Shaman's Crossing (Soldier's Son #1) by Robin Hobb

I know that you're all real tired of me talking about how I loved The Realm of the Elderlings (ROTE) and I've been trying to find something to fill the hole in my heart left by that series. I think it's kind of like how Harry Potter fans want something else like Harry Potter, but there really isn't anything like it?  Anyway, I decided to just go back to Robin Hobb well and start reading some of her other works. Soldier's Son is very polarizing among the Hobb fandom, so I thought I'd dig in. The first book in this trilogy is Shaman's Crossing. 

We meet Nevare Burvelle, who is the second son of a newly minted noble. As his status as second son is ordained, he is to become a soldier and eventually makes his way to the King's Cavella Academy.  But things don't go well for Nevare at the Academy. There are tensions between the "new" and "old" nobles, things with his family are strange, and let's not even start talking about his dreams. Is he really sleepwalking or is more happening? And then he goes to a carnival on Dark Night and the real story starts.

Look, I'm going to be honest with you. While I found Fitz's self-righteousness somewhat endearing in ROTE, I'm befuddled by Nevare in this series. He's dim, unquestioning, and not very nice. He's incurious about anything that doesn't directly relate to his future as a soldier and his unflinching obedience is just inexplicable. He's a teenage boy - where's the rebellion? The book is so slow and plodding and I expect that from Hobb, I really do, but when we're meandering along with the most boring character who has ever charactered, it's a struggle. There's not a lot of magic in the book and I want magic in my fantasy books and plenty of it!

This book also doesn't have the sly humor that is present in ROTE or the innumerable lines of note that I mark to write in this space. It's as if the prose that Hobb used in ROTE was written by a completely different person. The only sentence I noted in the whole book was the following:

When we returned to our dormitories after our evening soup, our uniforms would steam and stink until the air of our rooms seemed thick with memories of sheep. (page 305)

I thought that sentence was descriptive and evocative and reminiscent of the Hobb that I want to read. There was much too little of it in the whole novel.

And then there's the treatment of the indigenous people in the narrative. The fantasy world resembles the US and the "Specks" are stand-ins for Native Americans and the treatment of the indigenous populations is not the most sensitive portrayal. 

And it turns out that this is a plague book, too, and I'm just not up for that right now. 

I was not impressed. What a bummer. 2.5/5 stars

Assassin's Quest by Robin Hobb

The Farseer Trilogy

Assassin's Apprentice

Royal Assassin

The third book in the Farseer trilogy picks up right where we last left FitzChivalry and boy is he in for a rough go of it in this novel.  Fitz is on a journey to find King Verity who is currently being usurped by his brother Regal who has taken on the mantle of kind.  Verity had left to find help from an ancient race called the Elderlings because Verity's kingdom is being attacked by Red Raiders and the Elderlings will supposedly be a big help in stopping them.  However, since Verity has been gone, everything has really turned out badly for the Six Duchies and so Fitz needs to go get Verity, brink  him back, and everything will end happily ever after.

What I liked: 

1) The development of Fitz's wolf sidekick, Nighteyes. Nighteyes saves Fitz's rear on a number of occasions and is, all things considered, the all-star of the novel.  As a matter of fact, the only quote I marked from the book is a quotes from the wolf.   Fitz is explaining to Nighteyes that he HAS to go on a mission and that he just can't leave it alone.  Nighteyes responds: I am the same about porcupines.  

That might be the only bit of levity in the book.

2)  Fitz never learns: I think some people think of Fitz as a character who never grows because he makes the same mistakes over and over again. I think this is actually a product of Hobb writing realistic characters AND that Fitz is an unwilling hero in all of this and his reluctance to fight/assassinate/battle is a results of that unwillingness.  I think this is actually one of the most clever things Hobb does, even if she does get some criticism for it.

3) The reveal of the Elderlings at the end of the book is absolutely wonderful. I don't want to give spoilers, but it was something I actually gasped out loud at.

4) Hobb's prose is beautiful. She has built a complex world and now it's her playground. She writes it and you see it and it's not overwrought and it's not written for second graders. It's exactly right.

What I didn't like:

1) The first book in the trilogy was 150,510 words and came in at 448 pages.  The second book came in at 254,765 words and 688 pages.  This book 326,830 words and 757 pages*. There were so many bits of plot that I thought could have been abbreviate or cut out, especially since a lot of the middle of the book was exactly the same thing (Fitz gets caught and injured, Nighteyes saves him, someone else nurses Fitz back to health).  It didn't need to be that long.

2) Hobb is an interesting writer because she writes some female characters really well and just sort of relies on stereotypes for others. Because Fitz cuts ties with his old life in this book, there are lots of new characters and, to be honest, none of the new characters are worth learning about.  

But, overall this was a worthy ending to an excellent series. I'm going to go ahead and dive in to the rest of Hobb's work in this extended world.  I've already read The Liveship Trilogy and I might do a reread at some point, but I'm going to move on next to the Tawny Man trilogy.  I'm super excited about where this goes.

*Data obtained from Reading Length. 

Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb

Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb is the first novel in the Farseer trilogy and the first book in her extended world (that's called The Realm of the Elderlings). These are thirteen books that consist of a bunch of trilogies and other series.  I have dipped in and out of Hobb's world, including actually reading this book before, but I decided that there was no time like the present to get immersed in a new fantastical world. I started at the beginning and I'm going to work my way through the end.

If you're keeping count, that means I'm working my way through this extended world, Laura Lippman's Tess Monagan series, and Jussi Adler-Olsen's Department Q series. I'm a sucker for comforting characters who never let me down. I'm half tempted to start rereading Sue Grafton's Kinsey Milhone mysteries, but I'll resist until I'm at least done with one of my other serialized worlds.

