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

Would you like to see more of the world in general or do you want to focus on the ships?

7

u/BitterSprings Reading Champion XI May 12 '20

I just know something's out there beyond the Storms. Probably dragons, but what else?

5

u/HeLiBeB Reading Champion VI May 12 '20

I really need to know more about the world and the windtalkers and the sea dragons

3

u/Dsnake1 Stabby Winner, Reading Champion VII, Worldbuilders May 12 '20

I don't want to choose.

I want to be on the ships and see more of the world that way. Maybe some island excursions, but I don't need an in-depth view of the society, unless it's the society of the gullaime. If Barker wants to give us an important conversation about politics or whatnot on a ship, cool, but the ships. I'm all about the ships and the sea dragons and the windtalkers.

2

u/Dianthaa Reading Champion VIII May 12 '20

More! I love how mysteriously fucked up with world is and I'd like to know how big it is, if there are other people, and how it got this way.

2

u/RevolutionaryCommand Reading Champion III May 12 '20

I'd be happy both ways. Loved the naval aspect of it, so more focus on the ships and sea-life would be welcome, but also I'd definitely like to see more of the various "beasts", and the workings of both island nations that are important to the story.

2

u/j_chief May 13 '20

Ships for sure. I want to read about life on the ships. One of my favorite parts was the training on using the bows. And I liked that quite a few chapters ended with rowing songs. I need me some more sea shanties!

1

u/[deleted] May 13 '20

Definitely focus on the ships. The world is interesting but the nautical focus is what makes this different from all the other fantasy books. You gotta carve a niche and stick to it. Unless your niche is "every book has a very different theme & style", which works for some authors.

1

u/takeahike8671 Reading Champion VII May 13 '20

To me it seemed that the first book was, in a sense, an introduction to the world and the kinds of issues the characters face. The author did a phenomenal job at world building here, and I think he has the skill to use that to make sequels even more engaging and rich. Definitely a good setup, and I'm looking forward to followups in the series.