4.0
Black Ships
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesBlack Ships Reviews
4.0
“There is nothing I like more than a book that takes an ancient tale and just makes it completely their own.
'Black Ships' by Jo Graham, takes place after a great battle, Gull a young slave is born to her mother, a women of Wilusa (Troy) after her mother became a slave in that battle and taken away to live amongst the Greeks. Her life as a half Greek half Wilusan slave takes a huge detour after she is injured and survives with a crippled leg. Knowing that Gull's usefulness as a slave is no more her mother takes her away to a cave where Pythia, the Greek Oracle, lives. Fortune favours Gull because the Oracle agrees to accept her on as her successor after it is shown that Gull has the gift of prophecy.
Thus begins the next chapter of Gull's life, eventually she becomes the Oracle herself, in time for her to see the coming of her people. First comes more captives and slave as there was a second attack of Wilusa, then comes a small fleet of survivors and fishermen who missed the attacked. Through her help the blood shed is little and the Wilusans manage to take off with what remains of their people that were taken captive. That begins their time at sea as they try to find their place in a rapidly changing world.
I don't know how to explain this but Gull was just such a captivating character, seeing the world through her eyes was a joy to read. The detail that Graham put into her research and her descriptions kept me enthralled. She wove a rich and wonderful world. It wasn't just her descriptions either, quickly she had me rooting for all the Wilusans and their Prince most especially. And by the end I was feeling every precious loss of another of the people of sea with them. Usually when you read retellings of the ancient stories I find the 'heroes' are painted in a light more befitting their usually negative actions, a lot of the times theres less hero worship and a light is shone on some of their more unsavoury actions that got glossed over. Graham was able to weave together the character of Neas, who was a true ancient hero, a thoughtful ruler, an intelligent mind. And battles are depicted often with loads of casualties with remorse but not devastation over the loss of life. 'Black Ships' was refreshing, it wasn't a tale of smiting ones enemies or conquering lands, it was simply a people trying to find their way after they knew had been destroyed. It was a beautiful tale of hope.
I will definitely be looking into her books.”
“DNF. I'm at a bit of a loss of words with this book. I got more than half way through and it feels like I'm missing something. There are so many characters thrown around, almost with the assumption that I'm supposed to already know who these characters are and their relationships, as if I accidentally missed a prequel or something. I'm not sure the purpose of the entire ship voyage, I'm not sure about the character dynamics, and I'm not sure what the plot is supposed to be (if there even is one). This may be a reductionist conclusion to come to, but this book really felt like they go some places via sea voyage, they fight some people, they go some more places, they have a lot of small talk, they fight some more people, and so on. I hate that this review is a negative one, but I don't really have anything to work on. And this immense confusion from a reader's perspective and the monotony of the "plot", it unfortunately resulted in an excruciatingly boring read. I can't stand to continue reading it anymore.”
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