In Assassin's Apprentice, our boy Fitz is the illegitimate son of the prince. He's abandoned by his mother at a royal home and Fitz embarks on a life in which he is trained to be an apprentice while palace intrigue unfolds all around him. The book dives into a rich description of the life of a royal-adjacent, the scope of the kingdom, and the slight magical elements that make this world run. And it does it all through the eyes of Fitz as he grows up.  When he's a child, he notices the things that a child would notice. When he's a young man, he noticed the things a young man would notice. It's absolutely wonderful to watch him grow up.

It's also a book with one gut punch after another. Poor Fitz is despised from the moment he appears at Buckkeep's door.  He finds one comfort that is almost immediately taken away from him. His most consistent mentor in life, a stablemaster, is as inconstant in his affections as a feral cat.  Every time you think things are going to turn around for poor old Fitz, things do not.

The thing I like about Hobb's writing is that she weaves in details of the world seamlessly. We know from just a few pages in that Fitz can somehow feel what animals around him are feeling.  Because everything is told from Fitz's perspective, this magic is just normal to us. So when someone points out that this ability, known as Wit, is unnatural, you're just as surprised as Fitz is.  I love how Hobb seamlessly incorporates world-building this way.

This book just resonated with me, at this time of safer at home and a global pandemic. Consider the following two passages.

I. All events, no matter how earthshaking or bizarre, are diluted within moments of their occurrence by the continuance of the necessary routines of day-to-day living. Men walking a battlefield to search for wounded among the dead will still stop to cough, to blow their noses, still lift their eyes to watch a V of geese in flight. I have seen farmers continue their plowing and planting, heedless of armies clashing but a few miles away. (Chapter 3)

I just think about how I still get up in the morning, walk the dog, eat breakfast, and things are still sort of normal, but the world is falling apart us. I read this passage and it just really struck a chord with me at this moment in history.

II. And the kingdom fails, for as each town must decide alone, so it is separated from the whole. We will shatter into a thousand little townships, each worrying only about what it will do for itself if it is raided. (Chapter 11)

A couple of weeks ago there was a meme going around the internet with the text "having some states lock down and some states not lock down is like having a peeing section in a pool" imposed over a photo of swimming pool.  That's what I kept thinking about. Defense of the whole only works if everyone does their bit to work together. You can't become isolated in your thinking because that instinct towards self-preservation harms the total.

To wrap it all up, I'm super excited to read the rest of these books in the order in which they were intended to be read. Yay for Robin Hobb!

Fool's Quest by Robin Hobb

The Farseer Trilogy

Assassin's Apprentice

Royal Assassin

Assassin's Quest

The Liveship Traders Trilogy

The Tawny Man Trilogy

Fool's Errand

Golden Fool

Fool's Fate

The Rain Wilds Chronicles

Dragon Keeper

Dragon Haven

City of Dragons

Blood of Dragons

The Fitz and the Fool Trilogy

Fool's Assassin

Fool's Quest is the second of the Fitz and the Fool trilogy and is the penultimate book in the Realm of the Elderlings saga

A theme of some of my recent posts is how upsetting I find Goodreads rankings. Love Lettering has a low score, despite the fact that it is maybe the most perfect romance novel I've read in a decade, and this 754-page book of nothingness has a 4.52. I think it's possible that the Goodreads people are not MY people. Look, I love Hobb and I will read the last book in the saga, but I think this is the worst book I've read of hers. I partially blame the name.  I was expecting this to be a quest book because, you know, it's called Fool's Quest, but instead it isn't until page page 439 that Fitz finally gets on a horse (58% of the way through the book) and, I hate to break it you, but he returns BACK TO THE FUCKING CASTLE on page 555 and we didn't leave again until page 652. I'm going to do the math for you because I care, but that means we spent 218 page of 754 on a quest - that's 29% of the book - and only a small portion of that was actually the Fool's quest.  

So what I'm saying is that this was a boring book with lot of Fitz moping about, blaming himself, both fairly and unfairly, for events at the end of the previous book.  There's also way more about fashion and unnecessary buttons on pants than is called for, in my humble opinion.  It's just...it's a book about grieving and I understand that, but I would have expected Fitz to immediately want vengeance and he's just dithering about the castle for hundreds of pages - it isn't even until page 191 that Hobb gets around to letting Fitz know the events of the end of the previous book.  

Fitz really rubbed me the wrong way in this book. I know Fitz is beloved and I am opening myself up for some criticism here, but he never learns.  He has been making the same mistakes since he was a teenager. I used to give him a lot of slack because he was a traumatized young adult doing the best he could. But he's a grown man now and still running away from his problems, not asking for help from obvious people who would love to help him,  and refusing to listen to people who might disagree with him. Fitz needs to grow up ASAP or I'm going to scream.

And there's so much rape and dismissal of women in this novel.  I was actually kind of nostalgic for the dumb love triangles in the Rain Wilds Chronicles.  One of the characters repeatedly refers to another character as the "handsome rapist" and the way Chade, Fitz's mentor, describes women, is a bit off-putting (see examples in the notable lines section). There's one line where Fitz talks about how he does everything for women, but even that line makes it seem like women are just one more responsibility of life that men need to take care of all the time.  Egads. This saga is not unproblematic with regard to sexual violence, but it seems to be particularly emphasized in this book.

There's also a surprising amount of lazy writing here. The Chalcedeans have been enemies from the beginning and the Duke of Chalced was a particular problem in the Rain Wilds Chronicles, but the portrayal of the Chalcedeans as just plain evil villains was a bit surprising from Hobb, who I would have said was a master of writing characters before this. 

