accomplished
51. Mad Ship by Robin Hobb - 864 pages (8/10)
52. Ship of Destiny by Robin Hobb - 816 pages (8.5/10)
While this series isn't near as strong as the Farseer, it's still an intricate world and a trilogy far above most fantasy out there. The main difficulty of this series is that there is such a myriad of character viewpoints that it's annoying to have the story segment so often. Every character of the Vestrit family has a viewpoint, and I don't think both Ronica AND Keffria had to have viewpoints, for example. Also, I HATE the serpent's viewpoints. Because I already read this series, when I re-read them, I skipped all of the serpent viewpoints and I don't think the storyline suffered for it. I applaud Hobb for giving us non-human viewpoints, such as Nighteyes in the Farseer, but the serpents are dull and redundant, at least for me. I know they're hungry and tired, already! In these last two books, some of these character shift rather abruptly, most notably among them Selden, the youngest son of Keffria and Kyle. He suddenly goes from very childish to very mature because he falls under a dragon's glamour. The change is far too drastic though, and I was unconvinced.
Of course, this series is still strong in many other respects. I love the change in Paragon, Kennit, Etta, Wntrow, Malta, Reyn, and the major characters. They had been whirling on their separate threads of the story in the first book, but in these books they're woven together and interact in surprising ways. Many fans were evidently upset at an act of Kennit's, but it fits perfectly with his character. These are all flawed, human characters, set in a world unfamiliar yet familiar at the same time.
