Rachel, I'm going to write you a poly, necro/shadow magic, steampunk, airship, girl boss being girl boss story one of these days 😉😂

A lot of Ghibli movies have airship stuff! Especially castle in the sky

i agree about not enough fantasy having airships~ you should play final fantasy x and final fantasy xii. the latter more so has airships and sky pirates AND I LOVE IT! also i just miss when final fantasy games centered around east asian mythology instead of medieval europe 😩

Honestly, Hobbiverse is so much of a better name than Realm of the Elderlings.

You don't need to read the Farseer trilogy before Liveship, but if you do, you'll notice some elements of the story that refer to Farseer and to its characters. I love Realm of the Elderlings with all of its failings. Ive never cried as hard reading a book as when was reading RoTE. Very cathartic.

Rachel! That “why don’t they write the books for me” question is an “about to write a book” gateway!! Eek!

I read the liveship series a few years ago and remember liking it. If you're looking for something airship adjacent, you can try the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik. It's an alternate history fantasy series that basically says " what if dragons existed during the Napoleonic Wars and were used as an airforce (with their own human crews)?

Just made my husband watch Treasure Planet for the first time and as it starts he says “are you making me watch animated Firefly?” So apparently I’m with you on the themes 😂

Rogue Planet by Greg Bear is a Star Wars novel with sentient materials and sentient spaceships in it! It was an okay Star Wars novel but a FANTASTIC planetary romance overall, if anyone is in to that! It talks a bit about space ethics and provides a really great insight into young Anakin Sky walker’s time with the Jedi, pre Disney canon, for those who are interested

I heard living sentient ship and all that I can picture is Farscape's Moya. Great weird show if you ever want to watch early 2000s scifi

Someone needs to write an airships + shadow magic (or necromancy) + good poly rep + found family book for Rachel with a full cast audiobook.

I completely agree that there should be more fantasies with airships and I'M GETTING ON THAT ASAP.

laughed out loud at the "what the FUCK is up kyle" vine btw

A full cast narrated audiobook with music would be 🔥🔥🔥🔥

OK, so, I have a theory about Kennits name, and that's that Hobb took it from the Malay, kenit, which means runt (as in runt of the litter) which is very appropriate given Kennits obsession with not being less than anyone else. Also there is a serpent called Telur which is egg in Malay and a dragon called Sintara which could be a play on nusantara which is the old name for the Malay empire and the land it occupied.

Gail Carriger has a delightful series called the Custard Protocol (first book is called Prudence) that heavily features airships and found family, plus some very good queer rep. It does take place in her Parasolverse, though, which has werewolves/vampires, and I know you're not the biggest fan of that (although imo she does a fantastic job of it! It's very comedy of manners).

I'm a giant Hobb fan. The Fool/Amber/Lord Golden/Beloved is my favorite character of any and all time. Althea Vestrit is also a great character. This makes me want to check out Wanted.

YESSS Robin Hobb. One of my two high fantasy queens, the other one being Samantha Shannon. I honestly prefer Robin Hobb so far, though. I’ve read her first two trilogies.

If you like airships try Mortal Engines also known as the Predator Cities series. The movie did not do it justice

Generally there needs to be more full production audiobooks.

If you are craving airships I highly recommend Airborn by Kenneth Oppel. It's got sky pirates and found family and a well done, slow burn romance. I read it as a child and the whole trilogy became on of my all time favorites. I haven't read it in years, but it's a fun, easy read and you might enjoy it!

I really love the idea of sentient materials in fantasy! One of my favorite depictions is a ship named Lady Vengeance who is created from livewood. But, this is from a game called Divinity: Original Sin 2. Absolutely love this game, and it's really fun to play with others!

The Cinder Spires series by Jim Butcher has flying Champs (also talking cats), book one is called The Aeronauts Windlass handbook 2 comes out November 7th Oh and "The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea" by Maggie Tokuda-Hall was fantastic! and has several gay/trans/Nb characters

When you said air ships I thought The Edge Chronicles, though it's a book series for children, I mainly remember it has sky ships and pirates.

Jim butcher's stream punk series is pretty dope. Airships and sentient cats(with Thor own culture). Aeronaut's windlass. Second book coming out soon. Fair warning: butcher wow the Dresden files series, and DIBS. Harry Dresden is my boyfriend. Butcher is a fun author to read.

