Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience

My first RJ Book, and it took my a long time to get into it. But once I was in? It's great. Loved this one.

A fun read with excellent character development and brilliant, unique world building. I found myself immersed in the story right from page one and look forward to reading the rest of the series.

The Bone Ships is a fantasy novel that I would class under realism and historical naval fantasy that pays a tribute to the swashbuckling days of C.S Forester and Moby Dick. This world is rich, this world is alive, and this world has a lot of nautical terms that would have been better placed to serve at the beginning rather than the end of the book in my opinion. There is a rich emphasis on the combat, the way ships are run, handled by crewmen, and how hard they are to operate. Most of the time, it shows that running a ship and a crew isn’t easy and that as Shipwife, you have to trick your crew into believing they are more than they are. A lie always helps at the end of the day when you’re thousands of miles into the sea and all you have is the blue ocean. No land.

On the one hand, I felt the beginning was rather slow and that during the middle of the book, the pacing was up and down. In some moments you’d have very exciting scenes with Joron and the Guillame, but on the other you then often had another cast of characters introduced that sort of impeded the process. I feel there were too many points of view within this part of the novel. On the other hand, however, the worldbuilding was key to make the reader involved. The prose is great at times, and I did feel a bit of connection to Joron. Not too Meas however, unfortunately. I had a complete dislike of Karad and his henchmen. I also grew to like the crew of the Tide Child, but in my opinion, this book had too many characters (mostly just the crew of the Tide Child) that were competing for each scene. I feel this novel was intentionally set up as a foundation for the next book in the entry and I don’t mind that.

It definitely has its strong moments when we are with Joron often and we view the ship through his eyes. The Hundred Isles is a place of brutality, and it has the most messed up society I’ve seen. But it embraces the proud nautical tradition of novels written on the subject so there’s plenty of swashbuckling action and boasts and whatnot. I think a TV series would be fantastic for something like this. I did enjoy it in my opinion, and I cannot wait to read and review book 2!

I have submitted my reviews on Amazon and Waterstones.

I loved this books, fantastic world building. I got so drawn in I could barely put it down.
Usually for me when an author totally unique words, even for the days of the week I feel lost and can never keep up. But not in this case, I just got deeper into the world and it was brilliant. Can’t wait to read on!

Dragons, Magic and Ocean based Action!

The author RJ Barker manages to weave a fantastical but believable fantasy epic that is the first in a series - with his unique and individual style.

The characters are put through their paces in the eternal quest of nationalistic one upmanship. The goal - to secure the first Dragon spotted in absolutely ages!

Poor Joron is the main character who suffers the brunt of the authors machinations making for a fun book to read.

* * * *
4 / 5


The Bone Ships is not my first read by R. J. Barker, having read his series The Wounded Kingdom, but it is definitely the best so far. It took a few pages for me to really get into it, because this is a strange world featuring boats made of the bones of dragons, built around a world based on sailing, where information is slowly fed to the reader. I'm not a huge fan of being the dark when I am reading, and The Bone Ships had a lot of its own vocabulary, but once it picked up it didn't stop.

Featuring Joron, a crap captain of a crappy boat, and Lucky Meas a sailor-woman of some infamy who has a sudden drop in her reputation, The Bone Ships doesn't disappoint on the main character front. I grew to be fond of both of them in different ways - Meas for her brashness and badassness, Joron for rise from being a useless alcoholic who sold his ship's charts for more booze to someone vaguely respectable.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read and review this book, I really appreciate it. Sadly I had a hard time getting into it and didn't find it compelling enough to make it to the apparently less slow second half.

I'm long overdue in reading (and reviewing) this and I'm kind of kicking myself because it was great! At least now I don't have to face the wait for book 2!

I love stories about characters redeeming themselves and Joron's growth throughout this novel was lovingly and tenderly done. All the characters were wonderful tbh. Especially the Gullaime!! And the world was fantastic, literally everything is trying to kill you and will kill you, and I adored the way this displayed itself in every facet of the storytelling.

