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

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These women and men do not know it yet but they have volunteered to join us. Their ship wife is dead, and as of now so are they.” As she walked past the crew of the Maiden’s Bounty, she stared at them. “And the dead belong to me.” In The Bone Ships RJ Barker gives us a story filled with unique world building and engaging characters. In a world where ships of war are primarily made from the bones of sea dragons, the two political powers continue to scrape together dragon bone though it has been ages since they have found any new dragons to harvest. But when news surfaces of a possible living dragon, the race is on to secure it as a military resource. Instead, I've been given a tale steeped in espionage and cunning. The stakes have been raised, and the winds are changing. Joron will find himself flensed to the bone, losing everything he holds dear. He will be hammered and tempered into steel before he can live out his destiny... or reject it entirely and shape a different future from what has been foretold. Call of the Bone Ships is the second book in The Tide Child trilogy by R.J. Barker. There’s no middle book syndrome here. I was one of the relatively few readers who were slightly disappointed by The Bone Ships on my first read. To sum it up briefly, it was too different from The Wounded Kingdom trilogy, and I expected a focus on characterization right from the getgo. But that wasn’t the case, The Bone Ships spent the first half of the novel heavily focused on world-building, and the characterizations came in the second half. This storytelling decision, however, made the reread experience of The Bone Ships that I did rewarding. And I’m happy to say that Call of the Bone Ships provided a more character-driven narrative in addition to retaining the fascinating world-building.

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

Quite simply, I am in love with not only the main characters in this book, but all the side characters that get presented as well. This book is a masterclass in character writing, both in making you cheer for the ones you like, and utterly despise the ones you dislike. Many new characters have been introduced here, and some have been given a much brighter spotlight. The story was interesting and full of action and I'm really intrigued to see where we go with book three, especially after a surprising ending. Call of the Bone Ships raises the stakes even higher, new bonds are formed, and you better keep your eyes peeled because you can just never know when something unexpected will happen. And if you are like me, you’ll be cursing Barker along the way whether because he ends a chapter in a way that you can’t help but read on, or because of all of the emotions he’ll put you and his characters through. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.Plot resolutions are often resolved by deus ex machina, and the evolving mystery didn’t draw my attention.

Tide Child trilogy - Wikipedia

Been a while since I read The Bone Ships, but it was a really refreshing and enjoyable read, so I was looking forward to seeing where this second instalment was going to go. I'm glad to say this was also a fun and engaging read. R. J. Barker creates a great nautical scene and atmosphere. It is expanding and the stakes are rising as the story gradually widens to become more epic, but still maintained an intimacy that explored the camaraderie of those on board the main ship, Tide Child. Excellent. One of the most interesting and original fantasy worlds I've seen in years." —Adrian Tchaikovsky, Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author I'll confess, this sequel did not take me in any of the directions I was expecting at the end of The Bone Ships. I had thought we'd jump straight into the action, calling up the Arakeesians and taking down the Thirteenbern. The next voice he heard was the challenge. Delivered while he kept his eyes closed against the tides of nausea ebbing and flowing in hot, acidic waves from his stomach. Staying with the characters for a moment, I'm still in awe of the magical creatures who can control the winds called the gullaime. In this book they take on another prominent role and there's even a new type of species called wIndshorn that we are introduced to that are similar to gullaime in appearance but possess a very different type of magic. Gullaime do not particularly like windshorn very much and vice-versa, that is made clear. But for what reasons? Just one of the many mysteries that propel this book from your normal fantasy read to something much more special in my opinion.She had taken his hat of command from him, and though he had never wanted it before, it had suddenly come to mean something. Her theft had awoken something in him. So you can fight.” Her blade came up to ready. Light flashed down its length. Something was inscribed on it, no cheap slag-iron curnow like his own.

The Bone Ships - BookPage The Bone Ships - BookPage

So maybe he had, for once, woken with the idea of how wonderful it would be to have a little pride. And if there had been a day for him to give up the two-tailed hat of shipwife, then it was not this day. Hachette Book Group is a leading book publisher based in New York and a division of Hachette Livre, the third-largest publisher in the world. Social Media For generations, the Hundred Isles have built their ships from the bones of ancient dragons to fight an endless war. In Bernshulme, Karrad reveals that a living arakeesian has been spotted. Karrad and Meas both want to end the war with the Gaunt Islanders, though for different reasons. They plan to escort the arakeesian to a remote section of ocean and kill it so that the bones cannot be used to create more ships. Tide Child obtains a shipment of crossbow bolts, poisoned with "hiyl", with which to kill the creature. 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. Karrad sends a spy named Dinyl to become part of the crew; Dinyl and Joron become friends and eventually lovers.And if they heard him weep a little, did they care? No, they did not, for what did it matter to them if a brave man wept? It did not make him any less brave, and had they not all wept at some point in their lives? So they smiled to themselves and went on with their jobs, never to mention it again.” This one felt more like a grand, epic pirate fantasy with tons of twists and turns and with generous heaps of action throughout. 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. The story starts as we immediately join our favourite crew of misfits who make a deeply disturbing discovery. Of course, this discovery is tightly linked to the story and revelations of the first book, so I won’t divulge any specifics other than to say that it sets them on a race against time to save lives and uncover the depths of this horrific plot.