Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

Ship of Destiny
Ship of Destiny
Ship of Destiny
Audiobook33 hours

Ship of Destiny

Written by Robin Hobb

Narrated by Anne Flosnik

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

4.5/5

()

About this audiobook

As Bingtown slides toward disaster, clan matriarch Ronica Vestrit, branded a traitor, searches for a way to bring the city's inhabitants together against the Chalcedean threat. Meanwhile, Althea Vestrit, unaware of what has befallen Bingtown and her family, continues her perilous quest to track down and recover her liveship Vivacia from the ruthless pirate Kennit.

Bold though it is, her scheme may be in vain. For her beloved Vivacia will face the most terrible confrontation of all as the secret of the liveships is revealed. It is a truth so shattering, it may destroy Vivacia and all who love her, including the boy-priest Wintrow Vestrit, whose life already hangs in the balance.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateAug 31, 2010
ISBN9781400184392
Ship of Destiny
Author

Robin Hobb

Robin Hobb is one of the world’s finest writers of epic fiction. She was born in California in 1952 but raised in Alaska. She raised her family, ran a smallholding, delivered post to her remote community, all at the same time as writing stories and novels. She succeeded on all fronts, raising four children and becoming an internationally best-selling writer. She lives in Tacoma, Washington State.

More audiobooks from Robin Hobb

Related to Ship of Destiny

Titles in the series (3)

View More

Related audiobooks

Fantasy For You

View More

Related articles

Reviews for Ship of Destiny

Rating: 4.5754716981132075 out of 5 stars
4.5/5

106 ratings27 reviews

What did you think?

