A liveship is a difficult ship to come by. Rare and valuable, it will quicken only when three family members, from successive generations, have died on board. The liveship Vivacia is about to undergo her quickening, as Althea Vestrit’s father is carried to her deck in his death-throes. Althea waits in awe and anticipation for the ship that she loves more than anything in the world to awaken. Only to find that her family has other plans for her …
Praise for The Liveship Traders series: ‘Even better than the Assassin books. I didn't think that was possible’ GEORGE R.R. MARTIN
‘A truly extraordinary saga … the characterisations are consistently superb, and [Hobb] animates everything with love for and knowledge of the sea’ BOOKLIST
‘Robin Hobb writes achingly well’ SFX
Buy Ship of Magic, the first book of The Liveship Traders, here.
The Rain Wild Chronicles
Return to the world of the Liveship Traders and journey along the Rain Wild River with the author of the internationally acclaimed Farseer Trilogy.
Guided by the great blue dragon Tintaglia, they came from the sea: a Tangle of serpents fighting their way up the Rain Wilds River, the first to make the perilous journey in generations.
But the creatures which emerge from the cocoons are a travesty of the powerful, shining dragons of old. Stunted and deformed, they cannot fly. Soon they become a danger and a burden to the Rain Wilders: something must be done. The dragons claim an ancestral memory of a fabled Elderling city far upriver: perhaps there they will find their true home. But Kelsingra appears on no maps and they cannot get there on their own: a band of dragon keepers, hunters and chroniclers must attend them.
To be a dragon keeper is a dangerous job: their charges are vicious and unpredictable, and there are many unknown perils on the journey to a city which may not even exist …
‘Hobb is superb, spinning wonderful characters and plots from pure imagination’ CONN IGGULDEN
‘Hobb is one of the great modern fantasy writers … what makes her novels as addictive as morphine is not just their imaginative brilliance but the way her characters are compromised and manipulated by politics’ THE TIMES
Buy Dragon Keeper, the first book of The Rain Wild Chronicles, here.
About the Author
Robin Hobb is one of the world’s finest writers of epic fiction. She was born in California in 1952 but raised in Alaska, where she learned how to raise a wolf cub, to skin a moose and to survive in the wilderness. When she married a fisherman who fished herring and the Kodiak salmon-run for half the year, these skills would stand her in good stead. She raised her family, ran a small-holding, 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.