This is the third and final volume of Robin Hobb's Liveship Traders series. Although it was pretty good and the action kept moving, it did seem to drag a bit in parts as the characters seemed to be endlessly searching for each other. We do get to see the central mystery resolved (no spoilers!) and there's a fair amount of character development that takes place over the story. Not only among the human characters, but the liveships themselves (sentient beings) also change, which has dramatic effects on the story. The ending did seem a bit rushed, as a major plotline was resolved off-page. We only see the aftermath of that in correspondence that the main characters receive during the extended epilogue chapters. Overall it's a pretty decent fantasy series. Hobb is very much concerned with character development over plot, which is OK because she makes it work.

Hobb does have a tendency to put her characters through the wringer, though, which can be emotionally draining on the reader as we see characters put into very challenging situations that often have a gruesome end. In the first book, for instance, Wintrow, a young fourteen-year-old boy, damages one of the fingers on his hand to the point where it has to be amputated. Hobb doesn't spare us the gory details about the amputation process.

I decided to take a break from Robin Hobb's series about living ships to read another series of books about ships (which also become "alive" in some sense): Dragonships by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. It's been a long time since I've read any of their books.

This series is inspired by Norse mythology and follows the adventures of a young man from a small village. The gods of his society have been killed off by the New Gods, and now he's on a quest to find them and see how their power can be restored.

Skylan Ivorson, supposedly the main hero, is one of the dumbest characters I've ever seen. He's functionally retarded in many ways. If Weis and Hickman rolled up the stats for this character in Dungeons and Dragons he'd have a combined Intelligence and Wisdom score of no more than 8. For context, an average character in D&D has individual Intelligence and Wisdom scores of 10-11, with a maximum of 18 for each ability for exceptional characters. So a combined score of 8 or less is pretty danged stupid. Groo the Wanderer is Isaac Newton compared to Skylan, and has better impulse control.

We'll have to wait and see if he improves any over the course of the next few books. Weis and Hickman are pretty good at character development and growth, so there is at least some precedent that Skylan will learn some valuable lessons and improve his behavior. Otherwise, his story may be over soon and another character will take his place. Plot twist?