Tap to rate

Review must be at least 10 words

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Soooooo good. If you read the Farseer Trilogy you may be tempted to skip ahead to the Tawny Many Trilogy so you can get more Fitz and the Fool, but don't miss this amazing series. Fantastic story, fantastic characters, adds depth to the world of the that Hobb began in Assassin's Apprentice. As much as I love Farseer and Tawny Many, this honestly may be my favorite trilogy yet. Seriously, I loved every page.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    What a brilliant end to the Liveship Traders trilogy! I'd forgotten quite a lot of what happens in this instalment, so I (happily) felt like I was reading it for the first time.Ship of Destiny is a fair bit darker than the previous instalments, but the ending is very satisfying for those of us who were slightly disappointed with the abrupt finish to the Farseer series. I love, as always, the attention that Hobb pays to character development. It's no mean feat to create a sprawling epic over 2,700+ pages featuring many characters and locations, and still impress you with the way key characters develop. The female protagonists in particular are outstanding, and the way that Kennit makes me want to both ache for him and shove him over the side of Vivacia is quite something!I'm going to take a break from my Hobb reread for a few books to give me time to disentangle myself from the Liveships world, but I can't wait to get stuck into Tawny Man again!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Ship of Destiny is a great conclusion to a trilogy that brought me much joy. I loved watching the characters evolve. Mostly Malta, and yes, I did stop wanting to strangle her eventually and it was with great pleasure that I watched her evolve into one of my favourite characters in this book.This trilogy has so many kick-ass women protagonists! I can't recommend it enough.Now comes my big but...and it's more a general but and less about the Liveship Trilogy.After six Robin Hobb books, I'm not sure if I should continue reading her work. I highly enjoy her world, her characters and even her writing. I just struggle so much with her pacing. I feel like all of her books have an excellent start, a brilliant finale and I slog more or less through the middle.I'm definitely taking a break before I tackle the next trilogy.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Hobb's Liveship trilogy is excellent! She does very well balancing a handful of characters and several plot lines, and they all intersected at the end in ways I had not predicted but did not feel at all contrived. The plots revolve around a town of trader families, all of whom have ships built of wood that take on human personalities over time. The main characters come from one family (two older parents, their two daughters, a son-in-law, and three grandchildren). The father dies, and everyone expects him to leave the liveship to his daughter, but on his deathbed, he leaves it to his son-in-law. The family is in financial ruin, so the son-in-law takes to immoral trading of slaves, and the daughter runs off to work on another ship in order to prove her mettle as a sailor. The mother and other sister remain in the trading town to handle the politics of trading and marrying off the shockingly impertinent granddaughter. Throughout, there are rowdy pirates, sea serpents, mysteriously veiled near-human creatures, and treasures beaches. Fun all around!Hobb gives us such a wonderful picture of life on a ship, and she creates these full-bodied characters with incredible spunk and tenacity. I admired Althea in her quest to prove herself as a capable woman. I sympathized with Wintrow's difficult position, wanting to be a priest but forced to learn to be a sailor. I was initially annoyed with and shocked at Malta's selfish manipulations, but I loved watching her emerge as a young woman. So many wonderful characters and such a realistic world of ships and serpents - fantastic read! Plus, Hobb's style of writing is both smooth and surprising. She is never satisfied with a cliche, when she can come up with her own subtle blend of words. I'm a big fan!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Well, hmmm, I really loved this trilogy for a lot of reasons. Great worldbuilding, well-drawn characters, many exciting plot elements. But I have to say, I wasn't all that enthralled by the ending. A bit contrived getting them all together, and I found it distracting having various characters have little personal quiet reflective moments or yet another psychological discussion in the middle of a battle scene. She should really read some Patrick O'Brien before doing another nautical book.My main criticism with the series is that the characters discuss things to death. Often after they have already demonstrated what the discussion is about. Show, then don't bother telling. Definitely worth a read for the dragons alone. Mostly I hate dragon books because authors seem to think they should be like fluffy bunnies or horsies or something, but these dragons are reptiles and very alien. Cool.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
     In the same universe as the 'Farseer' books, and just as good. A unique twist of where the ships' powers come from.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The final volume of the Liveship Trader series.This was a wonderful, engrossing book. As other reviewers have mentioned, Robin Hobb plots very, very well. All the storylines finally converge in this final volume, and man do they come together beautifully! There were certain things I saw coming a mile off, (particularly the mysteries surrounding Paragon), but others came as a complete surprise. And through it all, very little felt forced. Hobb does a beautiful job of placing these characters into situations, then letting events unfold as they will. Even though the reader knows that she, as the author, must be pulling the strings behind the scenes, it rarely feels as though she's doing so. Everything flows smoothly and organically, and the characters continue to grow and change along the way. It's just wonderful.Highly recommended. I found the first book a tad iffy in places, but this one and Mad Ship more than make up for it. Now that I'm finished, I actually miss everyone! Highly recommended, but start with the first book, (Ship of Magic), so everything has its proper impact.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Ship of Destiny is the final book in Robin Hobb’s Liveship Traders trilogy, which starts with Ship of Magic. Most of this review is very general to avoid giving away any spoilers for the ending.Overall, I found this a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy. With epic fantasy, that can be a rare event – too often the books get overcome by their multitudes of characters and subplots, but I believe Robin Hobb orchestrated everything quite well. Not everyone was present for the climatic conclusion, but most major characters were involved.(This paragraph could be regarded as spoilery, but it’s very vague and general.) Robin Hobb is known as someone who gives her characters a hard time – just look at what they’ve had to go through in this trilogy! So after three books of doom and gloom, I really didn’t expect such a happy ending. It just doesn’t fit with the tone of the rest of the series and doesn’t strike me as believable.For the past two books, Wintrow has been my favorite character, but I liked him less in this installment. He seemed different than before, a lot less introspective. Possibly it’s that he got less page time?The second book was more rapey than the first and that continues into this one, just FYI.Pretty much all my other thoughts on Ship of Destiny are spoilers on the ending (these are in my reading journal, for anyone curious). To sum up, I found this a satisfying ending, even if it doesn’t fit well with the tone of the previous novels.Originally posted on The Illustrated Page.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I am just so mad at myself for not reading this series before! I should've just trusted ms Hobbs wouldn't steer me wrong. It did feel a bit rushed toward the end, considering the painstaking lengths the other 2 books went in to and a little bit too.. contrived? Too neatly packaged, somehow forced to end in the way it did. However it didn't lessen my enjoyment of the majority of the book and the series. Love love Robin Hobb.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The last book in the series, the dragon Tintaglia is now shaping happenings in the world and all of the Vestrit family are linchpins in whats going on, all in different ways.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Amazing story. Unpolished writing.
    I adored the grand narrative, the creative use of magic, the romance which is given just the right amount of attention, and the well-rounded characters.
    I think the gathering tension in the book was also pulled off really well- the anticipation of the characters finding out what we already know, and the will-they-wont-they be reunited.

    However, the writing... I think it was overwritten. It had too many viewpoints, and a lot of the material was superfluous. Things were thought, and talked, and shared, over and over again. And there was too much telling, not enough showing sometimes. I also feel like Hobb couldn't master the third person style. I think it kind of needed an omniscient narrator to tie everything together, and to break up the viewpoints with an occassional aside to the reader. This was a really long book, and I think it could have been cut by a few hundred pages, and told the story with a little more discipline.

