Ship of Magic cover art

Ship of Magic

The Liveship Traders, Book 1

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Ship of Magic

Written by: Robin Hobb
Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
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About this listen

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 Transportation Pirate
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What the critics say

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

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What listeners say about Ship of Magic

Average Customer Ratings
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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Decent

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.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

took a while, but pretty good

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.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

it grew on me

I struggle to get used to each new narrator. then suddenly I'm so deep in the story I don't notice it anymore.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Slow start, gets way better!!

Definitely a bit of a slow start, but start the second chapter, I was thoroughly into it.
The narrator is a little too slow for me, so I sped it up to 1.15 and then it was perfect for me!

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Amazing Story, Not-so-great narrator

While it’s a bit slow in the beginning, the development and depth of the characters is one of my favourite parts of this book. The narrator is pretty awful, particularly in the first half of the book (emphasis on the wrong words and drawn out last word in every sentence) and it was very distracting; however, she improves a lot as the audiobook goes on (why I gave 3 stars for performance) and the story itself makes up for the sub-par performance.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Started slow but was worth it in the end.

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.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Much slower than Farseer Trilogy

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.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

love the story but not the narrator

Not a super big fan of the narrator, but love the story. the characters are great and as annoying as Malta is, she is probably an accurate representation of a self centered teenage girl

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

the voice performance gets much better!

Don't be discouraged by the performance of the voice actor in the beginning. I was also very off put by it at first and almost stopped listening to it. But the narrator gets much better as the story goes along and by a few chapters in I stopped thinking about the performance at all.

Sooooo glad I kept listening!

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Give it time

Well. This was nothing like the apprentices trilogy. It look me quite a few chapters to get into the narrator. I almost gave up on this trilogy. It finally gave me substance 5-6 hours in. Onto Mad Ship!

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