Ship of Magic cover art

Ship of Magic

The Liveship Traders, Book 1

 Preview

Audible Standard 1-month free trial

Auto-renews at $8.99/mo + applicable tax after 30-day trial. Cancel Anytime
Try for $0.00
More purchase options

Ship of Magic

Written by: Robin Hobb
Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
Try for $0.00

$8.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $33.67

Buy Now for $33.67

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 Classics Epic Epic Fantasy Fantasy Fiction Pirate
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1

What the critics say

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

Featured Article: The Best Audiobooks like The Witcher For Dark Fantasy Fans to Explore


For fans of dark fantasy looking for collections of short stories and epics like Geralt of Rivia in The Witcher, finding a new adventure to get swept up in once again can be challenging. Whether you binge-watched the Netflix series or devoured every incredible book in Andrzej Sapkowski’s series, we’ve compiled a fantastic list of audiobooks that will return you to the world of The Witcher and keep you on the edge of your seat from beginning to end.

Featured Article The Best Audiobooks like The Witcher For Dark Fantasy Fans to Explore
All stars
Most Relevant
The story isn't very tight, but there is some interesting works building and good characters. The narrator is a little annoying but I got used to her.

Decent

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
First off, this narrator is awful. She was a major part of why it took me so long to get I got he book. I've been enjoying Hobb's Realm of the Elderlings series so I pushed though.

took a while, but pretty good

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The author has a way of making you like and then dislike a character in equal measure or vice versa. It’s not with every character but True to life they show you that people can be kind, cruel, selfish or altruistic. That even a vile person can do good things and even a good person can do horrid things.

Complex characters.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I had trouble getting connected to the characters for quite a while but eventually fell in love with them. I will continue listening to the series for sure.

Started slow but was worth it in the end.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This book and narrator take much longer to get into than those of the previous trilogy in Robin Hobb's Realms of the Elderlings series. The first ~10hrs feel like a bit of a slog. I enjoyed the second half far more than the first - when things were finally happening. Glad I stuck with it and I'll be continuing the series, but it is not nearly as enjoyable as any of the books in the Farseer trilogy were. Hoping now that the stage is set, the next two books in this trilogy will be good enough to excuse the slow start to Ship of Magic. If you try listening to a sample of this audiobook and the narrator irritates you, you probably won't enjoy this. Her delivery is fairly consistent throughout, so if it's not to your liking, the first 10+hrs will be a very difficult listen.

There are a lot more characters than in the Farseer trilogy, to a point that it's hard to be invested in all their storylines, especially before things start picking up in the second half. Really enjoyed when we start getting Malta's perspective (maybe 2/3rds in) since it's so different from all the others. Looking forward to the variety I can expect in books 2 and 3 now that all the characters have been well-established in this one.

Much slower than Farseer Trilogy

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews