Ship of Destiny concludes Robin Hobb’s Liveship Traders trilogy. Having committed to the series after enjoying her Farseer books, I finished it—but my reservations from The Mad Ship carried through to the end.
The finale brings together the various plot threads: the Vestrit family drama, Kennit’s pirate ambitions, the serpents’ journey, and the truth about liveships and dragons. Hobb ties things up competently enough, but the journey there continued to frustrate me.
The Mad Ship is the second book in Robin Hobb’s Liveship Traders trilogy. I came to this series after enjoying her Farseer trilogy (though finding it quite depressing), and read all three books in sequence shortly after publication.
The premise of living ships made from dragon cocoons has potential, and Hobb’s world-building remains detailed. However, several aspects didn’t work for me.
The trilogy leans heavily into themes of mental illness and trauma. Characters spend considerable time processing their psychological wounds rather than taking action. If you enjoy character introspection, this may appeal to you. I found it slowed the narrative and made the books feel like they were about suffering rather than adventure.
The author of The Stars Came Back , a Heinlein-esque young-adult work of science fiction with a heft side dose of life philosophy, has a new book Komenagen in that same universe. The title is based off of the Platean society’s rite of passage into adulthood. If you like Heinleinian juveniles, this will scratch that itch.
Elliot Kay’s new book Run Like Hell asks and answers the question: “What is it like to be the monsters when an adventuring party kicks down your front door?”
Although the book is technically game-related literature, it doesn’t have the usual hallmarks of character sheets or explicit rules elements. It’s just set very solidly in the generic fantasy game setting, with the perspective reversed. Gaming fans will have a lot to recognize while finding quite a lot of new and interesting elements from the perspective shift. It’s definitely light reading, and quick at just under 200 pages.
Brandon Sanderson has had a series of stories featuring a character named Legion (real name, Stephen Leeds) whose “superpower” (in a thinly defined world mostly similar to our own, but with science fiction elements) is a form of multiple personality disorder. In essence, he hears voices and sees things, specifically, other people. These “aspects” encapsulate and represent the information and expertise that his own own mind cannot itself contain and represent. Think of them as a coping mechanism for a supergenius.
Port of Shadows occupies a strange place in the chronology of the Black Company; it predates almost all of the history we know, picking the story up after the first book and before the second. The author appears to be numbering it 1.5. Thank god for decimals.
This is not a good place to start the series. Read The Black Company (the first book of the series by the same name) for that.
The 7th book in Evan Currie’s Odyssey One series, this book adds a few new elements to the series that are less than ideal. Still, the writing is good, and the story remains entertaining. There are still space battles, but less exploration.
If you’ve enjoyed the series up to this point, there’s no reason not to continue reading, but I can’t give the series a full thumbs up because of the unnecessary and intrusive virtue signaling. If that continues, and gets more intrusive, I might have to give up on the series; but it’s not there yet. I’m just baffled as to why the author thinks that has any place in the story.
Wearing the Cape is the first book in a rather interesting, if not especially deep, superhero series. As you might expect, the first book is the origin story, but it covers a bit more than that. It’s obvious by the end of the book that we’re not dealing with a comic-book level plot. These heroes have grown-up problems.
It’s worth reading at certain price points. I started the series when it was on Kindle Unlimited, but it’s no longer there, and the books are currently priced at $8 each (about half a traditionally published new release, and roughly the same as an older traditionally published book). The writing and editing merits the price. The length is … less so, as the books usually come in around 200 to 300 pages. I held off on finishing the series for that reason, at least for a while.
The latest in Hamilton’s Anita Blake series, Serpentine continues the series with the planned wedding of “Ted” and Donna. Of course, things never go quite according to plan, and there are the usual supernatural complications that seem to follow Anita whereever she goes. Since we’re talking about book 26 in a series, this is not the place for new readers to start.
Further, we’re talking about a series where the closest thing to a Dark Lord threatening the world was killed off something like 10 books ago. So we’re basically running on fumes and leftover melodrama.
A Wastrel’s Tale is (probably) the first book in a swords and sorcery zombie apocalypse series. The story revolves around a member of an order dedicated to fighting necromancy with the use of arms and specialized magic, yet for decades now there have been but few necromancers. Indeed, only one of any notable talent or skill, and that one in captivity. An ideal condition for a third son who would dearly love to spend his life training, drinking, and wenching, no? Unfortunately, duty is about to call…