For fantasy airships/sky pirates from a MG perspective, I used to LOVE The Edge Chronicles by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell. But I agree, we definitely need more of them around!

It doesn't explicitly come into play until partway through the series, but Mishell Baker's excellent Arcadia Project trilogy involves a sentient resource as a key plot point!

Liveship Traders books are very long but by the second book I was enjoying it so much that I was actually annoyed at how fast I got through it. I love a chunky book though.

If you don't mind novels set in D&D worlds, there is a trilogy set in Eberron, which has airships, written by Rich Wulf. It starts with Voyage of the Mourning Dawn.

Honestly one of the best opens to a video lol. Hell yeah I'm always ready for swashbuckling talk

I'm a sucker for epic ship books (the Jacky Faber Adventures and Hornblower are my jam), but never really tried it in a fantasy setting. I'll have to give it a go.

That Hobb cover looks like windows 98 point and click adventure game cover.

The Elder Empire series by Will Wight has a sort of sentient object part of the plot. I wouldn't call it a resource exactly, but some objects & weapons in the story gain a sort of sentience that only the wielder can hear. I really love this series and never see anyone talk about it.

Ship of magic has a very beautiful cover in my country, and it's actually what first attracted me to the books. It's the one they've put on in Goodreads. I did a long pause in reading the books as well, leaving book 2, but it was because I was devouring the books too fast and wanted to savour them more 😁

I'm trying to watch this video and whenever the WHAT THE FUCK IS UP KYLE Vine cuts in I laugh so hard that I can't hear what you're saying XD

Watched Renfield today & that FU Kyle energy just has me rolling

I really liked the goblin emperor from a few years back, that had airships in it. They're not my favourite trope, though. I always worry that a book with airships is going to go down the road of romanticizing technology and "progress", where progress means like robber barons 😂. But that's just me, they obviously mean something very different to you!

I read liveships series as a teenager. Hobb had some really great ideas. Sentient wood and it's back story was awesome! Sadly besides this ideas, books were very boring to me. As much, as I wanted to know how story ends, I just couldn't bring myself to finishing whole series.

I think you might like Gideon the Ninth (and the rest of the Locked Tomb series). There's space travel, necromancy, lesbians, and plenty of other cool stuff. I haven't finished the book yet, but I'm loving every second of it.

Oof MOOD with the covers. I think part of the problem is publishers being unwilling to pay artists well for good covers, or they'd rather just use stock images. And then, of course, there's the fucking AI use for covers lately (even SJM's UK cover for CCity has an AI cover).

Not sure if you've read the Shadow and Bone series by Leigh Bardugo, but it has airships. But they're not prominently featured.

If you're looking for airship pirates, I highly recommend the Books of Babel series starting with Senlin Ascends! It's a travelogue fantasy with an adorable found family!

This is fully out of left field but unfortunately one of my favorite “books” is Manacled by Senlinyu which is not a book it’s an HP fanfic BUT it is so so good, and I wish I could find similarly well written dark fantasy romance like it but how does one find that when it’s a fanfic not a book!? Thus I wonder if you would ever be willing to read and review it? Guaranteed views for sure because it is one of the most read and widely loved fica on AO3 and has been recommended by book tubers before on YT. I would love to hear your thoughts and recommendations of something similar 😊 here’s a brief Goodreads review to see if I can entice you: “Overall, Manacled is a literary masterpiece. The world-building is genius, the characters are complex, the storyline is heartbreaking, and the moral quandary is thought-provoking.”

I love the liveship series and I know what you mean about the... Wood.. like I want to explain to people what's going on there but it would ruin so much ❤❤

"Sentient wood." Sounds like Sam Worthington.😅

A friend of mine recommended this to me and I just couldn't get into it. Glad I'm not alone in not thinking it's great

Reminds me of Pirates! by Celia Reese (I think. Haven't read them in like ten years.)

Speaking of airships, have you read the Mortal Engines series by Philip Reeve? Criminally underrated books.

The Rogues of the Republic trilogy by Patrick Weekes has airships. It's fun, action-packed, lots of heists & absurdity. Oh, & there's sentient magic! Also the 2nd & 3rd book are much stronger than the 1st, iirc

I don't remember why I didn't like Ship of Magic, it's been too long since I've read it. I did not continue the series anyway.

