The Bone Ships: Winner of the Holdstock Award for Best Fantasy Novel (The Tide Child Trilogy)

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He commanded angry women and men, bad women and men, cruel women and men – and it had only ever been a matter of time before one of his crew wanted the hat and the colours.

The Bone Ships by RJ Barker | Waterstones

Barker does a good job of letting us get to know them as people, but make no mistake, this is Joron's story. But very quickly we find out that not only has the problem intensified, but includes layers of complexity that added to the tension and drama in this book.Meas assembles a crew of criminals, bodyguards, sailors from her previous ship, and a gullaime, a humanoid bird-like creature who can control the wind. You have half human/half bird weather mages, epic sea dragons, ships made out of dragon bones, the incredibly fun Skearith’s Spine (you'll have to read it to find out what it is), and so much more.

the Bone Ships: Book 2 of the Tide Child Trilogy Call of the Bone Ships: Book 2 of the Tide Child Trilogy

While the first book centers sets out one specific goal and the book slowly marches towards achieving it, this one starts out a bit more ambiguously since the previously established conflict in the first book doesn't exist anymore.The style is not bad, although it does not make big discounts for a better understanding of what is happening. Northstorm’s whispered curses, man, have the drink you long for and pray to the Sea Hag it brings you sense if not sobriety. Meas was a little less utilised in this novel than in the first book, with Joron taking more of a lead now that he has some command experience. I thoroughly enjoyed watching this growth happen and seeing Joron's perspective on having his life turned upside down by Meas' arrival helped hooked me from the start. Now, the first dragon in centuries has been spotted in far-off waters, and both sides see a chance to shift the balance of power in their favor.

Tide Child trilogy - Wikipedia

The Gullaime also has a rather intriguing arc in this novel, and it is clear that he will play a rather substantial role in the ending of the overall series. After the first cup would come the second, and with that would come the numbness that told him he was on the way to deadening his mind the way his body was dead, or waiting to be. Joron opened his mouth to tell her she was wrong about him and his ship, but he did not, because she was not. Following their first grand adventure, which saw Tide Child save the last of the vast sea dragons from whose bones the powerful ships are made, much has changed in the world. Welcome back to the boneship known as Tide Child, a black ship of the damned crewed by those condemned to death for various crimes in the Hundred Isles and tasked with fighting in a war against their nation’s rivals, the Gaunt Islanders.Vessels for the foolishly brave, most said, as they were brittle, not like the hard-hulled boneships. J. Barker’s Tide Child trilogy, is everything I wished those movies of the sea had been and much, much more. My only criticism that I could possibly come up with in terms of this story is that I am sad that this is only a trilogy and that my journey in this world is soon coming to a close. He had chosen this place for its relative solitude, amazed at how easily that could be found; even on an isle as busy as Shipshulme people tended to flock together, to find each other, and of course they shunned such Hag-haunted places as this, where the keyshan’s curse still slept.