The Farseer Trilogy
Assassin's Apprentice
Assassin's Apprentice
The Liveship Traders Trilogy
The Tawny Many Trilogy
The Rain Wilds Chronicles
Blood of Dragons is the final installment of the Rain Wilds Chronicles and is probably the best in the quartet. It's not the best Hobb out there, but I seriously enjoyed it. As a matter of fact, the ending to chapter eighteen was so unexpected and exciting I audibly whooped. I will say that while there are many legitimate gripes about this book, the two biggest being the introduction of Chassim as an important character (I mean, we're a dozen books into an epic saga that already has more than a hundred characters - do we really need her?) and the inability of Hobb to give up on the Thymara/Rapskal/Tats love triangle that no one cares about, but those gripes do not outweigh the sheer enjoyment I got turning the pages of this book.
So, the dragons and the keepers are all in Kelsingra, but they need to figure out how to get dragons something called Silver to get the dragons to full strength and complete the process of turning the keepers into full Elderlings. Meanwhile, the Duke of Chalced wants dragon parts to help keep himself alive. Tintaglia is injured and the search for Silver becomes that much more important to save her and, in doing so, save Reyn and Malta's baby. Not to give too many spoilers here, but OMG the dragons DESTROY Chalced in the last big battle. Whoop it up, dragons.
Hobb's writing is strong in so many areas. Her characters are fantastic and the growth from so many of our characters from the first book in the quartet to this book is simply brilliant. Alise goes from the spoiled wife a Bingtown trader to a liveship captain's lover who has to cook her own meals and clean her own rooms and it's seamless. Sedric goes from an abused, brainwashed lackey to Elderling in love with his dragon and in a healthy relationship. Leftrin goes from a boorish sea captain to a boorish sea captain, but we love him anyway.
But her settings are also worth mentioning. I feel like we know Bingtown, the Rain River, and Kelsingra and each place has its own personality and feeling. I imagine the Rain River as sort of a Cuyahoga River at the time it caught fire and Kelsingra as if Walt Disney World were open to like a dozen people, but all the rides and attractions were sort of working sometimes. The whole world of liveships and dragons seems so completely normal at this point and it's because Hobb never steps out of her immersive writing to let us forget that we're in a world unlike our own.
I have, as I'm sure you suspect, immediately put the first book in the last trilogy of the expansive Realm of the Elderlings saga on hold at the library. This world has gotten me through the first part of the pandemic. I have to start giving some serious thinking to what my next fantasy saga will be.
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