"They were not warriors! They had no honor as warriors. All know women can possess no honor. They are weak! Their lives have no meaning save what men give to them."  (page 499) I mean, can we get more on the nose about just how bad our enemies are? I was expected Hobb to give us some sort of nuance, but none came and I was disappointed.

We leave this book on a bit of a cliffhanger. Fitz, the Fool, and their coterie of bumbling idiots have made it to Kelsingra, where we meet a bunch of our favorites from The Liveship Traders and Rain Wilds.  But poor Fitz is trying to help out some children and he finds himself in a bit of a bind.  So I'm excited to see what happens in the last book in the saga, Assassin's Fate. 

Notable lines:

1) "You have a crow tangled in your wig?" he asked, and for a wonder there was a trace of both amusement and mockery in his voice. "Ah, Fitz. I can always count on you to have some sort of bizarre problem that breaks my ennui." (page 133)

This crow is another problem I have with the book.  A whole new character introduced with no real payoff. There better be a Chekhov's crow scene with the crow in the next book or I'm going to cry foul and suggest this is worse than the unnecessary introduction of Grawp in the Harry Potter series.

2) "Everything she sang was true. I will leave it to you as to whether the truth can exist with the details omitted, or if those lacks make a lie of it." (page 183)

The great debate about whether or not lies of omission are actual lies.  

3) "But she was a stupid, vain woman, pretty as a picture and vapid as a moth." (page 259)

I like to notate animal metaphors, but this one is also an example of how Hobb treats women in this novel.

4) "She is as maternal as a snake." (page 260)

Another unflattering animal metaphor for a woman.

5) "There is no path to the future, Fitz. The path is now. Now is all there is, or ever will be. You can change perhaps the next ten breaths in your life. But after that, random chance seizes you in its jaws again. A tree falls on you, a spider bites your ankle, and all your grand plans for winning a battle are for naught. Now is what we have, Fitz, and now is where we act to stay alive." (page 363)

I do not agree with this. We can definitely plan ahead for more than ten breaths in your life. Yes, accidents may befall us, but we can even form contingencies for some of those accidents. This line rang as false for the character who spoke it, too, since he is someone who is in charge of a spy network and definitely planned ahead. It just rang as false in the narrative and false about reality. I'm disappointed in Hobb.

6) "But I've seen war and I've seen peace and I know well that there is never truly one or the other. And being ready for war is  better than being ready for peace, if peace is what you truly hope for." (page 431)

As an American (mightiest military in the world?), this seems true. As a person who used to call herself a pacifist, it hurts to read.

7) Night would soon be falling, it was very cold, and I was unexpectedly saddled with two idiots. (page 656)

The whole book was filled with idiots. It was nice to see it called out appropriately in the text.

Blood of Dragons by Robin Hobb

 The Farseer Trilogy
Assassin's Apprentice

Royal Assassin

Assassin's Quest

The Liveship Traders Trilogy

The Tawny Many Trilogy

Fool's Errand

Golden Fool

Fool's Fate

The Rain Wilds Chronicles

Dragon Keeper

Dragon Haven

City of Dragons

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.

2020 Q4 Books!

 First quarter book list here. Second quarter here. Third quarter here.

10/2: Romancing Mister Bridgerton by Julia Quinn (library)

10/3: The Black Lyon by Jude Deveraux (library ebook) - 1980 was a long time ago and this book shows it.  The blatant abuse and rape makes the happily ever after a bit hard to stomach. 

10/7: Caressed by Ice by Nalini Singh (library ebook) - Third book in a paranormal series. Great if you like alpha males and incomprehensible side storylines. I will be reading the next book in the series, of course.

10/8: Persepolis Rising by James S.A. Corey (library)

10/10: To Sir Phillip, With Love by Julia Quinn (library)

10/11: It Happened One Autumn by Lisa Kleypas (library ebook)

10/12: Mine to Possess by Nalini Singh (library ebook) - Fourth book in the series. The books don't have a wait time at the library, so I keep getting them. They're also getting richer and the messages about the importance of diversity are getting stronger.  The next book in the series is already loaded up onto my Kindle.

10/14: The Magpie Lord by K. J. Charles (library ebook) - Delightfully sexy and funny.  I highly recommend this if you like a great m/m romance.

10/17: In A Strange City by Laura Lippman (library)

10/17: You Had Me at Hola by Alexis Daria (library)

10/19: Dragon Haven by Robin Hobb (library)

10/21: Shadows in Death by JD Robb (Kindle purchase) - Robb used Vengeance in Death as an early title in the series and it would have been much more appropriate here. I keep reading these books and there are occasionally great scenes (when Eve is trying to bribe the cat!), but I'm convinced that Robb has run out of ideas since this just seems to be going back to the old well of topics.  Not a great showing.

10/23: Hostage to Pleasure by Nalini Singh (library ebook) - Fifth book in the series.  I just really enjoy these books.  It's very heavy-handed in its pleas for love and diversity to solve problems in the world, but I need that right now.  

10/24: Once and For All by Sarah Dessen (library ebook) 

10/25: City of Dragons by Robin Hobb (library)

10/25: Don't Doubt by Tammy Falkner (Kindle purchase) - I reread this book when there were no books from the library left on my Kindle. Falkner has created this world of the Reed Brothers and it's beautiful and wonderful and felt great while I was reading it. This book had great scenes of communication between the leads, including scenes on consent.  Huge thumbs up. 

10/27: Branded by Fire by Nalini Singh (library ebook) - Sixth book in the series. I like that there's a relationship between the wolves and leopards, but the ending seemed to take the easy way out, as far as I was concerned.  I still really like the world that's being developed here.