The idea of live ships reminds me of how Anne mccaffrey had live ships in a sci fi sense. Although I can’t remember if the anne mccaffrey ones handle disability rep well or not. Cause I think the ships are like the bodies of disabled people.

I mean, not books, but the Final Fantasy games like to do airships. FFIX is great for that.

Not a book recommendation, but the Final Fantasy videogame franchise has airships in almost every installment. Near the end of Final Fantasy 4, you get an airship that can fly to the moon, which is where the final boss of the game lives. I do have to warn you about Final Fantasy 4 having creepy-looking puppets as enemies, though. Seriously, they'll give you nightmares. They look like Pee-Wee Herman on crack. But yeah, if you like videogames with airships in them, randomly select a Final Fantasy game and give it a try. :)

"Retribution Falls" by Chris Wooding is a dieselpunk airship crime story with a pair of sequels. The cast is majority male and extremely straight, but the character work is solid and the story is very propulsive. The ship is extremely not-alive, but given the way the setting's magic system works that is maybe for the best.

The Aeronaut's Windlass for airships

I really enjoyed ship of magic I was really nervous to read the liveship trader series because I hated assassins apprentice I dnf that book

The Liveships overarching concept of slavery is huge, and encompasses so many aspects. Direct slavery, slavery through ignorance, slavery to traditions and family, and much more Did you read books 2 and 3 Althea is barely a main character is the full trilogy Wanted does sound interesting I read something with air ships just a few months ago, but cannot recall the title For a bit of a blast with a complex sapphic relationship try The Blood-Born Dragon. It’s a debut and part of SPFBO 9

I'm sure I'm not the first one to answer this, but I'm normy sick today, and I've watched two videos where you didn't know the term. I mainly know it because it's my hubby's fave genre. Lol

9:21 if you love full cast audio productions I assume you’ve heard of Graphic Audio Productions? They bill their products as “a movie in your mind” and I think they do a great job.

Sounds like it also has a bit of Darker Shades of Magic vibe

Alright, I'm gonna come out and say it. Stuff made out of sentient wood is ripped from Terry Pratchett's Discworld.

Scifi(ish, in that it is set in space), but the Ancillary trilogy by Ann Leckie has sentient ships and politics and necromancy! And it is pretty (very) queer. There is also a lot about tea and gloves, besides the sentient ships and necromancy 😂

Air Ship Rec: As a kid, I really liked "Airborn" by Kenneth Oppel :)

I soft DNFd the first book…Assassin’s Apprentice?? I don’t think she is overrated, but I caution people from watching videos of booktubers raving about the series. I was expecting my edges to be snatched but that didn’t happen so I was low key disappointed. I think if I had stayed away from reviews I would have been able to enjoy it more.

I feel like you would like City of Shattered Light by Claire Winn

If you're interested in live ships and air ships... okay, so I haven't read this series in over a decade and I have no idea how it holds up, but the Leviathan series by Scott Wesserfeld has giant flying whales that are air ships. It's a WWI reimagining in which Darwin's ideas were adopted really quickly and so the Brits (and their allies) are the "Darwinists" and all their tech is "bio-engineered" animals, and the "Clankers" are the Germans (and their allies) and they have a bunch of steampunk mechs. Ironically, it also follows the main POV of a girl who dresses up as a boy to get to work on the flying whale ship.

I can only think of air ship suggestions. Haha I know Ken Liu's Dandelion Dynasty has air ships in it, but I a) haven't read it yet so I don't know how much they feature and b) they're suuuuuuper long. Book 1 & 2 are as long as the Live Ship books but book 4's audiobook is 41 hours long. Haha Thiago Abdalla's Ashes of Avarin series has air ships as well. He's a self published author. I've only read the prequel novella and the first book. The air ships are kind of there, but not super prominent in the story. I recently finished Senlin Ascends by Josiah Bancroft and it has air ships in it, but again they're not central to the story (at least in the first book). It's very steampunky though.

Yay!! 💜💜💜💜🗑️Rachel!

yeah

Rachel and others, I'm very curious to know- what are books that, in your opinion, are the epitome of the best contemporary fantasy has to offer?

