New Review: Robin Hobb's Mad Ship
October 21, 2002 (1:40 PM) ( link )

ADDED a review of Robin Hobb's Mad Ship, the second book in her phenomenal Liveship Traders Trilogy.

At first I was going to take a break from fantasy and read a science-fiction novel such as Christopher Priest's The Inverted World or the ever-reliable Iain M Banks's Against a Dark Background. But the ending of Mad Ship was so good that I really can't help but finish the series with Ship of Destiny, an equally long but hopefully equally compelling read. I hope to be able to finish that book soon, though, since I'm on fall break and don't really have a lot to do (Yale Law School being the way it is). Afterward I should be able to proceed to Priest or Banks, or even both.

Dragon Wing has suffered a great deal from being read in conjunction with Hobb's series. Weis and Hickman's book is still a fun, frothy read--but reading Dragon Wing after Hobb is a little like attending a middle school art exhibit after visiting the Met. I nevertheless expect to finish reading Dragon Wing soon, probably even before I finish Ship of Destiny, just to get the Death Gate Cycle series rolling.

All of this naturally leaves CS Friedman's Coldfire Trilogy in the lurch, which is pretty much where I want it to be for now. I'm usually a completist when it comes to series--no matter how bad a series is I'll try to finish it once I've finished one book. (Hence my manful struggle through The Fionavar Tapestry.) But I really feel no need to return to Friedman's series until I've finished books that I know I enjoy. Fortunately, the final book in a series is usually the best: authors tend to develop a great deal as writers in the meantime, and (in my opinion at least), most series writers start with great intros and conclusions, and it's only the middles that seem truly weak. So I am looking forward to Friedman's third book (whatever its title is) in my own way.

For now, however, I will return to Ship of Destiny, praying fervently that it isn't as depressing as the third book of The Farseer Trilogy.