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kira_miller's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Really enjoyed this book! The world building was incredible, with all kinds of animals, plants, systems, titles, etc all new to the reader! Absolute need more dark, high fantasy pirate books like The Bone Ships. I was a little confused towards the beginning due to the unfamiliarity of the world, but as the book continued I began to get a better understand of everything. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys fantasy, especially books on the darker side of the genre!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Death, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Death of parent, War, and Classism
Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child death, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Vomit, Grief, and Alcohol
totallyshelfaware's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism
Moderate: Child death, Death, and War
icarusabides's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
After an interesting start The Bone Ships pretty quickly becomes a rather dull slog. The writing is fine but there's no great depth to it and it feels rather clunky and obvious in how the characters motivations are portrayed, everything feels a little too signposted.
The characters for the most part are incredibly flat too, Joron has the most development over the course of the book but it doesn't feel earned and no one else is really given any depth. Meas stays the same incredible badass character she starts out as but nothing about her ever actually feels inspiring. Everyone else, bar the underused Guilame, has no actual characterisation beyond their often stated injuries, deformities, and birth defects etc which play a huge part in the hierarchy of this world. Presumably this was intended to mark just how cruel this world is meant to be but that never really landed and the author really likes bringing it up, characters like Farys are rarely mentioned without some accompanying line about their burnt face and they seem to have no other aspect to their character.
There are also quite a few typos and plot holes throughout. The Ship wife of the Cruel Waters being a Gaunt Islander with one leg, something treated with disdain and banishment to a life of begging or shoe making in the Hundred Isles frequently being invited aboard Tide Child and at no point any of the crew wondering hang on that's a bit strange. The Gaunt Islanders having no four rib ships meaning therefore Tide Child will be quickly recognised as an enemy ship being is a plot point despite previous and subsequent mention of Wavebreaker the Gaunt Islander four rib ship...
Chapter 33
“I only saw them from a distance but the four-ribber, I think it is the Wavebreaker"
Chapter 34
“The flag will not fool them, not for long. Once someone who knows the ships of the Gaunt Islands well is consulted they will know they do not have a four-ribber."
Chapter 35
"Meas kept Tide Child on a course converging with the Gaunt Islanders, level with the leading four-ribber."
Sigh
As for the positives, the world building is quite interesting initially but even that is somewhat overdone to the point it interferes with the flow of reading given just how many aspects of this world the author wanted to make unique. It's not terrible but it is a disappointing read overall.
The characters for the most part are incredibly flat too, Joron has the most development over the course of the book but it doesn't feel earned and no one else is really given any depth. Meas stays the same incredible badass character she starts out as but nothing about her ever actually feels inspiring. Everyone else, bar the underused Guilame, has no actual characterisation beyond their often stated injuries, deformities, and birth defects etc which play a huge part in the hierarchy of this world. Presumably this was intended to mark just how cruel this world is meant to be but that never really landed and the author really likes bringing it up, characters like Farys are rarely mentioned without some accompanying line about their burnt face and they seem to have no other aspect to their character.
There are also quite a few typos and plot holes throughout. The Ship wife of the Cruel Waters being a Gaunt Islander with one leg, something treated with disdain and banishment to a life of begging or shoe making in the Hundred Isles frequently being invited aboard Tide Child and at no point any of the crew wondering hang on that's a bit strange. The Gaunt Islanders having no four rib ships meaning therefore Tide Child will be quickly recognised as an enemy ship being is a plot point despite previous and subsequent mention of Wavebreaker the Gaunt Islander four rib ship...
Chapter 33
“I only saw them from a distance but the four-ribber, I think it is the Wavebreaker"
Chapter 34
“The flag will not fool them, not for long. Once someone who knows the ships of the Gaunt Islands well is consulted they will know they do not have a four-ribber."
Chapter 35
"Meas kept Tide Child on a course converging with the Gaunt Islanders, level with the leading four-ribber."
Sigh
As for the positives, the world building is quite interesting initially but even that is somewhat overdone to the point it interferes with the flow of reading given just how many aspects of this world the author wanted to make unique. It's not terrible but it is a disappointing read overall.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism and Child death
Moderate: Fire/Fire injury
rowan_reviews's review against another edition
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
My actual rating would be 3.5 stars.
I enjoyed this, but I didn't LOVE it. There are some cultural aspects of the society that aren't challenged & made me feel... uncomfortable. Despite the culture being largely matriarchal, if a woman dies in childbirth her child is considered "weak" and "berncast", so they can never really advance in the society. Children born with birth defects have assigned careers based on what the birth defect is. Having any kind of "deformity" is seen as a negative thing, including from accidents during someone's life (i.e., burn scars). There are some hints that the MC might challenge the acceptance of this aspect of his society maybe in future novels, but tbh I'm not sure that I'm quite willing to stick it out in hopes of that.
The MC also has very little confidence & basically does what he's told & strives for approval from his captain. I'm not saying that wanting the approval of someone is a bad thing, just that it feels he lacks agency for a large portion of the book. That may be purposeful because of the background, and is somewhat understandable, but it gets tedious. It does build some tension towards the end as I kept hoping that he would go against orders.
The parts I enjoyed most were the magic surrounding the guillaime and arkesian - which weren't a large enough part of the novel to keep me hooked.
I haven't decided whether or not I'll read book 2 at this point. I have a long TBR and given that it took me a lot longer than it usually would to read a book of this length, I don't think I will.