10/31: A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki (library)

11/2: Cherish Hard by Nalini Singh (library ebook) - All the wait times for Singh's books are long now (just a month ago, there was no wait time!), so when I saw this contemporary romance from her in the "skip the line" options, I grabbed it. It was bland.  The main characters are a bit too perfect for me and the conflict not particularly interesting.  

11/3: The Velvet Promise by Jude Deveraux (library) - Another Devereaux pick from my high school days. The hero is a rapist. That is not okay.  I am noticing a pattern with these Montgomery/Taggert books and am starting to see how high school me accepted sexual abuse as romantic.  *heavy sigh*

11/4: Saga Volume Six by Brian K. Vaughan and illustrated by Fiona Staples (library) 

11/7: Blood of Dragons by Robin Hobb (library)

11/7: Circe by Madeline Miller (library)

11/8: It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover (library)

11/8: The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout (library ebook)

11/8: Rock Hard by Nalini Singh (library ebook) - Sequel to Cherish Hard. Much better entry than the first one, although there are some graphic scenes of violence, so if that's not for you in a romance novel, you might want to stay away.

11/9: Devil in Winter by Lisa Kleypas (library ebook)

11/9: Rock Addiction by Nalini Singh (free Kindle purchase) - Best friend of the heroine in Rock Hard. This is total wish fulfillment for a lady like me - tattooed bad ass who doesn't drink or do drugs and thinks the woman with the curvy body is preferable to the skinny models that surround him. I mean, it's not at all a realistic world, but I didn't mind being in it.

11/9: Shine with Me by Kristen Proby (Kindle purchase) - This is a novella in the ongoing With Me series from Proby. It's one of my favorite contemporary series. This was a perfectly acceptable entry into the series, although it might have been better if it had been novel-length.  

11/13: The Rest of the Story by Sarah Dessen (library)

11/14: Blaze of Memory by Nalini Singh (library ebook) - Seventh book in this series. It took me a few days to read it because the male lead is a total dick, but I love the world, so I finished it and immediately read the next book.

11/14: Bonds of Justice by Nalini Singh (library ebook) - Eighth book in this series. Read the whole thing one rainy Saturday on the couch.  I think this might be my favorite entry of the series so far. Sexy cop as a lead and a satisfying ending for the Psy heroine.  Thumbs up for Singh.  

11/18: Play of Passion by Nalini Singh (library ebook) - Ninth book in this series. This one was a bit boring, but I'm still excited about the world and can't wait to read the next one.

11/21: A Knight in Shining Armor by Jude Deveraux (library)

11/25: Fool's Assassin by Robin Hobb (library)

11/26: Kiss of Snow by Nalini Singh (library ebook) - Tenth book in this series.  Um. The age gap here was kind of disturbing to me and I don't enjoy couples bickering, so this was not my favorite in the series, despite its incredible Goodreads rating.

11/26: Lover Revealed by J. R. Ward (library ebook) - Fourth book in the series. It's kind of terrible and kind of great.  Again, I can't defend my choice to continue reading Ward, but continue on I shall.

11/27: Love Lettering by Kate Clayborn (library ebook)

12/4: Lover Unbound by J.R. Ward (library ebook) - Fifth book in the series. This series gets dumber and dumber as it goes by. Now there's a ghost.  And here's what gets me for real - this book has a 4.32 rating on Goodreads and Love Lettering has a 3.83 when Love Lettering is a million times better. 

12/5: Fool's Quest by Robin Hobb (library)

12/8: Take a Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert (library)

12/8: Beach Read by Emily Henry (library ebook)

12/11: All Systems Red by Martha Wells (library)

12/11: To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers (library ebook)

12/12: Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall (library) - Hall is the reigning royal of queer romance and this book has it all - humor, feelings, and realistic life complications. I greatly enjoyed this book and immediately requested another Hall book from the library. Unfortunately, my library system doesn't have a lot of his books available, so I'll have to be a bit more creative about reading the rest of his novels.

12/14: Tangle of Need by Nalini Singh (library ebook) - Eleventh book of the series. I care less and less about these characters, but I'm desperate for more information about the Psy war, who Ghost is, and if that one guy on the council is a good guy, bad guy, or chaotic neutral.  I've (obviously) already requested the next book in the series. 

12/17: Lord of the Fading Lands by C. L. Wilson (library ebook)

12/19: Heart of Obsidian by Nalini Singh (library ebook) - Twelfth book of the series. It was SO good. Like amazingly good.  I don't think you could just jump into this book without reading the rest of the series, but it was worth the rest of the books to get here. Two traumatized individuals, each with huge amounts of power, come together in this outstanding read. Huge thumbs up from me.

12/20: The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante (library)

12/20: When He Was Wicked by Julia Quinn (library ebook)

12/20: George by Alex Gino (library ebook) - Sweet book by a trans author about a trans child.  

12/22: Sandry's Book by Tamora Pierce (library) 

12/23: Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert (library)

12/25: Vision in White by Nora Roberts (library ebook) - Just a lovely story about a clueless man trying to woo a woman.  Classic Roberts and brilliantly done. I will, of course, now read the entire Bride Quartet because I can't stop.

12/27: Assassin's Fate by Robin Hobb (library)

12/29: Lover Enshrined by J. R. Ward (library ebook) - Sixth book in the series. I struggle with books about addiction and this was no different. It's not providing an interesting or unique take on the topic. I am very much interested in the main character for the next book, so I went ahead and put it on my hold list at the library.

12/30: Shield of Winter by Nalini Singh (library ebook) - Thirteenth book in the series.  Interesting, although I sort of thought the female lead was a bit boring.  I liked the dog, though.