    That being said, the story itself was strong enough to keep me reading despite the deficiencies in the writing. In this, and the Farseer trilogy, I've found Hobb's writing to be a bit tough and go, but the stories are wondrous, touching, and exciting every time. I sincerely recommend reading this series- just try to breeze over the writing- if you think too much about the writing itself, you become critical and miss out on the great story.

    PS. AMBER!WTH? If she is who she is made out to be, and there is no amazing explanation (posession? split personality disorder?), I will be very disappointed. I thought her character was totally different from her possible hidden identity. And I adored the original character, so I would hate for their personality to be changed so radically. It actually made me angry when I first realised what was being alluded to, that's how wrong it felt to me. (And no, this isn't about the gender thing- I have no problems with that whatsoever. It's merely about the difference in personality). I intend to read on to the next series, where I will hopefully find out I was overreacting, and there was a perfectly reasonable explanation.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I liked this second trilogy better than the first one, probably because of a lot of it takes place at sea and I seem to be into fantasy+boats as a combination. However, there is a lot more rape in this one and there were a few chapters that I found difficult to get through because of that. The story and the worldbuilding and so on were excellent, though, and I'll definitely move on to the third trilogy at some point.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The good: I quite enjoyed seeing references to Fitz and the changes wrought in Paragon. The dragons taking precedence was stunning, but not unwarranted. I also appreciated the romantic entanglements and the ability to hate a character for about thirty pages and then sob hysterically over his death. The characterization is, as always, superb.

    It's also amazing how so many varied plots came together so well. Everything worked out, although certain things are still lost. The ships have to endure being dead and that the world has changed.

    The bad: That being said, perhaps because I read the three books together, with only one book in between the second and third, it was far too long. The pacing, in certain parts of the book, was atrocious. I had to set myself a goal in terms of reading just so I could get through the book in a reasonable time. Don't get me wrong- I wanted to know what happened, but the pacing was so slow, I had to force myself through.

    Also-- for much of the book, there is an emphasis on detail and long scenes. Then, as the book gets down toward the 700 pages, scenes start jumping in length, erring toward the shorter side. It took less time to get through, true, but I felt like scenes that should have been detailed(or characters we should have heard more from, like Kyle) were glossed over. It's almost like she was running out of steam.

    I've heard the Liveship Traders are not as good as the Assassins' series (nor the Tawny Man trilogy). I look forward to seeing if that's the case, but for now, I'm taking a break from Robin Hobb. I need to read a book that takes less than the sum total of 2100 pages (if we consider the trilogy actually one book) to reach its conclusion.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I was really disappointed in this final book. I kept thinking to myself: "Robin Hobb, why so rape-y?"

    Hobb does deliver a decent story and I enjoyed quite a bit of this book. I really enjoyed the story of the liveships and the relationship that they had with the serpents and the dragons. The things I was disappointed with were the forced roles of women, how quickly the end wrapped up neat and tidy, and the emphasis on Althea's (and to some extend, Serilla's) rape

    The first part of my complaint was the role of women. I realize I expect a lot out of women writers, especially with regards to women and women's roles, but I felt Hobb was a little forced with not just the roles that all of the many women represented in the book, but the character developments that stretched a little too far. While I can believe some of the development of stronger women, like Keffria, I was very disappointed in Malta, who was transformed into an entirely different person, Althea, who lost most of her spirit (what I liked best earlier in the series), and Serilla, who just seemed to fall apart as a character, even though she had (I felt) a huge amount of potential.

    The ending felt rushed, that the last third of this book packed all of the action that the first book lacked. Most of the threads in the book were very neatly squared away and I just felt like the ending was too easy and cheap for the amount of time, action, and intrigue that had gone into the book.

    As for the emphasis on rape, I will admit that I abhor any time authors use rape as a plot point (I feel it is too cheap and easy and used far, far too often). Hobb uses sexual assault in every book in the series, and in this last book, its emphasis is very strong and I felt extremely uncomfortable with both the fact that she uses it and how much time and effort she spent on it. Yes, rape is bad, yes refusal to believe a victim is bad, and yes, the after affects are bad, I don't need a fantasy novel that I would like to enjoy to teach me that particular lesson. If I had known that I was to deal with the consequences of rape ad-nauseum, I would not have started this series at all.

