Fool's Fate (Tawny Man, #3)

by Robin Hobb

book data

1,830 ratings, 4.23 average rating, 68 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		44%
4		36%
3		15%
2		2%
1		0%

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published

November 23rd 2004 (first published 2003) by Spectra

binding

Mass Market Paperback, 914 pages

isbn

0553582461 (isbn13: 9780553582468)

description

Fool's Fate is the third book of Robin Hobb's Tawny Man trilogy, and the ninth and concluding volume of the Fitzchivalry Farseer saga, one of the best...more

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03/18/08

Tara rated it:

Read in March, 2008

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06/17/07

Jesse rated it:

bookshelves: fantasy

Read in December, 2007

recommends it for: Fans of epic fantasy and George R.R. Martin

I'm going to try not to gush in this review but I am very happy to end 2007 with this book. This book on many occassions brought tears to my eyes as I read momments of great sadness and momments that touch the heart. All of this is interlaced with a brilliant narative, characters that are painfully real feeling, and a world also rendered equally real.

I've savored this book over the last 3-4 months, partly to prolong the experience but also for fear of running out of great fantasy t...more I'm going to try not to gush in this review but I am very happy to end 2007 with this book. This book on many occassions brought tears to my eyes as I read momments of great sadness and momments that touch the heart. All of this is interlaced with a brilliant narative, characters that are painfully real feeling, and a world also rendered equally real.

I've savored this book over the last 3-4 months, partly to prolong the experience but also for fear of running out of great fantasy to read. I started the series out of lack of anything else to read, and then continued it as something to hold me over until George R.R. Martin could finish the 5th book in his "Song of Ice and Fire" series. This is probably the best compliment I can pay to Robin Hobb, that I find her fantasy on par with that of George R.R. Martin (quite possibly the greatest writer of epic fantasy I've ever read). This series has much of the qualities of Martin's series, but with a bit softer edges.

I can't really say anything about this final installment I haven't already said about the previous 2 books in the trilogy. Its fantastic. The use of magical elements in it are subtle and precise, not hamfisted and blunt as in much of epic fantasy today. Too often epic fantasy is more about magical powers than about people, this book and Hobb's others are a welcome change of pace. They are more works of literature than much else I've read in the fantasy genre. I am just not sure what else to say. Read this series, it will astound you. If you are a veteran of the fantasy genre and know it well, you can start with this trilogy for Hobb is very good at exposition about previous happenings (yet the exposition feels natural and infered not tacked on and extenporanious(sp?)). If you are new to fantasy and want a truly great read, start with the "Farseer Trilogy" and then move onto the "Liveship Traders Trilogy" and finally onto this trilogy the "The Tawny Man". I found it interesting to start a trilogy about someone with a past. It was nice to start an epic fantasy with someone who already had experiences and a past. Too often all stories start and end in such an ordered and, sometimes, mundane fashioned way. So check this out. I give it my stamp of approval.(less)

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01/07/09

Jennifer rated it:

bookshelves: all-time-favorites, pure-fantasy

Read in January, 2009

Oh wow. I just finished this and I have to say, when taken altogether (Farseer Trilogy + Tawny Man series), this series is just masterful. It is one of the most complete stories I've read in a long time. I feel supremely satisfied by the ending... which is... happy.

Normally I don't go for happy endings, because they don't always seem deserved, or realistic. In this case, Hobb has truly demonstrated that only when we have known the deepest depths of despair and tragedy can we also kno...more

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03/31/09

Kat at Fantasy Literature rated it:

Read in January, 1995

This review refers to the whole Tawny Man Trilogy:

Robin Hobb is one of my favorite fantasy authors because her stories are unique and complex and she's a great writer. Her prose is pleasant and she is particularly good at characterization; When you get finished with her books, you feel like her characters are your friends and you hate to say goodbye! Her plots are absorbing and they move forward at a pleasant pace.