12/31: Bed of Roses by Nora Roberts (library ebook) - Second book of the Bride Quartet series. Probably the weakest of the books, but I spent all day reading on the couch, so it seemed great.

12/31: Savor the Moment by Nora Roberts (inexplicably on my Kindle) - Third book of the Bride Quartet. Such good stuff in here - conflict brought on by class differences and a main character who is prickly and difficult and just a solid romance novel.  

Total: 60

Assassin's Fate by Robin Hobb

 The Farseer Trilogy
Assassin's Apprentice
Royal Assassin
Assassin's Quest

The Liveship Traders Trilogy

The Tawny Man Trilogy
Fool's Errand
Golden Fool
Fool's Fate

Rain Wilds Chronicles
Dragon Keeper
Dragon Haven
City of Dragons
Blood of Dragons

The Fitz and the Fool Trilogy
Fool's Assassin
Fool's Quest

Assassin's Fate is the last book in the Realm of the Elderlings saga. The last book!  I thought it was sort of terrible, but now it's done.

The Good: I'm happy for the conclusion to the liveship conundrum that I've talked to my husband, a man who has never read any of these books, about so many times because it has always been an ethical plight for me.  I actually did like the resolution of the Fitz and the Fool relationship.

The Bad: Bee. Oh, my God I hate her. Every chapter told from her perspective was interminable.  I just feel like Hobb wanted us to love her because Fitz did, but I never loved Molly and I never loved Bee. Don't get me started on Motley the Crow, either. Hobb did Motley wrong, my friends.

The Ugly: So many unanswered questions. What happened to the luriks who we didn't see die?  What happens to the liveships? What happened to Rosemary?  Why is this book a gazillion pages and I still want more? 

The saga as a whole is a must-read for fantasy lovers.  In general, though, I didn't really like the last trilogy.  If you read the first three trilogies, you'd get the gist of the whole thing and you'd really see the strengths of Hobb's writing. If you like dragons, Rain Wilds is a fun romp, although it's probably the most divisive of the series.  The Fitz and the Fool trilogy is absolutely non-essential in my world. I sort of wish I hadn't even bothered.  

Notable lines:

The woman came to light the lamps. They smelled of pine, of a forest. I longed for the forest. I longed to be anywhere that people were not. (page 530)

Months of being on my own. It wasn't even noon and I was relegated to being a child again. (page 666)

Both of these quotes are from Bee, which is a bit unusual since she's so terrible, but I do have to say that her misanthropic control freak tendencies do reflect a bit of my own personality at me.

Dragon Keeper by Robin Hobb

 The Farseer Trilogy
Assassin's Apprentice

Royal Assassin

Assassin's Quest

The Liveship Traders Trilogy

The Tawny Many Trilogy

Fool's Errand

Golden Fool

Fool's Fate

The Dragon Keeper is the first book The Rain Wilds Chronicles.  

In this book, the serpents from The Liveship Trader trilogy manage to make cases, but they hatch weak and malformed. None of them can fly or really hunt enough to sustain their own life.  The dragon Tintaglia even abandons them and the Traders are getting sick of taking care of the dragons. So the Traders hire some young people from the Rain Wilds, kids who don't have families or people who care about them, to shepherd the dragons upriver to the legendary city of Kelsingra, which may or may not exist. 

Major characters:

Thymara, one of the Rain Wilds youngsters, who has taken over the duties of watching Sintara.  Thymara is "heavily marked by the Wilds," which is how people describe those who have physical differences because of the environmental hazards of being born and living in the area. She has claws instead of hands and feet.  She leaves a loving father and snappish mother behind at home to go on her quest.  

Alise is the wife of an abusive Bingtown trader, Hest. She likes to call herself an expert on dragons and Elderlings. She's on the journey with the dragons "to do research," but we all really know that she just wants to get away from Hest and the captain of the ship is so nice.

Speaking of the captain of the ship, that's Leftrin. He captains Tarman, a liveship, and he has a huge crush on Alise. He also stole a dragon casing and started selling it, so I'm pretty sure that's going to come and bite him on the ass later.

And then there's good old Sedric, who is technically chaperoning Alise on the behest of her husband (remember Hest?).  But it quickly becomes clear that Sedric is actually Hest's lover and he really just wants to profit off of the dragons.

Rain Wilds:

I think what makes this book is the setting.  The Rain Wilds is about as different from Buckkeep as it gets.  The river is a disruptive force in this place, constantly moving, sometimes toxic, and always dangerous.  The people who live there are tough, eking out a living trying to use the meager resources left to them in the trees to survive their frequently short lives.  Babies born with deformities are often abandoned.  Hobb's descriptions of towns and cities that are built in the tree canopy were vivid and I could almost see myself walking along the swaying bridges.  If Rain Wilds was a place in the United States, it would be Cancer Alley, and I found myself really empathizing with the folks who lived there, constantly stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Overall:

There is a lot of scene setting in this book.  I'm sure that there's going to be a payoff for all of this and for introducing so many characters so quickly, but this is probably my least favorite Hobb so far.  I mean, all we have accomplished through this book is getting the dragons partway down the river. The book just stopped at that point.  Golden Fool was a bit like this book in that the book was more about character development than plot development, but I don't know these characters or, frankly, care about them much.  

So, it's quite a big switch from hanging out with Fitz and the Fool, two beloved characters, to be thrown into this world without them.  But I trust Hobb and I trust that all this scene setting will pay off in a big way before I'm done with The Rain Wilds Chronicles.

Pages, pages, pages

Here are some thoughts on books I've read recently.

I reread the last four books of the Harry Potter series. The books are still genius. I still think Dumbledore was an idiot.

Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb: Riveting. I was spellbound by the world and by the main character. Sometimes I get flack for reading a lot of popular press fiction, but this was good stuff. I read a different Robin Hobb book (Dragon Keeper) that I absolutely loved and I love this one, too. Unfortunately, the waiting list for Hobb books at our library is incredibly long, so I'm not sure when I'll be able to get another one!

Lady Killer by Lisa Scottoline: I had a different Scottoline book on my list of recommended readings, but this was the only one I could actually find in my library. It was fine. It was entertaining and fluffy and fine.

Ruined by Paula Morris: Take one spoiled, entitled rich girl from New York City and place her in a school filled with spoiled, rich girls from New Orleans, and what do you get? A young adult book with annoying, unsympathetic characters! On the bright side, I do feel like I learned a lot about New Orleans. Do I feel like it was worth the knowledge on the Big Easy? Maybe.

Revenge of the Cheerleaders by Janette Rallison: I've read Rallison before, but this book was my better than My Fair Godmother. The characters are all very likable and the situations, while farcical and silly, seemed to make sense. Fun.

Indulgence in Death by JD Robb: It is well documented that I have a total love for the In Death series. But this book is totally phoning it in. It's just Seduction in Death with different names for the characters. Plus, I demand more Mavis. And fewer stupid Ireland bits that have nothing to do with the rest of the novel. I think this is just lazy. Maybe after 30 books, Robb doesn't have any more ideas. That's fine, but she should wrap the series up in a pretty bow and stop getting my hopes up that the books will be awesome as the early books in the series.

There you have it. Read Robin Hobb and Janette Rallison.

Up next on my list, I have The Eight, Freakanomics (don't ask), and, in honor of Elizabeth, I've put Finnikin of the Rock back on my list. Reviews will be forthcoming. Eventually.

The Inheritance & Other Stories by Robin Hobb and Megan Lindholm

As a birthday present to myself, I unearthed an old Powell's gift card I had hanging around from the time I dogsat for some friends and I purchased the entire Realm of the Elderlings saga in paperback.  It's obvious to me that a reread will be happening very soon. In the meantime, I decided to read through some of the short stories in the ROTE saga and two of those stories take place in The Inheritance & Other Stories. Hobb and Lindholm are actually the same person, just different pseudonyms for different types of work. She kept it a secret that they were the same person for quite some time.  This collection contains seven short stories by the Lindholm persona and three from Hobb. 

I was just so happy to be dropped into a place where I knew the writing would just immerse me immediately. From a story about aliens arriving on Earth to a killer cat, each one enveloped me in a new world and I trusted there would always be a pay off at the end. Sure, some of these stories were stronger than others, but if you are a ROTE fan, this should definitely cross your path sooner or later. 

4.5/5 stars (I mean, I think it's brilliant, but I don't think the Hobb stories would be something I could recommend to anyone who hasn't read ROTE, so I knocked half a star off for that reason.)

Lines of note:

Beyond my agent and publishers, only two people knew the secret. One was...The other person was Duane Wilkins of University Book Store, Seattle. I'd known Duane for years at that point. He'd been instrumental in helping my career as Megan Lindholm, supporting me with signings and readings as he did many, many fledgling SF and fantasy writers in the Seattle area. One night I received a call from him. He mentioned he hadn't seen me in a while, and we talked about various forthcoming books and what he thought of them. Then he brought up Assassin's Apprentice. It was very gratifying to hear him say nice things about the book I couldn't openly acknowledge as mine. But then he proceeded to say that he could tell it wasn't a first effort by any writer. And that he had noticed some stylistic resemblances. I kept my mouth shut. But then he asked me directly, and there is no lying to old friends. (page xiv)

I thought this was a sweet story and it made me wonder if I'd be able to tell one writer from another based on "stylistic resemblances." I just don't think I'm a careful enough reader and Duane Wilkins is amazing.

That's how it would hit me; I'd be going along, doing a math page or signing out something about someone's sister or folding up my blanket or getting a drink of water, and suddenly I'd notice, all over again, that Lavender wasn't there. It always felt like someone had suddenly grabbed hold of my heart and squeezed it. (page 33)

A perfect encapsulation of grief.

I had taken the job in November, hired on in preparation for the Christmas rush, suckered in by the hope that after the New Year began I would become full-time and get better wages. It was February, and I was still getting less than thirty hours a week and only four dollars an hour. Every time I thought about it, I could feel rodents gnawing at the bottom of my heart. There is a sick despair to needing money so desperately that you can't quit the job that doesn't pay you enough to live on, the job that gives you just enough irregular hours to make job hunting for something better next to impossible. (page 63)

I feel this deeply in my heart. I am sure a lot of people living paycheck to paycheck feel it deeply, as well.

That evening I did a number of useful and necessary things...and dribbling bleach on the landing outside my apartment in the hopes it would keep the neighbor's cat away. (page 68-69)

My cat is obsessed with bleach. She is utterly uninterested in catnip, but if you clean a counter or floor with it, she will be rolling around in it in ecstasy. Putting bleach on a landing probably attracts cats, rather than repelling them. (It's not clear why some cats like bleach. There's a hypothesis that the chlorine smells a bit like cat pee and they sense that, but that's just a guess.)

2020 Q3 Books!

First quarter book list here. Second quarter here. Unlike the second quarter when I didn't read much, I was basically reading all the time in the third quarter because I was trying to escape from the dark reality of 2020.

7/1: The Right Swipe by Alisha Rai (library ebook) 

7/4: The Girl in the Spider's Web by David Lagercrantz (library ebook): After Stieg Larsson's death, there were some legal debates about his estate, including the rights to the Millennium series.  Lagercrantz has written several additional books in the series; this is the first one he wrote. It was supremely disappointing. Not enough Lisbeth.  Too much NSA wrangling. 

