Review: The Mad Ship, by Robin Hobb
by
Stuart Holland
Robin Hobb has done it again.
This book was long, and you go on a real journey over that time with all of the characters. Honestly it’s hard for me to talk about any of them now without spoilers, they change so much over the course of the book. And they change in believable and satisfying ways.
I love the slow burn on the background story. The main narrative is the point of the book. But there’s a wider arc coming into view, which I suspect (with what little information I have now), will become more relevant as I go on to the future books and future series. (Implicit in that is that I’m definitely going to keep reading.)
I love how the characters have their own goals and fully mapped out plausible plans that then get completely destroyed and never actually happen. Hobb is a master of that - every plan they come up with seems like it could support the story. Sometimes you, the reader, are caught off guard when things go awry. Sometimes you already know it can never work, but can marvel at this entirely theoretical version of that character’s future story that you know is never going to happen.
Kennit is quite remarkable in a lot of ways. And generally it’s amazing how he believably does so much good while trying to do ill. Malta’s story and development during this book is incredible. Wintrow is not where I thought he’d be. Althea still has so many plans.
It’s easy for me to recommend this book. If you’re already up to this one, why would you stop? Robin Hobb excels at all the things she did so well in the previous four.