Well... Leviathan trilogy by Scott Westerfeld is about WWI but in a world when one side have huge robots and other - machanised animals, and main characters take voyage across the world on a flying whale (not exactly sentient, but very alive).

The tale of Boaty McBoatface

You should read the Virga series by Karl Schroeder! The planet is a fullerene balloon and it's pirate esuqe and amazing sci fi

sentient beingw used as a resource is in every book 😂 they're called animals

oh no lol me, reading the video title: one fear me, listening to the video: oh ok we're safe lmao my fear is only that you'd be like "this is complete garbage" haha, i know all books aren't always for all readers but I really like Hobb - but the Rain Wild Chronicles are my absolute fave tbh, Liveship is definitely close behind. I don't like the Fitz books nearly as much

I love Robin Hobb's characters but I find myself skipping chunks of the books just to get to the next plot bit.

lol i think you mean "steampunk" not gaslamp... but i see how they could have been filed on the same shelf in your brain

Have you ever read Tamora Pierce? You need to read Tamora Pierce.

Truthfully, I used to read all her books and all, but the Liveship series wasn't as good as the Farseer ones imo.

I was not a fan of Hobb. I read the first Assassins Apprentice book and it was like dragging my teeth on concrete trying to get through it. I’ve got no interest in going back to it. Guess it’s just not for me.

I feel the why can't writers cater to me bit with supernatural stories, especially supernatural romance. I don't like raw horror. I'm too ace to enjoy smut. I'm too old to care about 99% of teenage first loves. Just no to toxic relationships. To add insult to injury most of the great webcomics I got invested in went on long-term hiatus and many never came back.

I'm realizing the only story that have airships in *fantasy* specificly.... Is a Video Game weirdly enough. If you can find a well done lets play with people voice acting on it, then you would enjoy it I think as I understand as a mother you may not have time to play a video game. (and more perferably the newest relese of it when it came out for the PS4 and Switch, because the graphics are spruced up slightly. Still feels old school PS1 as it's a bit cartoony, but they look better on the switch/PS4, so it's also a bit more enjoyable to watch). Final Fantasy 9. One of the Main Charaters comes in on a Airship that is a stage for plays. And a group of Theives are seen are also thespians. There's also an airship chase at some point. I haven't read enough of airship fantasy unfortantly, so I can't actually recommend much. Though i think there is an Airship at somepoint in D. Gray Man the Manga/Anime? Actually yeah, that actually has a airship at one point, but that's farther into it. But it has super cool magic and conversations! (it may not have sentiant ships, but the "Innocents" are actually sentiant crystals that give people powers, like seeing the souls of the creatures they're fighting, or make prophic art, or alter time. The one the main charater has is even more sentiant and self aware that it alters far differently than others, and embedded into his hand instead of an object.) Though I reccomend reading the Manga if you don't want to be upset that they never finished continuing the Anime.... (which is sad because it was a nice way to spend time with mom as she *loved* it.)

I hated really dislike Ship of Magic, it was needlessly long winded and it read like it was trying to pander to me as part of the female demographic…. Which is already there in Fantasy fandom. Needless to say I never finished the Trilogy. ETA: Wanted sounds interesting though.

I abdolutely LOVE Robin Hobb, but I also understand that the super slow pace is not for everyone. It's my biggest complaint about her books. But, at the same, spending so much time with the characters is what makes it worth it for me (I end up crying my eyes out with all her finales 😂)

She wrote a trilogy with an interesting premise....that didn't live up to the premise. Soldier's son was awful. All sorts of fat shamey. Like, the mage in the series got fat and it was written all over every page just now nasty and gross he was. Like, it was pretty....awful. AND, the writing was no good atop it. She had far more interesting characters that were little more than peripherals who would have been a lot cooler to follow. Nope. She followed the MC she kept fat shaming all over the place. He was a dullard. So bad, I can't remember her name. I decided I'd avoid her after that. The first book, by the way, wasn't too bad. It was book two that sucked, and I DNF'D book three third of the way in.

To answer the question: yes. Yes Hobb is overrated. Them's my fighting words. (I got so furious at Ship of Magic that I stopped reading Realm of the Elderlings and unhauled it all. Farseer trilogy was fine, but I don't think it's as good as more modern titles and more diverse authors produce.)

I don't read Robin Hobb anymore since most of her books are r*pey.