My one complaint is the pacing as it took me a long time to read this which is unusual, but that also might just be my fault haha.

A fantastic start to a nautically inspired fantasy series. This had everything and then some; nuanced characters that grow, detailed and lush world building, swashbuckling adventure and hair-raising battles.

The start is a little slow, as with the more detailed fantasy epic tales it took slightly longer for me to become immersed in the world and care about the characters. That's not to say I was ever bored, I was intrigued throughout, but after the 40% mark I couldn't put it down. It was dark in places (there is a horrific sacrificial tradition involved in new ship launching), but I wouldn't say it quite reached the Grimdark depths of some other adult fantasy novels I've read.

If you love Robin Hobb's 'Liveship Traders' books, definitely give this a go. I was concerned this would be too similar, but Hobb has written a great recommendation for 'The Bone Ships' herself, and whilst I think R.J. Barker has been inspired by her novels, it remains completely it's own tale, and is also fabulously written.

I also loved how the ending completes the first book without a massively annoying cliff-hanger but doesn't tie it all up with a neat bow either. More change is clearly coming, and they're all definitely going to have to fight for it... Can't wait for the next book!

(ARC provided by publisher via NetGalley)

RJ Barker is an author I adore, and I loved his first trilogy. His prose, his distinct voice and the humour with which he infuses his books are a delight. So, I was quite surprised to find that The Bone Ships didn't grip me.

The first time I gave up around 20% and decided that perhaps I wasn't in the right frame of mind, and the second time I tried it as a buddy read with other fantasy fans (and most of them adored it!) and gave up around 60%.

I knew from other reviews that the first half is fairly slow, and I know RJ likes to build his characters, but for some reason the story didn't click with me, didn't engage me, and I wasn't doing the book any favours by skimming. Since reading just because "I have to" isn't fun, I decided to stop.

However, I would like to stress that even though the story didn't grab me, there were a few delightful characters, and everyone else I spoke to ended up adoring The Bone Ships.
So, if you're a fantasy fan, definitely give it a try.

Thus book had amazing world building and was very interesting to read. You can tell that the author has thoroughly researched what would happen when you are sailing a ship too!

However, I unfortunately didn't connect to any of the characters which lowered my overall enjoyment of the book.

I did enjoy it enough to try other books by this author though

Huge ships made from the bones of long-dead sea dragons are the primary means of transportation and war. We have sea dragons . The world building and characters are certainly well done and keeps you engaged until the end.

So I'm a big animal lover. And while I initially saw "dragons" and "ships" and became incredibly excited, as I began to read the story became more clear. Yes dragons aren't real, but with creatures in our own world being constantly hunted to extinction, losing their habitats and just generally being ill used by humans, I decided I just couldn't read 400+ pages of humans hunting the last living dragon in order to make it into a ship.

RJ Barker, author of the wonderful Wounded Kingdom trilogy is back. This time we’re taking to the high seas, ships made from the bones of giant sea dragons and a more than generous helping of adventure and hijinks.

Now, I must confess that I’ve not read many ship-based books. Barker clearly has, and his love of them just shines through every page. After a bit of a slow start where we’re introduced to the world and characters, the adventure really kicks in and it’s full speed ahead.

And what a world it is – shipwives and deckchilder, arkeesian sea monsters and ships made from their bones. Fleet ships and Black Ships of the dead. There’s an awful lot going on in the first quarter of this book in setting all of this up, and introducing us to our main characters – Joron Twiner, former ship’s captain, sorry, Shipwife of the Tide’s Child and Lucky Meas who takes his place (with some force) and molds Joron’s rag-tag crew into one worthy of the name.

I struggled a little with the opening of The Bone Ships, information-heavy as it is. But knowing Barker’s skill at weaving a cracking story I pressed on and was richly rewarded with a grand old adventure. As I said earlier, he has a clear love of this setting, and it really shows through. The world he’s created here is so utterly different from The Wounded Kingdom, yet just as rich with detail.

