Then there are questions about how freedom can be reconciled with being the subject of a higher power – whether that’s Kennit, as king of the pirate isles, or the Satrap of Jamaillia whose taxes are throttling Bingtown’s Trader families. One can be trapped just as easily by the frivolities of a petty, unfulfilling life, as by being locked in a cabin on a ship and being limited by one’s own fear of the unknown is just as effective as the physical constraints of a wooden chrysalis. There are many different forms of imprisonment, of course. The dramatic force of the novel seems to come from the juxtaposition between freedom and imprisonment, and how the characters deal with this. These offer some answers to questions arising from the first book, about serpents and dragons and wizardwood and these answers in turn give rise to questions of their own. Along the way, Hobb eventually allows us to see the Rain Wild Traders at first hand and begins to reveal their secrets. The second volume of The Liveship Traders trilogy kicks off with a bloody amateur amputation on board ship and the drama barely lets up until the climax 800 pages later.
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