7/5: Wings of Fire: The Dragonet Prophecy by Tui T. Sutherland (library)

7/6: Saga Volume Two by Brian K. Vaughan and illustrated by Fiona Staples (library)

7/10: Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik (library)

7/11: Followers by Megan Angelo (library ebook)

7/15: The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon (library)

7/17: Assassin's Quest by Robin Hobb (library)

7/19: Slave to Sensation by Nalini Singh (library ebook): Excellent first novel in a paranormal romance series. Huge thumbs up from me. Put the next book in the series on hold.

7/20: Unfollow by Megan Phelps-Roper (library)

7/20: Saga Volume Three by Brian K. Vaughan and illustrated by Fiona Staples (library)

7/20: Secrets of a Summer Night by Lisa Kleypas (library ebook)

7/23: Wings of Fire: The Lost Heir by Tui T. Sutherland (library)

7/25: Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid (library)

7/26: Sourdough by Robin Sloan (library ebook): I did not enjoy the quirkiness of this book. The writing itself was fine, but the plot bordered on ridiculous.

7/29: Visions of Heat by Nalini Singh (library ebook): This book was the exact same plot as the first book. What a strange thing to do in your sophomore book.

8/1: Fool's Errand by Robin Hobb (library)

8/4: Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson (library): Book club book.  Okay. Rumor has it that it would be better to listen to the audiobook than read it.

8/4: Stars of Fortune by Nora Roberts (library ebook):  It was one of the "skip the line" books on the Libby app and I got it because I was nostalgic for old skool Roberts and I got this magically mystical nonsense with too many stereotypical fantasy characters (seer, warlock, mermaid, teleporter, she-wolf, and an immortal warrior).  No, thanks. If you want a magical story from Roberts, check out the Donovan Legacy books instead.

8/5: Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon (library ebook)

8/6: Wings of Fire: The Hidden Kingdom by Tui T. Sutherland (library)

8/8: Rendezvous by Amanda Quick (library)

8/8: Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers (library ebook)

8/9: An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole (library ebook): A freed slave spies for the Union by acting as a slave when she falls in love with another spy, who happens to be a white man.  I get that the author was trying to show us another side of a black woman's experience, but I just can't  help but think that I would never fall in love with someone who my first thought about was that they were going to rape me.

8/11: Darkfever by Karen Marie Moning (library ebook)

8/15: Cibola Burn by S. A. Corey (library)

8/20: The Golden Fool by Robin Hobb (library ebook)

8/22: The Hating Game by Sally Thorne (library ebook)

8/23: Saga Volume Four by Brian K. Vaughan and illustrated by Fiona Staples (library)

8/24: Wings of Fire: The Dark Secret by Tui T. Sutherland (library)

8/24: Dark Lover by J. R. Ward (library ebook)

8/24: The Duke and I by Julia Quinn (library)

8/25: Pumpkinheads written by Rainbow Rowell and illustrated by Faith Erin Hicks (library): Very cute book about two teenagers who are having their last night at a Halloween-themed park where they have worked.  The illustrations are fun and it's a fun plot.  

8/27: Wings of Fire: The Brightest Night by Tui T. Sutherland (library)

8/27: Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston (library ebook): It's a utopian romance novel if the 2016 election had been won by a woman and a relationship between gay men was publicly embraced.  It was sweet, but a bit too sweet for 2020.

8/30:  Nemesis Games by James S.A. Corey (library)

8/31 Mr. Perfect by Linda Howard (library): Published in 2000, Mr. Perfect is a time capsule of flip phones and meeting people at airport gates.  A fine book, especially if you like exposition dumps and love at first sight

9/1: Lover Eternal by J. R. Ward (library ebook): This book is kind of terrible, what with its weak heroine who sleeps with the hero just hours after he seeks out a stranger for ex, not to mention the dumb names the author comes up with, but here I am trying to juggle my library list to see if I can somehow put the next book on my hold list. I'm not even going to try to defend my reading choices anymore.

9/4: Postmortem by Patricia Cornwell (library):  Medical examiner attempts to solve a series of murders.  I wanted it to be like Sue Grafton's alphabet series, but Kay Scarpetta is no Kinsey Millhone.

9/4: The Viscount Who Loved Me by Julia Quinn (library)

9/5: Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake by Sarah MacLean (library)

9/5: Alex by Sawyer Bennet (library ebook): Contemporary romance novel about an addiction counselor and her hot NHL boyfriend.  Perfectly fine.

9/15: Babylon's Ashes by James S. A. Corey (library)

9/17: Fool's Fate by Robin Hobb (library ebook)

9/18: Saga Volume Five by Brian K. Vaughan and illustrated by Fiona Staples (library)

9/18: An Offer From a Gentleman by Julia Quinn (library)

9/20: Indigo by Beverly Jenkins (library)

9/22: The Bride Test by Helen Hoang (library)

9//26: Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler (library)

9/27: Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews (library ebook): I am not the reader for this violent urban fantasy novel.  

9/28: Dragon Keeper by Robin Hobb (library)

9/30: Lover Awakened by J.R. Ward (library ebook):  Yes, these books are kind of terrible and inconsistent. Yes, I will keep reading more books in the series.

Total: 50 books

Fool's Errand by Robin Hobb

The Farseer Trilogy

Assassin's Apprentice

Royal Assassin

Assassin's Quest

The Liveship Traders Trilogy

Fool's Errand by Robin Hobb is the first book in the Tawny Man trilogy and the seventh book in The Realm of the Elderlings epic world. You could skip the Liveship Traders trilogy, but if you didn't read The Farseer trilogy, this novel would be hard to follow.