He’s also got a gift for character. Meas and Twiner are both brilliant, one the supremely confident, capable shipwife, the other initially a no-hoper who learns that he’s more than he thinks possible.

The Bone Ships is the first of The Tide Child trilogy, and I’m intrigued to see where RJ Barker takes us next.

The Bone Ships is one of the top fantasies of 2019: a tour de force from start to finish. Barker spins his story expertly: no exposition, no backstory, just a steady drip of details that slowly round out characters and world. And what a world this is: a world where kindness is killing a babe at birth and blinding a birdmage for its own safety; a world of endless warfare and insufficient resources. Yet this isn't a grimdark tale. It's built on hope and the commitment to a better way of life; it's propelled by the forging of loyalties and by unexpected moments of compassion. It challenges the assumptions of its cast and shows the lies at the heart of its worldbuilding, promising that anything is possible. It takes its time to set up its plot, but once it takes wing it's a majestic vision of sea battles and ancient leviathans - a fantasy Master and Commander that I loved from start to finish.

The Bone Ships is the first book I’ve read from RJ Barker, so I didn’t have too many expectations going in. Actually, my expectations were very low indeed, because I was second guessing myself whether it was a good idea to request a copy. I mean, I always knew nautical fiction wasn’t exactly my cup of tea, but in recent months I learned that I’m really not a fan of the subgenre. That being said, The Bone Ships was nothing I feared it would be and was much more than I ever expected.

I have a bit of love-hate relationship with audibooks as they make it easier to devour a book while doing something else, but on the other hand, it’s easy to miss the nuances, and the details of the world building. Also a lot depends on the narrator, the way they deliver a story. It can put you off entirely or get you totally enthralled. While I listened to Jude Owusu‘s incredible voice, I wondered whether I would have loved The Bone Ships as much as I did if I read it instead. I probably would, but one thing’s for sure: you really have to try the audio book, because as limited as my experiences are with audio books, none other made me feel like Jude Owusu managed to. But then, it takes two to waltz as they say, and without Barker’s exquisite writing the magic wouldn’t have worked quite as well.

The Hundred Isles is not a place you’d call happy or peaceful or a paradise on Earth for that matter. It has an interesting society structure – people’s place in it is based on their birth: whether they were born healthy, or if their mother survived. The more healthy children a woman gives birth to, the higher her respect is. The Thirteenborn is on the top of the ladder who practically rules the Hundred Isles and its fleet. The most valuable thing on the isles is arakeesian bone – arakeesians are something you’d call a sea dragons, who once filled the seas, but now they were pretty much extinct. Their bones are used to build ships, hence they called bone ships. It is usually an honor to serve on a ship like that – unless we are talking about a black bone ship, in which case it’s more of a condemning. Those who commit a crime are sent to serve on one of these ships until they die – either in raid, or from alcohol poisoning. Once someone is marked by a black band, there is no way back.

Joron is determined to drink away his days and not to care much about Tide Child – a black ship he is the captain (or as they called in this world: shipwife) of, until Meas Gilbryn challenges him and takes charge. Joron soon enough finds himself on an adventure which will make him question everything he knew about people, the world and even himself.

We read about the events through Joron’s eyes, which is a really interesting choice of POV, as he is not the hero of the story. Not in the common meaning of the word anyway. Meas is the fearless leader, the one who always knows what to do, always has a plan and has a charisma that makes people respect and obey her. Something that Joron lacks. You’d expect her to be the focus of the book, the main POV character – and still, Barker is not one to go for conventions and the expected way. By choosing Joron as his MC, he lets us see Meas from a different light – she is still the hero, but we actually get to see WHY from an unbiased POV while we can also witness the changes in Joron’s character the more time they spend together. He gains self-confidence, finds his own voice, challenges himself and his views, and makes friends, if unusual ones.

My most favourite character is probably the Gullaime, a birdlike creature which can command the winds, and are the most useful member of any crew. But they are also feared and respected. Joron, to his disbelief somehow finds a way to make him help them on their journey and earning his respect he also earns his friendship. As much as you can call that a friendship anyway.