    The series overall was decent, and I have to give kudos to Hobb for her excellent prose and creating a nautical setting for this series (something I don't believe is very prevalent in fantasy). I wish her world-building were as good in this series as it was the Farseer series; overall it was OK. But even though it has many good points, it has as many bad points, and I just can't stop thinking as this book as overdone in the rape department and underdone as far as characters and complexity at the end. This was definitely the weakest book in the series.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    There are some beautiful ideas in there -- about dragons, and the life cycle of a dragon -- and there are references to the Farseers trilogy that complete that story, that explain things. Yet it's also, for quite a few people I've spoken to, quite tedious to read. This time as I was going through, I tried to put into words why it's broken for me. Comparisons to the Farseers trilogy abound, as well as spoilers for both trilogies and probably for the Tawny Man trilogy as well. Some of this, I've already written elsewhere.

    Essentially, I have three main issues I'd point to -- all somewhat interwoven.

    Narrative

    I think it suffers from being in third person rather than first. All the sense of someone setting down memoirs with all the relevant details put in the right places is lost, and it's less easy for Hobb to fit in the back story she needs to make the "front" story work. For example, Paragon's story -- it could come out through dialogue and interaction, for example, between Mingsley and a client, or Amber and a Trader, or Amber and Paragon himself... instead it comes out while Althea is sat down thinking about Vivacia. That might work, if it was written from Althea's point of view, but as it is you rather forget that you're even with her while you go on a five page foray into the woes of the Ludlucks.

    Mind you, I can see why it would be impossible to write this story from first person and still have it be a "member of the cast", so to speak, doing it. In Farseers, sometimes Fitz's ignorance of other events helped the story, and sometimes the fact that Fitz could Skill out to Molly, Burrich and Nettle and see them prevented it from hindering the story. But in Liveships there's no one central character: in the first book alone there's Althea, Brashen, Ronica, Keffria, Malta, Vivacia, Wintrow, Kennit, Kyle, Paragon, Amber, Maulkin, Shreever... and a range of locations from all corners of their world. There's no way any one of them could know the whole story -- indeed, so much of the story, especially the romantic conflicts, is based on that fact.

    Still, I think Hobb's writing shines best in first person. I also noticed that when I read the Tawny Man trilogy, I enjoyed that much more than Liveships. I'm not sure whether that was just the return to the familiar characters, or whether it was in a large part due to the return to a single point of view.

    Characters

    There are so many characters this trilogy follows. I couldn't even begin to list the main ones. They come in groups, in a way -- Bingtown Traders, Rain Wild Traders, pirates, serpents, Jamaillians -- yet those groups splinter and reform over and over again throughout the books. It isn't hard to follow exactly, but I do wonder if Hobb could have made readers care more about the characters had there been fewer, and had she kept the changes in viewpoint down. For example, you see from inside Malta in one section, and you see Malta from Ronica's eyes in the next -- it's jarring, to see so many sides to one character: not just implied, but "said" by the characters through third person (not actually very) limited.

    One of the common mistakes in writers, one of my books says, is to make characters too passive. They aren't interesting to read about. And there are far too many passive characters in Liveships, people who can't or won't take control of their own lives. For example, Wintrow -- in the end, he realises it, but for most of the books he refuses to accept and grow with his experiences, but only look backwards. Keffria is shown as spiritless, completely taken in by her husband, believing he's good and right when he's actually quite cruel. She only wants things to go back to where they were, she wants Kyle to take over things and leave her untouched by cares. It's hard to care about characters who are so passive, who do nothing to better their circumstances. They bring their misfortunes on themselves.

    On the other hand, there are the "strong" characters. They try to take their lives into their own hands, but without regard for others. Althea leaves her family when they need her, dividing it when they need to be strong, just to get what she wants. Malta doesn't care about the shame she might cause her family, or the hurt she might cause the men she flirts with and ensnares. She just wants to look beautiful and be adored. Tintaglia the dragon doesn't care about humans, even when they help her, but only about the fate of her own race.

    It's true that there are a few intriguing characters: Ronica, in particular, strikes me as a strong female character who wants the best for her family, for her home. She, most of all, considers everyone in Bingtown and pushes for everyone to unite. There are other intriguing characters, too: Amber, and Jek, and Shreever, but... they're often more minor characters, or in Amber's case, have to be slightly separate from the plot so it isn't too obvious who they really are.