Fitz of The Farseer Saga is one of my favorite fantasy he...more

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06/22/09

Nightmajik rated it:

bookshelves: 2009

Read in February, 2009

There's a lot to love in this series, and I'm not going to try to write anything at all comprehensive. What really grabbed me was the relationship between Fitz and the Fool, there's a complexity and depth to the way they feel and interact that I have rarely seen in any other novel. I am not much of a crier when it comes to books, but those two had me in tears multiple times (and sometimes they also had me laughing out loud). I would read this again and again just to keep revisiting those two.
...more

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06/29/09

Jessica rated it:

Read in June, 2009

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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01/16/09

Kaelie rated it:

Read in February, 2009

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03/17/09

January added it

bookshelves: fantasy--epic-high, _read-it-2008

Read in June, 2008

This is a great series, and well worth reading if you are in the mood for epic fantasy. Great character development and an engaging story.

After following these characters, specifically Fitz, for six books, I feel like the wrap-up at the end was a little dissapointing. I became seriously invested in the characters and I wanted more of a peek into the future, and more than the year she gave us. There was 15 years between the first and second trilogy, and I wanted a chapter at the end c...more

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07/01/08

Joe Moley rated it:

This book by itself would probably only get a 4 star rating. However, I found myself ranking the entire 6 book series as a whole once I was finished. I can say wholeheartedly that this was my favorite series of novels that I've ever read. While none stick out as stand alone page turners, I couldn't help being mesmerized by the plight of the main characters Fitz and the Fool throughout the series. After leading such a disastrous and depressing life, I was tortured to find out if things turne...more

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06/26/08

Derrik rated it:

I have read a lot of books in my life. I have to say that this series (starting with Assassin's Apprentice and ending with Fool's Fate) may be one of the most human stories I have ever read. I don't always appreciate first person writing, but Robin Hobb is a brilliant writer that uses her protagonist's feelings and experiences to wrap her readers up in a story that is so real you feel like you're living it with him.
Fitz is a fantastic character with all of a real person's strengths and w...more

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09/30/07

John rated it:

Read in September, 2005

This is the book in which I was immersed yesterday. Perhaps it's no wonder that I was so deeply immersed, considering that by that point I'd already spent over 4000 pages with the main character and his life (all told, measured in mass market paperback pages, I ended up spending 4152 pages with Fitzchivalry Farseer and the rest of them). If that sounds like a lot of pages, it is, but it didn't feel like it. These weren't books that I was trudging through because I felt like I should. If they had...more This is the book in which I was immersed yesterday. Perhaps it's no wonder that I was so deeply immersed, considering that by that point I'd already spent over 4000 pages with the main character and his life (all told, measured in mass market paperback pages, I ended up spending 4152 pages with Fitzchivalry Farseer and the rest of them). If that sounds like a lot of pages, it is, but it didn't feel like it. These weren't books that I was trudging through because I felt like I should. If they had been, probably I wouldn't have. Instead, they were 4152 pages that I lived in and never really wanted to come to an end of them. When I have time, I'll be picking up Hobb's other series to read as well, because she's an author with power.

What is it that's so appealing about her books? I've said it before, but one aspect is the full, rich characters she offers in her novels. They're not just so full because she's spent 4152 pages on them--even from the first 435-page novel (Assassin's Apprentice) we had richness and depth. They're also very real characters. Sure, some of them wield magic and are at the center of plots whose resolution will shape the course of their world, but at the same time they deal with most of the same life issues that all of us face. They touch so deeply on the human experience that it's all very real. The fantastic elements of the story may elevate the situations to some sort of epic proportions, and certainly there's an appeal to that to, in fantasy and science fiction, that desire many of us have to feel that our life is important and significant, not just to ourself but to all those around us, even to the whole world and all of history.

Fantasy and science fiction play on that desire, but when that's all they do, they don't do all that much. Unless it speaks to our human drama, exploring what human life is all about, it won't touch us or move us in any really important way.