The Bone Ships is definitely a character driven nautical fantasy, and Barker did fill this world with intriguing characters from the arakeesian and the gullaime, through the crew members to Meas and Joron. And though journey takes them from the Hundred Isles to the far North through many dangers, there are a surprisingly few action scenes – or at least what I’d call an action scene. There are fights, yes, but they are not drawn out and don’t take up endless pages. And we are definitely not drowned in nautical jargon – that’s partly because Barker created his own terminology which works really well. It’s not a book I’d call fast paced necessarily, but I also wouldn’t say it’s dragging. I think the best way to make a nautical fantasy work – for me at least – is to create memorable characters and make the book depend on their interaction for the most part, because, well, they are stuck together on a ship for the majority of the time. Barker did nail that perfectly and I was so wrapped up in the way he waved the story together that I forgot to be bored. The plot itself is not that complex, or there aren’t many unexpected twists, but I really didn’t care about that. I was more invested in the characters and in finding out how their quest will work out. In fact, I’m so invested, that I can’t wait to read about what’s in store for the crew of the Tide Child next. I’m pretty sure there’ll be consequences to some of their actions, and not everyone will be happy how they handled their side of the bargain.

If I have to complain, I probably would have liked to learn a bit more about how the society works and about the Hag, the Maiden and the Mother. But as I said, I’m pretty sure a few details flew over my head due to listening to the audio book version.

The Bone Ships is the nautical fantasy I didn’t know I needed in my life. I loved the characters who weren’t just “good” or “bad”, I loved the different creatures that made this world so vivid and mysterious, I loved how Jude Owusu made me feel and react to his reading. If you are looking for a character-driven fantasy, which is not filled with fighting scenes but focuses more on exploring human nature, then look no further. I’m pretty sure the Tide Child and the arakeesian would be grateful for the company of another adventurer.

Arakeesians—sea dragons—haven’t been seen in the Hundred Islands for generations. The Hundred Islands fleet—at war with the Gaunt Islanders—must make do, building their ships from the dwindling supply of dragonbone that remains. Joron Twiner is the young, drunkard shipwife, or captain, of a black ship: a ship of exiled criminals. Following the death of his father and his condemnation, he sees no reason to live. When Lucky Meas Gilbryn robs him of his position and makes him a part of what is now her crew, he nurses a bitter resentment even as she steers him through rebuilding his life. And under Meas’ command, Joron Twiner will become part of a budding legend.

The genius of the novel is the way Barker constructs his sea-faring culture. As a fan of tall ships and stories about them, there’s so much that’s familiar to me—but not one thing is the same in Barker’s world as in ours. There are ships, yes, but made of bone and slate, not wood. The masts are spines, the aft deck is the rump, sailors are deckchilder and the captain is the shipwife. Sails are wings, and ships don’t sail—they fly. (The most jarring thing for me, maybe surprisingly, is how odd it feels to think of a ship as a ‘he’ instead of a ‘she’.)

Lest it sound like the maritime culture of Barker’s novel is a find-and-replace job, there’s plenty of material that’s original to the Hundred Isles. The most obvious detail is the heart of the story.

Arakeesians—sea dragons—are the missing heart of the islanders’ culture. Their bones build islander ships and their loss from the world has left the islanders scrabbling to salvage everything they can of their remains. The Hundred Isles are a society in decline, as rotten as brown arakeesian bone.

The depth of lore surrounding the bone ships feels fathomless, and, because of that, so real. What’s more, it is so inextricably linked with the broader society and culture of the Hundred Isles, which is itself fascinating.

The Hundred Islands’ society unfolds itself slowly to the reader. There are no exposition dumps in this novel—you get scraps of world-building, and you’ll be grateful, and you’ll add them to your carefully hoarded store and think about what this new piece of information means for the shape of the world.

What it means, eventually, is a decaying civilisation at perpetual war, in which the sexist presuppositions we take for granted in this world are turned on their head.

