This second installment in the trilogy reveals the connections among liveships, the wizardwood used to build them, the sea serpents and the legendary Rain dragons. And in Bingtown, Wintrow's bratty sister, Malta, finally starts growing up when her family and town face ruin and she must take refuge in the Rain Wild forests. In spite of his peg leg, Kennit is a charismatic leader, with a genius for manipulation that his mistress Etta and his prisoner Wintrow Vestrit (Althea's nephew) seem ready to mistake for virtue. Meanwhile, Vivacia is enjoying a prosperous career as the flagship of pirate Captain Kennit. She is a very human character who has her share of doubts as she undertakes to assemble a motley crew of allies (including her former lover, Brashen Trell) to take the blind, insane liveship Paragone to sea in search of the Vestrit family's liveship Vivacia. Protagonist Althea Vestrit is neither unrealistically beautiful nor mindlessly dauntless. The second book (after Ship of Magic) in Hobbs's Liveship Traders trilogy solidifies the series's promise as a major work of high fantasy, reading like a cross between Tolkein and Patrick O'Brian. “Imaginative and compelling.”- Library Journalĭon’t miss the magic of the Liveship Traders Trilogy: 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. And Althea Vestrit waits even more avidly, living only to reclaim the ship as her lost inheritance and captain her on the high seas.īut the Vivacia has been seized by the ruthless pirate captain Kennit, who holds Althea’s nephew and his father hostage. reads like a cross between Tolkien and Patrick O’Brian.”- Publishers WeeklyĪs 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. The second novel in Robin Hobb’s beloved Liveship Traders Trilogy

Mad ship trilogy