Fantasy is preoccupied with journeys. Generally, these travels are on foot. Ship crossings are far less prevalent in the genre. Exceptions to this tendency include Robin Hobb’s Liveship Traders series (ISBN Nos: 9780006498858,9780006498865 and 9780006498872, new paperback editions HarperVoyager 2008) and Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea Quartet (omnibus edition, ISBN 0140348034, Puffin Books 1993). These two groups of novels shall serve in elucidating how fantasy and nautical life can be merged, and why this mix is so uncommon.
Liveship Traders
This series is mostly concerned with the intertwining fates of families of seafaring traders who own liveships. As the name suggests, these are sentient vessels, with ship expressing themselves as characters via living, breathing figureheads. All three novels are full of sailors and ship’s captains, as well as a large contingent of pirates.
In these works the fantastical and nautical elements meld very well; the personalities of the liveships bind the various strands of the narrative together. Most of the action takes place on the decks of these ships, and herein lies the problem: fantasy is almost always devoted to constructing a strange landscape for the reader to be immersed in, and on the open sea, despite having ships as key characters, the unknown land fades from view. For example, in the middle volume, The Mad Ship, there are some scenes that, discounting a sea serpent or two, could easily have taken place in the real world.
Though Hobb is a writer of such great skill that the reader never forgets that he or she is reading a fantasy novel, in other hands placing all the main events of the plot on board a ship could easily make the work slip from pure fantasy to its outer edges. Put simply, sailing can and does dilute the fantastical elements of a work.
The Earthsea Quartet
Le Guin’s best known works are not focussed on the sea and sailor’s life to the extent that Liveship Traders is, but the ocean is present enough to warrant notice.
Ged travels by boat to the ends of Earthsea to defeat and embrace his shadow in A Wizard of Earthsea, then sails home with Tenar and the Ring of Erreth-Akbe in The Tombs of Atuan, before reaching the island of Selidor with the soon-to-be King Lebannen in The Farthest Shore.
Interestingly, Ged’s boat Lookfar is also personified by the author. Though it does not act as a character in itself, the protagonist considers it an old friend. Though Le Guin’s ability to imbue her writing with the weight of an imagined history prevents the fantasy from being lost among the waves, this similarity between her work and that of Hobb reveals a second reason as to why ships and the ocean are reduced to bit players in the genre.
In the absence of any landscape but the sea and the ship, something must stand in for the deep forests and forbidding mountains which dominate fantasy. As ships are often referred to as ‘she’ putting the vessel in the place of the earth is the most obvious direction to take. Hence the personification of the ships in both Le Guin and Hobb.
In sum, combining nautical elements with the fantastic is problematic simply because both have strong conventions, and it is difficult to strike a balance between the two, or prevent the ocean from overpowering the fantasy. It can be done, as Hobb and Le Guin prove, but considering the complexities of fantasy alone, it is not surprising most writers in the genre steer clear.
