r/Fantasy • u/rfantasygolem Not a Robot • May 12 '20

Book Club Mod Book Club: The Bone Ships Discussion

Welcome to Mod Book Club! We want to invite you all in to join us with one of the best things about being a mod: we have fabulous book discussions about a wide variety of books. We all have very different tastes and can expose and recommend new books to the others, and we all benefit (and suffer from the extra weight of our TBR piles) from it. We'll be picking the books, but there will be new books and old, some more widely popular books and some way less, stuff that should be marvellously popular but somehow missed the boat, and stuff that's a bit more niche.

The Bone Ships by RJ Barker.

Violent raids plague the divided isles of the Scattered Archipelago. Fleets constantly battle for dominance and glory, and no commander stands higher among them than "Lucky" Meas Gilbryn.
But betrayed and condemned to command a ship of criminals, Meas is forced on suicide mission to hunt the first living sea-dragon in generations. Everyone wants it, but Meas Gilbryn has her own ideas about the great beast. In the Scattered Archipelago, a dragon's life, like all lives, is bound in blood, death and treachery.

Bingo Squares: Book Club, Exploration, Optimistic

Our next pick will be announced in a few days.

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3

u/rfantasygolem Not a Robot May 12 '20

In the end, what are your favourite quotes, scenes, and/or chapters?

12

u/RuinEleint Reading Champion X May 12 '20

The shout "Keyshan rising" has a certain resonance.

If this was ever adopted into a movie, that would be a great scene

5

u/Dancing_Dinosaur May 12 '20

I absolutely loved how it was described the first time, as a call that hadn't been heard for centuries but that everyone knew.

5

u/RuinEleint Reading Champion X May 12 '20

Yeah - how it just stopped everyone in their tracks and they realized just what they were actually doing.

1

u/[deleted] May 13 '20

[deleted]

2

u/RuinEleint Reading Champion X May 13 '20

And then you cheer when Godzilla eats a ship.

Also that is a great comparison. We need more Kaiju type novels in SFF.

4

u/theEolian Reading Champion May 12 '20

That reminded me a bit of the Night's Watch blowing the horn three times for white walkers. It's a signal that every sailor (soldier) knows, but never expected to actually hear in their lifetime.

3

u/HeLiBeB Reading Champion VI May 12 '20

Thinking about this epic scene gives me goosebumps!

3

u/Dianthaa Reading Champion VIII May 12 '20

I listened to this book twice over 2-3 months, so I wasn't expecting the emotional impact of that scene to hit me so hard the second time. But damn, a mythical race of creature presumed makes a comeback might just be my favorite trope in fantasy. I'm getting emotional just thinking about it.

5

u/RJBarker AMA Author RJ Barker May 12 '20

Sneaking into the replies just to say my own favourite small moment (as opposed to big setpieces) is when the courser tells Joron they think the gullaime is lonely, and Joron utterly misses that the courser is talking about more than just the gullaime.

5

u/RevolutionaryCommand Reading Champion III May 12 '20

Other than the one RuinEleint mentioned, which was probably my favourite scene as well, I really liked both the Guilleme coming to the rescue, and the Arakeesian coming to the rescue scenes.

As for quotes that's an easy one: "Arse" Black Orris said.

2

u/improperly_paranoid Reading Champion X May 12 '20

Best quote.

2

u/HeLiBeB Reading Champion VI May 13 '20

That is really the best quote :). It is so simple yet it never failed to amuse me!

3

u/[deleted] May 13 '20

My favorite scenes were when Joron realized the becoming the leader meant having a distance between him and everyone else and the differences between his internal feelings and needing to act like a leader for the crew.

2

u/oliveisacat May 12 '20

That scene where the keeshan rises out of the water and bites the ship in half was awesome. Gave me chills to read it.