Book One of THE LIVESHIP TRADERS

(Review by Jane Beaumont, Cape Town, South Africa)

It took me, being a bit dim, till halfway through Book 3 of Hobb's previous series (the Farseer Trilogy) to twig that the author was a woman. Slow, I know, but I was raised on the supermacho Robin Hood. What gave her (Hobb, not Hood) away was a passage so moving that I ruined several pages with nameless exudations before, refusing sexistly to believe that a man could have written this, I checked the publishers' blurb, only to find the author referred to as 'her'. It had to be, I knew it. But not all along. I think this is because most of her prose is sexless - by this I do not mean lacking in juices but minus any overtly masculine or feminine 'voice' or bias. Rare this and very enjoyable. No, let's be honest and go for the cliché. Bugger enjoyable, she's unputdownable. I'll get round to doing a proper review of Farseer when I indulge in a re-read, till then just read it for yourself and don't worry to thank me for the recommendation.

Now, to Ship of Magic. Like Farseer, we have some real inventions here. The central premise is that there exists a type of timber - wizardwood - which, when made into a ship will, after certain conditions are fulfilled take on a life and intelligence of its own, intimately tied to its owning family. Only certain families may enter into a bond with a 'liveship' and there are prices to be paid as well as rewards to be won.

Spun out from this magical core is a family saga filled with Hobb's intricately carved characters and buoyed up with loads of swashbuckling adventures - real pirates included! We also get semi-sentient sea monsters, politics, religion, an intricate sub-plot involving a liveship gone insane and a mysterious wood carver and much much more, leaving us with a staggering cliffhanger ending. Only problem is my increasingly rare complaint of "how long before the next one?"

Trust me folks, for fantasists who want more than yet another ritesofpassageintowizardry number, this is it. Read and enjoy but try, for your own sake, to take it slowly!