    To me, there's a lack of a certain type of character we saw a lot of in the Farseer books: the Sacrifice. My favourite character in those was Verity, followed by Kettricken and then Fitz himself. They were still humans, with flaws, but in the end they pushed that aside to do what they had to do -- particularly Verity and Kettricken. In Liveships there is no single character who is willing to simply give him or herself up -- not through despair, but to bring hope to others. Nor do the characters have the sheer tenacity that Verity has. If they had to carve a dragon, I don't think they would continue as he did. Granted, perhaps the situation doesn't offer a chance for such a sacrifice, but it does seem as if in places, someone could simply do something instead of waiting, or trying to turn circumstances toward their own gain.

    The people in Liveships are like real people, (literally) warts and all. I wonder, though, if it isn't too realistic.

    Portrayal of Women

    To be a women in these books is to suffer. I don't think a single one of them escapes humiliation in some way. In contrast, the men escape lightly: in the course of the books, Serilla, for example, loses everything, but the Satrap gains more than he ever had (although admittedly suffering in the process); Althea loses so much, while Brashen only gains -- and Althea's gain of Brashen is portrayed as filling all the places in her life where she's lost, which troubles me. There's a general attitude in the men that women should be kept in the home, kept safe, and not let to do anything, because they can't. While the women in the books do manage things capably, it's always at a loss to themselves: Althea could marry Grag, but she would lose by doing so, so she doesn't, but she loses in not doing so, too. Malta takes control, but to do so she has to accept humiliation. Keffria learns to manage things, but knows that in doing so she loses her husband.

    In the end, they are all shown as strong in their ways, even Keffria. But things are heaped against them as they aren't against the men: it could be said that the society Hobb structures around them is what brings that upon them, but it still felt like a barrier to my reading than a natural part of the world.

    I've discussed a lot of ways the books could be more intriguing, with various people. More interesting characters, more of the interesting characters there already are -- starting in the Rain Wilds instead of taking so long to get there... I can see why it's written as it is, but with some tweaking to the plot to allow it to be written differently, I think these books could have been marvellous. I don't recommend reading them casually, but to fill out the details of the whole world in the Realm of the Elderlings cycle, I do recommend trying to push one's way through them. There are some lovely things in these books, but they're rather obscured, for me, by the things I've already mentioned.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I really like the way Hobb builds worlds and sure hope she revisits this one soon. She tied up all the loose ends, so I don't feel like I'm missing anything, but I like these characters and this world, and would love to see how things work out down the road.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Een waardig einde van de trilogie, hoewel ik me wel afvraag of het echt afgelopen is. Er is nog zoveel open gebleven voor mij.

    Wie was Amber? Al de tijd had ik het gevoel dat er iets mysterious aan haar was
    Hoe is het de anderen allemaal vergaan?
    en meer.

    Karakters hebben zich nog steeds verder ontwikkeld en personen waar ik in het begin moeite mee had, hebben zich ontwikkeld tot ware helden. Uiteindelijk bleven er niemand over om echt te haten. Zelfs Kenrit of de Sarpat niet. Er zijn piraten, draken, zeeslangen, liefdesverhalen, hartverscheurende verliezen en een adembenemend aantal verbazingwekkende personages.

    Het boek was wel wat lang. Een groot aantal pagina's waren vol met feiten en dingen die al eerder geschreven waren. Een brute verkrachting was iets dat voor mij niet plaats hoeft te vinden in een fantasy werk.

    Zoals al eerder gezegd, deze trilogie was vele malen beter dan de 'Boeken van de Zieners'-serie die hier aan voor af ging.


    --
    Dit was de tweede sub-serie in een reeks van 5 in de Elderling serie.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    So I think this book in particular is an excellent response to the current fad of "grimdark" novels. Especially considering the Guardian piece on it that sparked the twitter joke of inventing Grimpink as a female version of this. (tl:dr Grimdark is a boy's club that girls aren't invited to play in. Female authors and publishers disagree w/ this to hilarious effect.)

    What sets this aside from other dark fantasies is that the violence and darkness are shown to full effect. There is no cartoon violence. Violence sits at the core of this novel and rots away at the characters. There are no magic cathartic cures, but there are ways of dealing with it and slowly healing.

    This isn't a fun novel to read. It's a lot less fun than the boy's-club versions where hitting a bad guy with a sword makes everything better. It does ring true though. I think I understand things relating to cycles of abuse and violence better for reading Hobb's take on them. It wasn't fun, but these aren't fun topics.

