Ship of Magic cover art

Ship of Magic

The Liveship Traders, Book 1

Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for £0.00
£8.99/mo thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Offer ends 31 July 2025 at 23:59 GMT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

Ship of Magic

By: Robin Hobb
Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
Try for £0.00

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Offer ends 31 July 2025 23:59 GMT. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £19.99

Buy Now for £19.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

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
Epic Epic Fantasy Fantasy Fiction Magic Pirate

Listeners also enjoyed...

Elantris: Tenth Anniversary Author's Definitive Edition (1 of 2) (Dramatized Adaptation) cover art
The Malevolent Seven cover art
Lion of Senet cover art
The Ember Blade cover art
Bury the Living cover art
The Ninth Rain cover art
Jhereg cover art
The Alchemist of Souls cover art
Sing the Four Quarters cover art
Keturah cover art
Anna's Crossing cover art
Six of Crows cover art
To Ride a White Horse cover art
14 cover art
New Spring cover art
Wicked cover art

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)

All stars
Most relevant  
Like other reviewers, I think Robin Hobb is great. I nearly didn't start the Live Ship series because of the other reviews on here, but I'm glad I decided to give it a go. Sure, Anne Flosnik will never be my favourite narrator; however, I can hear the ends of words and having listened to this and the next book, I'll be listening to the rest in this series. With Audible's returns policy, I'd say try it - you might be pleasantly surprised. I was.

I can hear this fine!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Robin Hobb is a brilliant story teller, the characters are well formed, and she articulates those elements of love or hate them so well. The stories are never predictable and keep you engaged from start to finish.
There’s only one drawback, the narration, is annoying because at the end many sentences the reader draws out the words particularly on the word her, which becomes herrrr, or therrre, I wish they’d re-record this series with a different narratorrrr!

Brilliant story, annoying narration

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I read this book years ago and, were it not for the fact I am invested in the series and know the story to be a great one, I would not have bothered finishing this listen. The narrator has a strange cadence to her voice, like a sleepy news reader, placing unusual emphasis on words in each sentence, somehow stripping them of emotion. For me, this made the performance more distracting than immersive.

A fantastic book, poorly performed

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

It is a brilliant story that is in a brilliantly built world, I was gripped from start to finish and whave the rest of the trilogy to read.

Amazing

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Great story, got used to narration after time (not my favourite). listened to at 1.3 speed as voice is quite slow

Story great, narration average

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

this is a wonderful story well written and narrated. vivid details of the characters and interwoven plots.

fantastically descriptive characters

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I wasn't particularly fond of the narrator to begin with as I just found her kind of annoying. I therefore struggled a bit with my engagement levels, but the narrator the grow on me to the point where I'm really excited to listen to the next one.
The book itself is really entertaining with good characters that I like to hear about.
They could however probably cut Malta's part as she is truly the most annoying character.

The narrator gets better and the book is joyful

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I was really pleaded to find this as an audio book having enjoyed reading several of Robbin Hobbs books already
However I find the narration excruciating - listen to a sample before you buy it

Magic?

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

This was very drawn out. so many characters that it needed more people reading

performance

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Having read the books previously and listened to the other Robin Hobb books I thought I would save my favourite for last, bought them all before I started to listening as I do love the books. I'm not even half way through the first book but I'm struggling, I've turned it off so many times now, when I do have it on in the background I'm not even really listening as it's that terrible. if I had known it was this bad I would never have bought them. the narration is horrendous, I just can't find anything positive to say about the narration except it will finish at some point. Save your money,

it's a very hard listen

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

See more reviews