Old Traders and the New, the Three Ships Immigrants and the Tattooed former slaves all up in arms, and the threat of invasion from the Chalcedeans stands. The Satrap is missing up the Rain Wild River, Kennit, King of the Pirate Isles, now seems to have mastered the Sea Serpents, the crew of the blind liveship Paragon are chasing him and his liveship Vivacia, now renamed Bolt, and the serpents themselves have their own plans.
There’s a lot going on is what I’m saying.
Everything slowly starts to come together, with characters revealing their secrets, and being placed in newer and worse situations (as in the last book a character is raped). Then in a rush there is a day when the destinies are all tangled at once, and everyone must do what they can to try and save something from the wreckage.
Hobb’s themes are quite explicitly stated; that cycles can keep going that drag us down, or they can be altered to raise us up; and also with a dragon in the world, humans might not be so arrogant, having to share it with an alien but intelligent being. And a couple of other themes too.
Read This: A satisfying end to a high seas fantasy trilogy, the character revelations both inevitable and with unexpected twists, and just slightly enough magic to lift the endings into surprising territory
Don’t Read This: If a huge thick block of sailing and fighting and negotiating is going to annoy you.
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