Ship of Destiny by Robin Hobb

As Bingtown slides toward disaster, clan matriarch Ronica Vestrit, branded a traitor, searches for a way to bring the city’s inhabitants together against a momentous threat. Meanwhile, Althea Vestrit, unaware of what has befallen Bingtown and her family, continues her perilous quest to track down and recover her liveship, the Vivacia, from the ruthless pirate Kennit.   Bold though it is, Althea’s 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 the Vivacia and all who love her, including Althea’s nephew, whose life already hangs in the balance.   Praise for Robin Hobb and the Liveship Traders Trilogy   “Fantasy as it ought to be written . . . Robin Hobb’s books are diamonds in a sea of zircons.”—George R. R. Martin   “A truly extraordinary saga . . . The characterizations are consistently superb, and [Hobb] animates everything with love for and knowledge of the sea.”—Booklist   “A major work of high fantasy, reading like a cross between Tolkien and Patrick O’Brian . . . one of the finest fantasy sagas to bridge the millennium.”—Publishers Weekly   “Rich, complex . . . [Hobb’s] plotting is complex but tightly controlled, and her descriptive powers match her excellent visual imagination. But her chief virtue is that she delineates character extremely well.”—InterzoneFrom the Paperback edition.

Here it is. The conclusion of the Liveship Traders. The first two books have laid out many obstacles and conflicts. Bingtown is in a state of disarray, Vivacia has been turned Pirate, Malta has been lost, stranded with the Satrap. And with all that was still wrong from the previous book, there’s much more that will happen. This book is full of tension, conflict and a dragon! Tintaglia awoke in the last book, so we get to see her in this and get a better understanding of dragon lives and history.

One thing I enjoyed in this series is Kennit. The Robin Hood styled pirate that frees slaves. I love getting the perspective of a bad guy and having the humanized rather than being seen as evil incarnate. Even if he is the one that has stolen Vivaria, the enemy to Althea. He’s far from perfect, kind of a jerk actually. And in this book, he becomes even worse. But for some reason, I still like reading about him and at times actually feel for him (though not quite so much, or really at all, in some parts).

And then the women. I love all the women in this series. They are all strong in different ways and all are self reliant in their problem solving. Malta shows tremendous growth in this series, and that trend continues here.

One thing about this book that surprised me was all the tidy endings. I’m not saying I wanted things to not be wrapped up, it just wasn’t quite what I expected. That’s not necessarily bad, in fact for many readers, it will be great. And I wanted to not this for readers that were disappointed in the ending of Farseer Trilogy, just know that this trilogy follows a different trend.

I’m keeping this review short. Pretty much, this was a very epic, well imagined trilogy. It is full of strong characters and the world building is fascinating, the pace and the story was engaging. So much so, that I had a hard time not going straight from this to my next unread Hobb book/series.