Robin Hobb's Fool's Fate (and, indeed, all of the other related books that have led up to it) does exactly that. In fact, that's why it's so long, clocking in at 914 pages. The big, epic quest that the book is ostensibly about is largely handled several hundred pages before the conclusion of the novel. But what it's really about is the life of our hero, Fitz. And that takes far longer to work out.

I won't talk about the plot really at all. You shouldn't read this novel unless you've at least read the two which precede it (Fool's Errand and Golden Fool) and I'd recommend reading The Farseer Trilogy (Assassin's Apprentice, Royal Assassin, and Assassin's Quest) before that. If you do, you'll know long before you get to this book whether or not you'll want to read it. Want to? No, I should say you'll know before you get to this book whether or not you'll have to read it.(less)

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04/13/09

Brock rated it:

I really enjoyed this trio of books, more so than the Farseer Trilogy. For anyone out there who was utterly annoyed with the incessant teenage angst of the latter, these books have thankfully grown with their "catalyst." The Fool's Errand and Fool's Fate gets a five-star rating, while Golden Fool is only a 4-star in my book. This should be seen as more of an endorsement of the first and third installments, not a knock on the middle book, which I enjoyed immensly as well.

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03/25/09

Bill rated it:

bookshelves: fantasy

Overall the story is quite good. It explores quite a few deeper issues by having Fitz be introspective, examines the value of a variety of relationships, delves into intrigue and deceit, and even brings in some of my favorite characters from the earlier books. If you are a fan of sci-fi/fantasy and you haven't had a chance to, I suggest you check out the Tawny Man trilogy and the Assassin Series by Robin Hobb.

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12/05/07

Kyle Brady rated it:

bookshelves: fantasy-magic

Read in January, 2008

An awesome book. Pulls together almost every strand of plot, thought, and whim that you could ever imagine or want... even the smallest details!

A multi-climactic book, it does "trudge" a little towards the end. The book has an obvious climax about halfway through (which could have easily been the end of any other book), followed soon by another... and then a final one shortly before the end.

However, like I said, the book does wander a little bit at the end a...more

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05/16/09

Nikki rated it:

Read in May, 2009

The grand finale of these two trilogies totally made up for my annoyance with Golden Fool. I just loved this one. After finishing it, I found that I dreamed about it last night, and have spent most of today with it whirling through my head. Fitz finally started showing others how he feels about them, and he got his well-deserved happy ending. Bravo!

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10/29/08

Black Samvara added it (review of isbn 0006486037)

Composed of such inspiring titles as Fool s Errand, The Golden Fool and Fool s Fate this series slots in neatly after the Liveship Traders trilogy. They were good traveling books with a semi-decent plot hidden under a great deal of irritating lead character. I liked the previous trilogy far more and am heartily sick of waiting for the plot to unfold through the medium of Fitz s inadequacy. They should have been called Fitz s Faux Pas, Fitz s Failure and Fitz s Flub. [return][return]Fitz re...more

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11/20/08

Aik rated it:

recommends it for: No one - its predecessors are better without it.

Fitz had his adventure-of-a-lifetime in The Farseer Trilogy, which ended his story in a conclusive manner. Bringing him back out for this series was a terrible idea. As a secondary character, and that would have been fine. As the main character driving events, especially with the ending of the series, it feels like what came before was invalidated.

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01/22/09

David rated it:

bookshelves: fantasy

Read in January, 2005

A *Much* more satisfying ending than "Assassin's Quest". I felt she kind of phoned in the ending in that. I still loved it and gave it 4 stars. A lot of other things went into that.

With "Fool's Fate" she really knocked it out of the park. Great read, great series.

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11/20/08

Jennifer rated it:

Read in January, 2007

I would give this six stars if I could. Maybe its what happens when you eagerly devour six books in a series (technically two trilogies), but this final one really got me in the gut. Incredible imagination, sharp characterizations, and emotionally compelling.

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05/04/09

Christy rated it:

Read in April, 2009

Love this series. Got the first book for free on my Kindle, and had to buy all the rest! Couldn't put them down, and was sad when I finished this last one. Great marketing plan, love that I was introduced to a new series.

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