Spoilers.

I’m late to the game. But I just finished this trilogy, and I really struggled with the third book. It felt like Hobb was barely staying afloat while trying to bring this series to its conclusion. She is a master at her craft, so ultimately she made it work. But under a lesser skilled writer it could have been much worse.

There are still some fantastic and powerful moment in Ship of Destiny, but I think she struggled with all of the plot lines.

She essentially abandons the Bingtown plot and it’s characters halfway through the book. You could say that she all but concluded that story, which…ok, but in the middle of the book? Yeah, I don’t know about that. That’s 4 or 5 major characters in the trilogy that are just never mentioned for almost 400 pages. Thats unacceptable imo.

And the book essentially ends at the 85% mark. The final 15% is just generic “let’s wrap this story up” vibes with no surprises and anything significant. It’s not a bad wrap up but it’s the kind when you’re just ready for it to end and you know nothing is going to happen.

Now, I know Hobb isn’t necessarily a plot driven storyteller, but I really felt the length of this book in several sections.

I’ve been pretty negative, but I still really enjoyed my time with this trilogy and would recommend it to any fantasy reader. I stand by that Kennit is one of the greatest characters ever written in fiction. The rape scene with Althea is one of the most powerful dramatic moments I’ve experienced in fiction. I’d never been so disgusted, heartbroken, angry, and violated as I was in that moment. And that great writing.