I enjoyed this, but I didn't LOVE it. There are some cultural aspects of the society that aren't challenged & made me feel... uncomfortable. Despite the culture being largely matriarchal, if a woman dies in childbirth her child is considered "weak" and "berncast", so they can never really advance in the society. Children born with birth defects have assigned careers based on what the birth defect is. Having any kind of "deformity" is seen as a negative thing, including from accidents during someone's life (i.e., burn scars). There are some hints that the MC might challenge the acceptance of this aspect of his society maybe in future novels, but tbh I'm not sure that I'm quite willing to stick it out in hopes of that.
The MC also has very little confidence & basically does what he's told & strives for approval from his captain. I'm not saying that wanting the approval of someone is a bad thing, just that it feels he lacks agency for a large portion of the book. That may be purposeful because of the background, and is somewhat understandable, but it gets tedious. It does build some tension towards the end as I kept hoping that he would go against orders.
The parts I enjoyed most were the magic surrounding the guillaime and arkesian - which weren't a large enough part of the novel to keep me hooked.
I haven't decided whether or not I'll read book 2 at this point. I have a long TBR and given that it took me a lot longer than it usually would to read a book of this length, I don't think I will.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Alcoholism, Child death, Death, Genocide, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
Moderate: Body shaming, Misogyny, Suicidal thoughts, and Fire/Fire injury
nymreads's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
inspiring
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Blood
Moderate: Alcoholism, Child death, and War
szuum's review against another edition
adventurous
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence
Minor: Alcoholism, Child death, and Death of parent
insipidurbanism's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse and Child death
chalkletters's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
I was excited about The Bone Ships from the moment our book club organiser mentioned it. I love books set on ships — The Liveship Tradersseries, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, I even have a whole shelf on my Goodreads for books with boats. A tweet placing The Bone Ships on a ‘Robin Hobb’ scale made me anticipate it even more, since she’s one of my favourite authors in fantasy. While I wouldn’t put The Bone Ships quite on that level myself, I did really enjoy it!
R J Barker’s writing made me wish I were better at visualising things; the imagery he presents is clearly well thought out, and very different from standard fantasy. The woods are pink, purple and blue; the clothes are flamboyantly adorned with feathers; the dragon swims under water, the ships are literally made of bone. I’d love to see some colour illustrations, or an adaption to a visual medium. For those who feel fantasy sometimes overuses a medieval European setting, I’d say The Bone Ships is a must-read!
It did take me a little while to get swept up in the plot, though that may just have been that I was having a bad day when I started reading. The use of fantasy words probably didn’t help, as there are quite a lot of them. Some, obviously, feel necessary: these ships are different to real-world ships, and so naturally use different terms. It was pointed out in book club that the power structures of R J Barker’s world are structured with a lot of careful consideration, and so, again, it makes sense that words for authority figures would be different. What I’m not sure of is why there needed to be a different word for 'sister’ (but not 'brother’) and 'sun’. It doesn’t detract from the book as a whole, but perhaps contributes to it taking a little while for the story to get flowing.
Once Joron starts to learn people’s names, and there’s more going on than just him feeling sorry for himself and clashing with Meas, though, things really pick up. Who doesn’t love a story of a gang of misfits coming together, providing a semi-safe space for one another and learning to overcome their differences? Not only that, but Joron was growing as a person at the same time, slowly realising how hasty his prejudices against the Gaunt Islanders and the guiilame were. The Bone Ships delivered character development on multiple fronts and I loved it! It’s not all plain sailing, though. There’s conflict right up until the end, leaving me with delicious questions about how interpersonal relationships are going to resolve and change in future books.
RJ Barker clearly knows how to use repetition of phrasings to powerful effect. It reminded me of sea shanties and the poetry of John Masefield, both very appropriate cultural contexts. That said, I found the actual songs/poems included to be underwhelming. There were also points where weird mistakes had slipped through the editorial net — a character called Jion in one chapter, and Rion in another, for example. Again, it didn’t detract from the overall work, but it did pull me out of the book just a little.
Nonetheless, this was an excellent book! I’m going to mark it down very slightly for the slow beginning, but it still ranks as one of my favourite books that I’ve discovered through book club, and I definitely intend to read the rest of the series.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death of parent
Minor: Ableism, Child death, Death, Homophobia, Violence, Xenophobia, Vomit, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, War, and Injury/Injury detail
carolined's review against another edition
40% I'm just not a fan of grimdark and this book just keeps heaping it on. I liked the world building and ecology but hated every character and life is too short.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Alcoholism, Body horror, Bullying, Child death, Death, Gore, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Grief, and Death of parent
An entire society explicitly based on ableism and child sacrifice presented as unquestioned by the characters.ergative's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
hopeful
tense
fast-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
This was so great!I loved the world-building, with the persistent toxicity of everything, with societal class built upon the presence or absence of birth defects (which are numerous) and fertility (which is low)---right down to the keyshan bones that so crucial to seafaring, and which apprently cause some type of illness among people who work too closely with them. But all of this is background. The world kills you if the sea doesn't get there first, and if you live long enough to meet other people, they'll kill you too. But along with this we have the magnificent gullaime and arakeesian (wonderful creatures), and the richness and complexity of nautical jargon that is entirely novel to this story (thus not requiring any nautical experience on the part of the reader), and yet feels as rich as anything Patrick O'Brian ever wrote. (Indeed, I do sometimes get the feeling that certain scenes or components of battle were taken directly from Patrick O'Brian and then translated into the new jargon that Barker has invented--which works very well!) The politics on land still manage to influence the workings of what happens at sea, even when the world becomes the closed-off microcosm of the ship. And the structure of the tale---redemption arc, secondary character witnessing the origin story of a hero-mentor, getting the crew together for a mission, whose parameters change and shift as things play out--is very satisfying. It also works well as a self-contained book, but I'm definitely buying and reading the second one right away.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child death