Author: R.J. Barker

Title: Call of the Bone Ships

Format: Paperback

Pages: 528

Series: The Tide Child #2

Phew, this one has been waiting for its review for a good while now, about three months, give or take a few weeks 😉. I blame NetGalley, the reviews for NG books usually have a “best before” or a “best by” date I need to abide by… But I’m also responsible – to put it simply, I enjoyed Call of the Bone Ships a lot, but still less than book one, The Bone Ships. The reasons for this development are many, but the most important of them all is the worldbuilding. It seems to me that the author did all the heavy lifting already in the first installment, creating a unique universe filled with le Guin-inspired world of islands and seas, gender-reversed roles, tall ships and dragons. As a result, the second book is focused predominantly on character and plot development, and while both are laudably consummate (oh all right, character development more than plot, but more on that later), nevertheless the lure of the uniqueness can no longer apply and the new worldbuilding details are too few to keep the mood of discovery afloat.

But ab ovo: in Call of the Bone Ships the crew of the Tide Child must deal with the revelations left in wake of the first installment. And here I must insert the unavoidable spoiler alert, because the second book grows organically from the first, building upon the foundation formed in The Bone Ships, and there’s no way to talk about Call of the Bone Ships without mentioning The Bone Ships (well, there’s a hint in the title) 😉. So, the arakeesians swim the seas again. In the never-ending war between Hundred Isles and Gaunt Islands the sighting of a water dragon whose whole body can be disassembled and used as a source of various lethal weapons, from ships to spears, is a call for a hunt. Whoever finds the means to kill the dragons and get their bodies will obtain a staggering advantage over their enemy – one that can end the war for good with a crushing defeat of one side. No wonder then that both sides scramble to action, absolutely convinced both of their own righteousness and the truth of the old adage that ends justify all means. Blood flows freely, unspeakable atrocities are committed in the name of greater good, and the noose around the Tide Child gets increasingly tighter. And for the Tide Child’s crew, caught between the warring sides, the whole situation just gets a whole lot more complicated – and deadly.