This book picks up fifteen years after the ending of Assassin's Quest.  Fitz has settled comfortably into a cottage on the banks of a stream with a foundling boy he has taken under his care, Hap.  Starling the minstrel occasionally visits him.  He and Nighteyes, the wolf he is bonded to, are growing older and are ready to live the rest of their lives peacefully feeding chickens, thatching the roof, and tending to the garden.  Fitz goes by the name Tom Badgerlock and no one ever mistakes him for the bastard son of an estranged Farseer prince.

But, as it happens, Fitz's old mentor Chade comes to visit him and it sets off a series of unfortunate events.  Fitz is forced to go on a mission to find the wayward Prince Dutiful who has either been kidnapped or run away from home.  Fitz and Nighteyes are not in the prime conditions of their lives and we see as the journey slowly breaks them down.

This is not a book with a lot of levity.  Much like Assassin's Quest, the only real levity comes from our wolf friend, Nighteyes.

Hap is speaking:

"It isn't that I don't like it here with you and Nighteyes. It's just that..." He floundered for a moment. "Have you ever felt as if you could actually feel time flowing away from you? As if life were passing you by and you were caught in a backwater with the dead fish and old sticks?"

You can be the dead fish. I'll be the old stick.  [This is a thought Nighteyes has.] (pages 214-215)

I audibly chuckled.

This is really a story about a man and his wolf, though. Yes, of course we have to rescue Prince Dutiful and we have to bridge from Fitz living a crofter's life to being back at Buckkeep Castle, but at its heart, this novel is about how we treat our pets as they get older and how we deal with the emotional backlash.  Fitz and Nighteyes have the type of relationship you would expect from a couple that had been together for a couple of decades and that relationship is heartwarming and, in the end, devastating.  

Since I read this book in July 2020, I think it cut closer to home than I would have expected.  I rely so much on Zelda the Cat and Hannah the Dog to get through my days. The excitement that Hannah shows by prancing and jumping around when we first come down and say good morning, the purrs and cuddles that Zelda shares with me when I sit on the couch for my hour of television watching in the evening, and the day-to-day joy of having pets when there's not much else in the way of joy is something I do not underestimate.  May Hannah and Zelda live long lives.

I don't think Hobb's writing is for everyone. It took over 200 pages for us to leave Tom's cottage and another 100 before we figured out what our real mission was. That's not for everyone. But if you're content to sit back and watch the world and the characters develop, the plot will eventually come. It's definitely not a plot-driven series, but I like the world of the Six Duchies and I like Fitz, Nighteyes, Chade, and the Fool, although I think Prince Dutiful is a little snot.  It's a comforting place to be.  And I'll take all the comfort I can these days.

Fool's Assassin by Robin Hobb

 The Farseer Trilogy

Assassin's Apprentice

Royal Assassin

Assassin's Quest

The Liveship Traders Trilogy

The Tawny Many Trilogy

Fool's Errand

Golden Fool

Fool's Fate

The Rain Wilds Chronicles

Dragon Keeper

Dragon Haven

City of Dragons

Blood of Dragons

Fool's Assassin is the first book in the Fitz and the Fool trilogy, which is the last of the Realm of the Elderlings (ROTE) saga. We last left Fitz as he took on the Tom Badgerlock persona and he moved to Withywoods Manor as Lady Molly's husband and he helped her raise her children.  But just as they become empty nesters, there's a baby! But then a messenger comes to Withywoods and mysteriously disappears leaving nothing but blood behind. Molly dies, Fitz is left to (badly) parent Bee, a strange baby and even stranger child. Suddenly Fitz is embroiled in a world he never meant to return to.

I adored older Fitz. He's nostalgic for Nighteyes, Molly, and the Fool, missing them all the time. He's strong and heals quickly, but he gets sore and traveling rough is not for him anymore. More importantly, he has a true understanding of the things that are important and his behavior is reflective of that understanding.  It's also interesting to read about his own reflections on his own behaviors from his reckless youth.  

But I didn't love all the new characters. Of course there are new characters.  We're not at Buckkeep Castle anymore.  But so many of them are inexplicably poorly done.  Robb is a master of character, but there are three (Shun, FitzVigilant, and Bee) who are just stereotypes of already established character types in the saga.  This book also suffers from a serious lack of plot.  Not all ROTE books are jam packed with action (Golden Fool, I'm talking about you), but this one seemed to meander and meander as Fitz checked on sheep, repaired the manor, and bought clothes and then *BAM* in the last one hundred pages everything happened all at once. In some ways, that's how life is, right? When it rains, it pours? It seems fitting that Fitz is just living his country manor life, far removed from politics and intrigue, when all of a sudden it falls into his lap.  But it doesn't make for the most exciting of reads until you get to all the excitement all at once.

Regardless of any of my nitpicks, the worst of Hobb's books is the best of fantasy. I am so looking forward to reading the next book in the series that I actually requested it from the library before I finished this one.  Robin Hobb is a literary genius.

Lines of note:

It was like watching a kitten attack a bull. (page 69)

As you know, I like a good animal analogy.

"Why aren't you with the kind? Where are your guards."

She gave me a look. "I told Dutiful I'd be with you and needed no other guard. He and Chade both agreed."

"Why?"

She stared at me. "Well, among them, you do have a certain reputation as a very competent assassin." (page 126)

Fitz's self-deprecation gets me every time. And Nettle's dry humor here also amuses me.

There are endings. There are beginnings. Sometimes they coincide, with the ending of one thing marking the beginning of  another. But sometimes there is simply a long space after an ending, a time when it seems everything has ending and nothing else can ever begin. (page 251)

Is 2020 an ending of how things used to be? Or is it the beginning of a newer, better world?