    Another thing that sets Ship of Destiny and the Liveship Traders series apart is the way that Hobb ruthlessly humanizes her villains. The two characters who do more to cause others pain are not allowed to become cartoonish abstractions of evil. They are made to be flesh and blood human beings. Kyle Haven and Kennit the Pirate are shown to be human beings w/ feelings and positive sides. This really is a triumph, but an uncomfortable one. It is not pleasant to empathize and see one's self in a rapist or in an emotionally abusive and misogynist father. Hobb makes her book human. This is a huge achievement, but again, it isn't fun.

    So I think I admire this book and series more than I enjoy it. I think it is definitely required reading for fans of epic fantasy. It belongs in that genre even if it rejects the standard fight-against-embodiment-of-absolute-evil. It belongs because it is a response to the de-humanizing of evil. It does a better job of this than Grimdark novels like Joe Abercrombie's work because instead of simply refusing to make good-evil distinctions, instead it turns the mirror on us and shows us the villain in us. That's an amazing achievement, but not fun at all.

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The conclusion to The Liveship Traders is fantastic. The characters are so well written and enjoyable to read. As an ending to the trilogy, it is very satisfying.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A deeply satisfying conclusion to the trilogy! Hobb does not sacrifice the integrity of her characters in a pursuit of tying up loose ends, yet she still manages to tie up those ends in a way that is true to the story, to the characters and to the reader experience. I think I like this trilogy even better than the first (Fareer), not because of any complaints with that wonderful series, but just because the scope of this one is so much broader -- yet still focused on individual character experiences. I very highly recommend Hobbs' books!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This book is an outstanding conclusion to a great series. It is amazingly well crafted, and I'm very impressed with how the pieces all come together in the end. Robin Hobb has a talent for giving you a story where anything might happen, and what usually does happen might be unexpected, but is always very satisfying. This book has a great sense of things coming full circle in a way that is satisfying rather than cliched. 5/5
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Story line was excellent, narrator did a great job.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This final installment in the Liveship Traders trilogy ups the speed of events, a momentum which I felt was lost in The Mad Ship. All the threads start to come together and lots of hints that you may have picked up on in previous books are expanded on. This doesn't mean that there aren't some unexpected twists and this shows Hobb's skill, that she can provide the reader with clues to unravel but still create resolutions that don't feel predictable. She also links this book back into the books set in the Six Duchies in such a way that I cannot wait to read the Tawny Man trilogy!With these series Hobb has created a vivid world that draws you in and feels utterly real. I did not feel the same level of connection with the characters in this series as in the Farseer trilogy but it is still a good read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    What a fantastic ending to a series. Ship of Destiny picks up where Mad Ship left off and never slows down. There are some interesting character twists. In the end it was all tied together nicely. Easily my favorite in the series.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I liked how things worked out in the end. Some of it may have tied up just a little too neatly, but I don't think what caused things to happen to the characters was out of, well, character for them. I did find the abrupt changes in the personality of several of the characters a bit of a stretch. However, extraordinary circumstances do cause extraordinary things to happen, and one of them, at least, did revert to a degree once the opportunity presented itself.Overall, as I said, I liked it, and enough that I stayed up late nights reading instead of sleeping. I plan on reading more books by the same author (although perhaps not right before I go to bed).
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This book is an absolutely amazing conclusion to a wonderful trilogy. Every part of the tangled plot came together in such a satisfying way. Robin Hobb can not only write, she can plot, and I think this trilogy is definitely her best. I couldn't stop reading, even when I probably should have. Just amazing.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    For reasons explained in my review of Assassin's Quest, I was disappointed with the ending of the Farseers trilogy. I came to Hobbs second trilogy (writing under this name, anyway) with hope that the Live-Ship Traders saga would offer a more satisfying conclusion. If anything, I would have to say this was even worse. Again, there were plenty of things to like about Hobbs' trilogy in general and this book in specific (which is set in a neighboring region of the same world as the previous trilogy). It's an intriguing world, with interesting characters (human and not-human), following multiple plot lines that seem to be heading towards a dramatic conclusion. The only problem is that the conclusion falls flat; indeed the gathering of all the major characters for the climactic naval battle felt so contrived as to be almost farcical. So, after reading Hobbs' first two trilogies, I would say both started strong and showed glimpses of an obviously very talented author, but neither offered a compelling or even satisfying conclusion. Being a glutton for punishment, I have no doubt that I will eventually pick up her newer Tawny Man series to see if she finally got an ending right for that one.