Ship of Magic

The Liveship Traders, Book 1

By: Robin Hobb

Narrated by: Anne Flosnik

Length: 35 hrs and 20 mins

Publisher's summary

Bingtown is a hub of exotic trade and home to a merchant nobility famed for its liveships---rare vessels carved from wizardwood, which ripens magically into sentient awareness. The fortunes of one of Bingtown's oldest families rest on the newly awakened liveship Vivacia. For Althea Vestrit, the ship is her rightful legacy unjustly denied her---a legacy she will risk anything to reclaim.

For Althea's young nephew Wintrow, wrenched from his religious studies and forced to serve aboard ship, Vivacia is a life sentence. But the fate of the Vestrit family---and the ship---may ultimately lie in the hands of an outsider. The ruthless pirate Kennit seeks a way to seize power over all the denizens of the Pirate Isles...and the first step of his plan requires him to capture his own liveship and bend it to his will.

©1999 Robin Hobb (P)2010 Tantor

Critic reviews

“The characterizations are consistently superb.... Kudos to the author and encore!” ( Booklist, Starred Review)

It was ok

The narrator made it difficult for me to get into the book. As for the story itself, it was interesting, however the entire cast of characters all seem to be grossly lacking common sense. There are several parts of the book where they act so completely idiotic(every single one of them) that you wonder how they all manage to not forget to breath....
I loved the Farseer books, but I just can't enjoy this one. Kennit is the only redeeming part of the story and even he is so simple minded that I wonder how he manages to dress himself in the morning.

forced myself to keep going and was worth it

the narrator at first was not to my taste, but once I got myself to keep going she ended up growing on me. I think the reason most people didn't enjoy the narrator is she was different and did some dragging out of words and the lot. People don't like change and I myself didn't like change but I kept to it and enjoyed it well enough. was worth the listen and am happy with another great story from Robin Hobb

Decent story terrible reading

I cannot listen to this narrator. Her way over the top voices take too much away from the story.

Could get into this more than Fitz & Fool

Not so bogged down in descriptive language; but more complex with multiple threads. Use of familiar stropes such as sapient figureheads, human-sapient ship/dragon bonding, smoothly abusive father/husband, girl as boy-at-sea, etc. actually makes it easier to follow the story. Some did not like the narrator, but as with most of Hobb's books I listen at 2.5 speed, so any of narrator's irksome characteristics fade into background (no modern book is worth 35 hours of my life).

WONDERFUL SERIES!!! DEPLORABLE NARRATION!!!

You’ll find a common thread amongst these reviews with regards to the narrator....she sucks. However, all is not lost for one need only to speed her up to 1:25 in order to make this woman’s voice bearable! Luckily I took this advice after reading the reviews and I’m SO GLAD that I did because I LOVE this series!!! I also strongly suggest reading this series in its entirety beginning with “The Farseer Trilogy”. If you love books like Game of Thrones and The King Killer books then it’s a safe bet to say you will love this as well. As with all of the books I adore most I am attached to the characters and worlds within in these pages and am disappointed when I come to the end even though these are fairly long epics. STRONGLY RECOMMEND!!!:-)

Omg the narration..... and there are 2 more to go.

Painful to listen to! The story is excellent but the weird husky drawing out of every single word is just horrrrribllleee... (rrrreallllly... that's what it's liiiiiike...)

The Narration Improves

Just putting in a plug here for the narrator. I'm not sure if the theatrics and dragging out of words at the first of this book were because of the narrators inexperience but the performance definitely improved around Ch. 17. She dropped a lot of the affectation and the character's each got better distinct voices. The story is fascinating overall, I really enjoy Robin Hobb's work and love the change of story here (with some interesting ties back the the Assassins series). Stick it out, it's worth it!

This is the sitcom Dallas on a voyage

You know I really enjoyed this book. The dialog. The dialog is emense...but it's not boring. Thus fight scenes in the dialog will get you cheering and frustrated at the simplicity and bone headedness of some of the characters. It will take you and include you in all the drama you will start choosing sides. I don't know if I will read any more of these books. The reason I say I'm unsure if I will read any more of these books is because you become emotionally invested. I don't know if I have that much emotion to give to a book. But I really enjoyed the book. I actually listened to it in about 5 days. The book left me with some questions that I may never get answered but this book is different then any other book that I have actually read. Or I should say listened to. Like I said you get this book ---be prepared to be emotionally invested. PS.. I lied. Im getting the next book immediately!!!! Don't judge me...

Great story, odd narration

Loved the book; the narrator, however, sounded to me like everything was said by a ghost. The characters and everything. It was odd... but not enough to stop me from purchasing the next book in the series.

Good storytelling

I enjoy all of Robin Hobbs books. I enjoy the characters, the stories, the places.