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  • Ship of Magic

  • The Liveship Traders, Book 1
  • By: Robin Hobb
  • Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
  • Length: 35 hrs and 20 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (994 ratings)
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Ship of Magic cover art

Ship of Magic

By: Robin Hobb
Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
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Summary

From the author of the classic Farseer trilogy, Ship of Magic is the first part of the Liveship Traders. Set in a land bordering the Six Duchies, Robin Hobb begins her epic of pirates, talking ships, magic, sea serpents, slave revolts, dashing heroes and bloody battles.

Wizardwood, a sentient wood. The most precious commodity in the world. Like many legendary wares, it comes only from the Rain River Wilds.

But how can one trade with the Rain Wilders, when only a liveship, fashioned from wizardwood, can negotiate the perilous waters of the Rain River? Rare and valuable, a liveship will quicken only when three members, from successive generations, have died on board. The liveship Vivacia is about to undergo her quickening, as Althea Vestrit’s father is carried on deck in his death-throes. Althea waits for the ship that she loves more than anything else in the world to awaken. Only to discover that the Vivacia has been signed away in her father’s will to her brutal brother-in-law, Kyle Haven. . .

Others plot to win, or steal, a liveship. The Paragon, known by many as the Pariah, went mad, turned turtle and drowned his crew. Now he lies, blind, lonely and broken on a deserted beach. But greedy men have designs to restore him, to sail the waters of the Rain Wild River once more.

©2012 Robin Hobb (P)2012 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Critic reviews

"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)

"Hobb is a remarkable storyteller." (Guardian)

What listeners say about Ship of Magic

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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Story
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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Amazing story. Poor narration.

I love Robin Hobbs writing style, and this book is a beautiful addition to the lush magical world she’s created. Certainly recommend to anyone looking to get into a new fantasy epic. But the narration was trying throughout and impossible at times. After the farseer trilogy being read by Paul Boehmer so movingly, Anne Flosnik was a huge step back. If I had any other option I would have read the live ship trilogy to avoid this narrator. Appalling voices, jarring pacing, and now I have to listen to her again in the next book.

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36 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Terrible narration

Any additional comments?

Having enjoyed the Farseer trilogy audiobooks I was shocked at the quality of narration. The narrator has a very odd and distracting cadence and the character voices are not great either. It made it completely impossible for me to get beyond the 1 hour mark in a book I know I like.

I will definitely avoid anything from the same narrator in future. Its the first thing I've regretted purchasing from audible and the first time I've felt driven to post a review.

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30 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

great story, disappointing narration

I love Robin Hobbs books, I have read them all and Ship of magic is no exception. However, the narrator does not do it justice. Maybe its a technical flaw in the recording or she simply swallow the ending of words but repeatedly through the reading the last letters in a word just disappears. Also, the "voices" she uses leaves me untouched, and sometimes annoyed. But the story is great and because of that i give it 3 stars; 1 for narrator and 4 for the story.

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27 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Truly awful narration. Such a shame.

I've just finished listening to the farseer trilogy which were brilliantly written and well read by Paul Boehmer. I was therefore really looking forward to the next trilogy by Robin Hobb. Unfortunately after only 45 mins of attempting to listen to 'Ship Of Magic' I found myself forced to return this audio book. At first I thought I was listening at the wrong speed - but no! I spent the next 20 mins trying to decipher if the narrator was a real person or a computer generated voice. I was so fixated on the narrators lifeless delivery and in some instances bizarre pronunciation, that I was completely unable to follow the story. By far the worst narration I have encountered from Audible (and I have downloaded a lot of books). Robin Hobb deserves better. Mystifying decision to change narrators, and even more mystifying to allow this narration to be put into production.

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19 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Ms
  • 17-11-12

Good book, poor narration

Like the previous reviewer, I like Robin Hobb's books. Her style is flowing and characters accessible. However, the narrator is not a good match. There is little emotion in her reading, which sounds like a newsreader at times. I've not finished yet, and I'm open to her style growing on me, but at the moment it's actually getting in the way of the words. I suggest starting with one of Hobb's other series on this site.

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16 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Maybe the paperback is better?

This was my first contact with the Liveship Traders and sadly, it's probably going to be my last. The narration was awful - I just couldn't follow the scene breaks and was horribly confused within the prologue alone. I also found the narrator's tone and pronunciation odd (at best)

I am so frustrated with the narration that I didn't get very far through the book at all. Robin Hobb has always been someone I wanted to try, but this experience has really put me off trying other books.

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14 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

Good book but the ends of words are clipped off

I love Robin Hobb's writing and the story in this book is as good as others I have read, but I agree with previous reviewers that a good book is let down by the narration. I am not keen on the reading style or the character voices, but that is a matter of personal taste and you can get a flavour of that from the sample, what caused me to stop listening after several hours is the way the ends of words are missing, you forgive the first few as a technical glitch, but it keeps on happening and each time it is more grating. Where have the ends of the words gone? I tried downloading the full quality version but the problem was the same. This is a poor quality audiobook for a good quality site such as Audible, wish I had read the reviews before buying.

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14 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Poor!

I love all of robin Hobb's stories but the lady reading put me off. It was like having mystic meg reading, so much so only did about an hour and realised I wasn't following rewound a couple of times but still couldn't get into.

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12 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Excruciating narration

I hadn't read any of the reviews of this production, or listened to the sample before purchasing. BIG mistake! Anne Flosnik's voice grated from the start, with a strange unnatural rhythm and unbelievable voices. Perhaps English is not her native tongue, but Audible could easily have found a far better narrator from amongst the many it can choose from. I hope that I can return this title, as I will never listen to it again.
Sadly I was forced to allocate one star for 'Performance. Too high in my opinion.

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10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

If only they had a better reader

These books are great stories but this reader is the worst I have ever heard. She needs to be sacked, her voice seems to be on slow speed and in an effect voice that you can not tell the difference between the different people. Cone on Audible you have mush better readers than this....Just look at the other books by Robin Hobb.

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10 people found this helpful