"Robin Hobb - Liveship 1 - Ship of Magic" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hobb Robin)

Ship of Magic
by Robin Hobb

Book One of the Liveship Traders Trilogy

A Bantam Spectra Book/March 1998
All rights reserved.
Copyright ┬й1998 by Robin Hobb.
Book design by Lisa Stokes
Cover art copyright ┬й1998 by Stephen Youll.
Jacket design by Jamie S. Warren Youll
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hobb, Robin.
Ship of magic / Robin Hobb.
p. cm. - (Liveship traders ; bk. 1)
ISBN 0-553-10324-5
Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.
Visit Bantam's website at www.bantam.com/spectra


Description:
Not far from the Six Duchies lies Bingtown, hub of exotic trade and home
to a merchant nobility famed for its liveships- rare vessels carved from
wizardwood, which ripens magically into sentient awareness. Bingtown's Old
Traders, their wealth eroded by northern wars and the rapacity of southern
pirates, now face an influx of upstart merchants who bring change to a complex
society.
The Vestrit family's only hope of renewed prosperity is the Vivacia, a
liveship they have nurtured for three generations. Now, as old Captain Vestrit
lies dying in Bingtown, the Vivacia cuts homeward through the waves, about to
quicken into a living being. The ship carries Vestrit's daughter Althea and
the conniving son-in-law he has named as the Vivacia s next captain.
But lovely, wild-spirited Althea, sailing the Vivacia with her father
since childhood and sharing its half-awakened memories and ocean secrets, has
bonded with the ship in her deepest soul. Joined by Brashen-her father's first
mate, now demoted by the Vivacia's new commander-she will stop at nothing in a
bitter quest to claim its captaincy.
Meanwhile, in the rocky cays known as the Pirate Isles, a ruthless man
lusts after his own kind of power. The pirate captain Kennit, in his scheme to
be king of this outlaw realm, has vowed that he will wrest a liveship from its
owners and turn it to his own use. His twisted ambition will bring him into a
strange partnership with a boy-priest turned seaman-and into violent conflict
with the wizardwood magic of Althea and Brashen.
From the peculiar magic realm of the Others to the bawdy, raucous lair of
the pirates, Ship of Magic sweeps a dazzling cast of characters into an epic
of terrible beauty and mysterious sorcery.


THIS ONE IS FOR
The Devil's Paw