In a world poisoned by the death of arakeesians, not many children are born without birth defects, and not many mothers live through childbirth. Mothers who give birth to ‘whole’ children and live through it, along with their children, are raised to the title ‘Bern’. The Bern are at the top of Hundred Isles society, safe and treasured. They are given their pick of the Bern men called ‘Kept’, whose only purpose is to give Bern women children.

The ruler of the Hundred Isles is, currently, Thirteenbern Gilbryn. Her authority stems from the thirteen children she’s birthed, and when we meet her in person we see that she wears her stretchmarks and her sagging breasts with pride, as the signs of triumph they are. Everything our society scorns in a woman is valued here in the Hundred Isles.

But that doesn’t mean everything is all peace and love. Life in the Hundred Isles is cruel, made more so by the cruelty of the Bern. For example, all bone ships—except black ships—are adorned with corpselights: pretty little bobbing will o’ wisps that are bound to the ship they float above. To create a corpselight, a child must be sacrificed—specifically, every firstborn Bern child.

It’s the cruelty of the Hundred Isles that put Joron Twiner where he is at the beginning of the novel, along with Lucky Meas, his new shipwife.

Our shipwife for the momentous voyage in this novel is the daughter of Thirteenbern Gilbryn: Lucky Meas Gilbryn. Meas is a captain right out of the storybooks—she’s inscrutable; she’s preternaturally suited to command, knowing the sea and the ship and just how to use both, including the people aboard; and she’s driven as a motherfucker. She will sail her ship into the teeth of hell to accomplish her ends, and expect no complaint from her crew, who owe her nothing less than their lives and their deaths.

Lucky Meas is a towering figure of a captain, perfect to lead a story like The Bone Ships. Like Joron Twiner, I found myself drawn to her, fascinated by her, even inspired by her.

I was primed to fall in love with The Bone Ships. Like RJ Barker, I’ve adored the Patrick O’Brian and CS Forester stories of tall ships and naval battles since I was young. Barker manages to lift the pulse-pounding, dopamine-flooding feeling of those stories wholesale even as he shifts the ground under you. The culture and the setting of The Bone Ships could hardly be further from that of O’Brian and Forester’s stories, but the atmosphere is the same. Even as Barker focuses the lens on the cruelty and the fatalism of the Hundred Isles and their fleet, I still wanted to be on the deck of the ship Tide Child alongside Lucky Meas and Joron. I’m already desperate for the sequel.

And where’s my fancy, black-edged, signed, hardcover copy to treasure forever, eh? Shut up and take my money, Orbit!

Ah, I loved this! I was already a huge fan of RJ Barker – his Wounded Kingdom series is fantastic, and he’s a really nice person to boot. But The Bone Ships blew me away with its imaginative worldbuilding, intricate character work, and most of all, how much fun it was to read! Though technically the characters aren’t pirates, this has all the swashbuckling fun of an old-fashioned pirate romp, but with sea serpents, angry magic birds, and ships made of bones and filled with the condemned. There’s a lot of depth and hints of darkness to come, but also a lot of pure adventure…

The opening scene, where our main character Joron Twiner is challenged for his shipwife’s (ie, captain’s) hat by the notorious Lucky Meas, is spectacular at setting the scene. Joron’s a terrible shipwife, an ex-fisherman with no naval training, drinking himself into oblivion so he doesn’t have to face the reality of being forced to command a black ship manned by criminals and built from the bones of an arakeesian, a sea serpent. Meas overhauls the lacklustre Tide Child with formidable strength, and we follow Joron as he is first dragged, and then encouraged, back into service of the ship, and becomes a key player in Meas’s plans, which involve the last arakeesian…

I loved the worldbuilding here, from the overt to the subtle. Most noticeable for me, though one of the quietest elements on page, was that all the unnecessarily gendered expressions of our world are flipped on their heads: we have “women and men”, “girls and boys”, ships referred to as “he”. It’s a small change, but says a lot about the gender politics of this world, which is explored further in the reverence given to women and mothers by Hundred Isles society. Much more obvious is the fact that this is a world that has no trees, and therefore has no wood – the effect on building, weapons, and ships is fascinating! There are plants which can be made into a sort of leather, and plants which act something like bamboo, but there’s no strong, solid wood, and it’s really shaped the world. You begin to see why the ships are made of bone, and why that bone, as the only seaworthy substance in the world, might well be so valuable.

