On further investigation, Lucky Meas Gilbryn, Joron Twiner and their chosen crew members leave the decks of Tide Child and enter the bowels of the ship where below they find a horror awaiting them. You’ll live to spend your blood in service to the Hundred Isles along with every other on that ship. Even up here on the hill he could smell his ship, like a fish dock at the slack of Skearith’s Eye when the heat burned down from above and there was no shadow, no shelter, no release. A crew of over four hundred that polished and shone every bone that made his frame, so he was blinding white against the sea.

Tide Child trilogy - Wikipedia

Lastly, the beautiful map and chapter icons by Tom Parker are back, with two new chapter icons related to the narrative, too. During a fight with raiders, the gullaime exhausts its supply of energy and becomes “windsick”, falling into a coma. A weak name,” she replied and strode off, vanishing into the foliage which grew strong and thick away from the old flensing yard.

Readers of The Bone Ships will know that found family is one of the key themes of the series, and I’m gratified to state that Barker nailed the growth of the other characters as well. In addition to his complex protagonist, Barker also includes a literal raft of impressive and captivating characters, most of whom serve as members of Tide Child’s crew. In many ways The Bone Ships reads not as a fantasy, but almost like a recent historical fiction, lending it an air of verisimilitude that many fantasy books lack. Seen her standing on the prow of her ship, Arakeesian Dread, named for the sea dragons that provided the bones for the ships and had once been cut apart on the warm beach below them.

The Bone Ships by RJ Barker | Hachette Book Group The Bone Ships by RJ Barker | Hachette Book Group

However, Barker’s writing was on a whole other level in 2019 when he published the first entry in The Tide Child trilogy, The Bone Ships, an epic read that detailed the trials and tribulations of a condemned crew aboard a ship made from dragon bones.How strange it felt to say those words, those fleet words that he knew more from his father’s stories of service than from any real experience. Where I was apathetic before towards Joron, Meas, the Guillame, the crew, RJ started pulling my strings and I found myself rooting for them and starting to enjoy the journey they were on, just as they themselves were starting to enjoy it. Not even the memory of Keyshan’s Rot, the disease of the boneyards, could keep people from cutting through. Built from gion leaves which had been dried and treated until they became soft and pliable like birdleather, then wrapped around a skeleton of fire-hardened varisk stalks and the whole thing baked in the sun until it was bone hard. There are more characters in the second book than in the first, and the author managed to present their diverse characters well, even if we are not talking about full depth and naturalness.

The Bone Ships (Tide Child Trilogy, book 1) by RJ Barker The Bone Ships (Tide Child Trilogy, book 1) by RJ Barker

The words, concepts and sayings of the original world are well woven into the dialogues of the characters. She also stated that the inclusion of maps, illustrations, and sea ballads contributed to the novel's credibility. Tide Child is a black ship that is crewed by convicts, criminals and the condemned, a hard bunch for a hard and harsh world.There are rows upon rows of people who are barely alive and near to death having been left to wither and rot alongside many who have already perished on the journey. For generations, the Hundred Isles have built their ships from the bones of ancient dragons to fight an endless war.

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

Written in the same flowing, descriptive voice as The Bone Ships, you can be well assured you're in excellent narrative hands. Action scenes can be followed by noticeable lulls, rather than more smoothly flowing or building on one another. However, it is worth it to see Joron rise again as a stronger and much more developed person, and this ended up being a fantastic part of his personal story arc. RJ Barker managed to lay down a tremendous amount of worldbuilding in The Bone Ships and while this did impact the pacing slightly in that story, it’s now paying huge dividends in this second book, allowing him even more time to focus on character development.On one such mission, during a ferocious storm Tide Child comes across a badly damaged ship in trouble, stranded and near to breaking against rocks that surround an island. She had taken his hat of command from him, and though he had never wanted it before, it had suddenly come to mean something. But those big ships are now old and it seems with their disintegration, the never ending war might be coming to an end.