the bone ships 1
"an endangered species? Where! I have to kill it before anyone else gets to!". Bone Ships is a better name for the series than Tide Child, author should have swapped the names
The first 4 chapter is just joron bejng terrified of his own shadow and feeling publically humiliated. meas spend the begining beating up everyone in sight. The tale of failboy and girlboss. This js looking to be a pov main character split story. Meas is the plot mover the special one. Joron is the pov character, he's like a dog that can't stop shaking and barks at the tile floor. Dude is a mess is he doesn't have an order to follow.
Pirates of the caribbean if a Competant Woman bulldozed her way into the story and ran over everyone.
First battle and im calling bullshit injuries are always greater than deaths (and then 96% of injured dies of infection and complications). Also what is this, sharknado? everything's lifegoal is to eat humans and be aggressively violent. I can excuse unrealistic giant bone ships and magic lights made from sacrificed children but i draw the line at unrealistic battle casualties and unrealistic animal behavior. And why are there only 2 plants in the entire world.
If birth defects are so common it's suprising it's those without that are sacrificed. Assuming it's mostly those with birth defacts that live to adulthood (additionally with the high rate of maining) then you have a mostly disabled population. By disproportionatly killing the healthy babies the hundred islands is selectively breeding themselves for more birth defects. That is assuming this is all genetics like in real life and not magic. Irl it was often the children with birth defects sacrificed or left to die, superstitions based of ableism but also their lower labor potential. So i'm not sure if this reversal is intentional or not. The gender reversal is definitely intentional, ships being masculine instead of feminine etc.
Joron really is a dog
Are corpselight really worth it? Are they really that good they're worth like 40 years of able bodies labor? Eh i guess life is cheap in this world. Lol when the worst person you've ever met is working for a better world for everyone. Dod3. Joron reminds of that dude from the lefthand of darkness. Meant to provide a "normal" perspective and i doing so give the author room to push back on what is normal and assummed. "Have you ever met the Sea Hag, Twiner?" Hits hard.
125 pages in and that's 2 typos I've caught. Given how barker seems fond of germanic style agglutination and primarily germanic origin terms it's very jarring to see "adrenalin" which is a science and specifically chemistry term and more importantly latin derived. It's also a modern sounding germ. Tolkien for this very reason was incredibly careful with his wordchoice. In bone ships we have various compound words made using germanic bases like ship, wife, deck, keep, hag, child, wing. Compare this to romance origin words like mar (marine, maritime, mariner), plume, nav (naval, navigate), spouse, filial.
And yeah hundred islanders breeding themselves into more physical disabilities while also idolizing those born "whole" was a deliberate themetic decision.
Can't tell is Meas is delusional. She says she has little use for money but her actions contrict that. She had a lot of money hiddenso the cops wouldnt find it and is clearly using it now in ch 13-14 for herself and tide child.
If meas was sentenced in uh bernshulme? How did she end up wherever tide child was with no ship?
Our sacred corpselight their barbarous child murder. Our sophisticated stone buildings using friction their ugly stone building with mortar. Our noble fleet their savage raiders.
Damn /s imagine having a dead mom and everyone keeps movking you for it (this is one of the many ways the book eases the audience into the ideas surrounding disability.
If bone is such a precious resource why are they wasting it on prison ships that can't sail and rot in the water (i am contining to ignore that bone does not actually rot). It's already established lore wise that there are hundreds of deserted isles and most people can't swim, stick them on there. The fact that bone rots in water seems like just a narrative convenience to make them gross and an even more depleting resource. And they just let them sink?? Has no one heard of reduce REUSE recycle. Scrap the ship for parts and use the bones to repair other ships.
Ch15 not sure how you are going to fill 200 positions manually and by turning everyone away at this point you just need bodies. At the speed they're going individual interviews will take days. Ah how convenient we get a guy that knows everyone and also a guy we can blackmail for a crew.
Surprised people are having kids at like 15 given the state of the hundred isles. Historically before good nutrition puberty was later than it is now more like 14-15 (rather than 12-13, and in the last decade with childhood obesity on the rise even 10-11), so it took more time for the body to grow big and strong enough to survive a pregnancy. Most people were having firstborns more like 18-19. Nobilty (like europe) were the exception because they were unhealthy like that, and pushed for earliest pregnancies for lineage and inheritance purposes, gotta secure the bloodline at human costs.
Ch18. Why is joron still second. The original reson was to have a neutral party to balance the cliques. But now the original crew are outnumbered and meas has her old crew, outside of main character privilege joron has no reason to be deckkeeper besides that he already is. Makes more sense Meas would promote one of her old crew.
