Subject: Review: 'The Mad Ship' by Robin Hobb

From: "Charlie" <[email-masked]>
Date: 17 Dec 1998 11:32:04 -0500

'The Mad Ship' - by Robin Hobb
		Book 2 of The Liveship Traders

[Contains minor spoilers for this volume and may be considered a spoiler
for the first volume in the series.  --AW]

The liveship Vivacia is in the hands of pirates.  Wintrow's, and his
father Kyle's lives hang in the balance as Kennit, the pirate who would be
king struggles to survive his terrible wounding.  Malta is growing into a
woman, and Althea must return to a changed Bingtown to claim her
birthright.

The cast of characters are to learn much in this volume of the series.
Events are moving rapidly now, frequently overtaking the people caught up
in them.  As we see them changing subtly but profoundly from the people we
were introduced to in 'Ship of Magic,' we are forced to change our
preconceptions.  Robin Hobb is never content to leave a stereotype
unaltered in at least some way, and this story reads with the revelatory
twists of good science fiction or detective mystery.

Much fantasy is sometimes criticised for being literature-by-numbers, not
fully using or exploring the fantastic setting.  Well Robin Hobb could
never be accused of that; her plot is staring to draw it's strands into
cords into cables of dramatic tension, and still allows the subtle probing
of what it is to be a slave or free, or how gender may proscribe or
prescribe social behaviour.  This is a series that will repay the
re-reading, with depths not at first apparent.  It's not dull at all
though.  There is action aplenty, and with pirates and the derring-do of
the high seas, seething rebellion and sudden, bloody violence that you
will be turning the pages at a furious rate.  I warn you the last 200
pages you will devour at a sitting.

Robin Hobb has created real mystery about the with the Dragons and
Elderkind we originally saw glimpses of in her earlier Farseer trilogy.
She is adept at twitching the curtain aside, allowing us a brief look at
the strange and exotic magic that permeates this fantasy world.
Particularly characters like Amber the bead-maker, Paragon the eponymous
mad ship become more important, and arouse suspicions about what part they
really play in the deepening enigma of the relationship between liveships,
dragons, serpents played against the background of the Pirate Islands,
Jamaillia City and the simmering Bingtown.

This is definitely a second book of a fantasy series that requires the
reading of the first, but the depth, background and texture of Robin
Hobb's worldmaking, along with her finely honed narrative skill make this
read well worth it.  I must confess that I started the series as a
reviewer, but I am now firmly a fan; if you like me have waited for this
volume with bated breath, you will not be disappointed, far from it.  If
you haven't tried Hobb yet, pick up 'Ship of Magic,' out in paperback at
the same time as this new hardback.  'The Mad Ship' is a stonking good
fantasy, and a book I am re-reading straightaway.

Charlie Meigh

%A Hobb, Robin
%C Hammersmith, London
%D March 1999
%G ISBN 0 00 225479 4
%I HarperCollins/Voyager
%O hardback GB=A317-99
%P 688 pp.
%S Book 2 of 'The Liveship Traders'
%T 'The Mad Ship'