Joron is a compelling viewpoint character, and RJ handles his transition from drunk and despondent to confident and competent extremely well – this is a story that shows how keeping up appearances can lead to development of skills. Though he’s pessimistic at first, he’s likeable, and his reactions to Meas are believable. Though the plot is serious, and there are darker moments, there’s a thread of humour woven throughout (not laugh-out-loud, more like a satisfied snort every so often) that keeps you identifying with Joron. Meas is a force of nature, but her true character is hiding in the shadows around her forceful persona, and in the tidbits of her backstory we uncover – again, we see how playing particular roles can shape a person. Joron comes to model himself on Meas to a certain extent, and it’s good for both of them to see that. It’s not a friendship, exactly, but a partnership – a relationship of shifting balances worthy of Black Sails. That being said, the gullaime is probably my favourite character – it’s a cranky, blind, magical bird-creature who can call the wind to help sail the ship. Every bone ship should have one, but no other ship tries to make friends with theirs, which leads to some wonderful conversations and a really enjoyable, heart-tugging relationship between Joron and the Tide Child’s gullaime.

I could talk about this book for hours, but suffice to say it’s a new favourite of mine. It’s like Black Sails mashed up with Robin Hobb’s Liveships, via Pirates of the Caribbean, with a side of Temeraire and a dash of The Princess Bride. It sets up a huge, intricate world for the rest of the trilogy, and introduces us to complex politics and knife-balanced relationships while still being a rip-roaring adventure. It’s weirdly wholesome but also deviously dark. Somehow, it manages to feel like an old favourite from the first page, and there’s a scene towards the end that had more sheer joy than anything I’ve read for a long time. I highly, highly, highly recommend it. Five out of five cats!

This book is the start of RJ Barker's second fantasy series - a swashbuckling adventure. Where in his first series, the Wounded Kingdom, the world-building was minimal (or rather, it was just enough to be able to tell the story he wanted to tell), here the reader is thrown in at the deep end. The world the book takes place in is one where the bones of sea dragons are used to build ships, which themselves are generally used to battle against other nations' ships to steal their bones. This is because there are no more of these dragons, or so they thought ...

The first quarter of this book feels like wading through treacle, it is so thick with unexplained terms, creatures, materials and nautical job titles. Even things like trees are renamed as "gion" or "varisk", making it really hard to make head or tale of.

The story follows Joron, a depressed man lumbered with the role of shipwife (captain) on a black ship (one manned by those serving a prolonged death sentence for numerous crimes). His ship is abruptly taken over by Lucky Meas, shipwife of great renown, and his mediocre crew miraculously turned into one that would die for each other.

The crew soon find themselves secretly hunting down a rumoured dragon, not to kill it and take its bones, but to protect it from those trying to do so. And then kill it where nobody can salvage its bones and, hey presto, the world will be at peace.

The journey part of the story is really quite painfully dragged out, with some long sections of ship training (I am now very well versed in how to load, aim and fire a made up ship's crossbow!) and some mediocre action scenes thrown in to pad the story out (most of which involve the crew embarking on an impossible mission that they accomplish nonetheless).

Joron is not a likeable main character. He, much like the main character in the Wounded Kingdom, is a whiney brat who has to be battered into submission before adding any value to those around him. I didn't care in the least about him, or the fate of those on the ship. There was a point where my reading ground to a halt, when I could no longer take the seemingly endless sea voyage and cringeworthy pirate speak.

The final quarter of the book is more action-packed and some scenes are massive improvements, compelling the reader to carry on. However, by that point I was fed up with the book and the crew and their bloody pointless journey.