Assassin's Quest (The Farseer Trilogy, #3)

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Assassin's Quest (Realms of the Elderlings #3)

by Robin Hobb (Goodreads Author)

4.16 of 5 stars 4.16 · rating details · 26,861 ratings · 814 reviews

Alternate cover - ISBN 9780006480112

From an extraordinary new voice in fantasy comes the stunning conclusion to the Farseer trilogy, as FitzChivalry confronts his destiny as the catalyst who holds the fate of the kingdom of the Six Duchies...and the world itself.

King Shrewd is dead at the hands of his son Regal. As is Fitz--or so his enemies and friends believe. But with t...more

Mass Market Paperback, 840 pages

Published 2007 by HarperVoyager (first published 1997)

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May 05, 2012 Kat Hooper rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook

ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.

FitzChivalry Farseer’s life keeps getting worse. He has once again barely — and I mean just barely — survived Uncle Regal’s machinations. As Assassin’s Quest, the third book in Robin Hobb’s FARSEER trilogy, opens, Fitz’s situation seems hopeless. Only a couple of people know he still lives and Molly is not one of them. She’s gone, and it seems safest for Fitz to let her live in ignorance.

Meanwhile, Fitz’s uncle Regal has declared himself king in the Six Du...more ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.

FitzChivalry Farseer’s life keeps getting worse. He has once again barely — and I mean just barely — survived Uncle Regal’s machinations. As Assassin’s Quest, the third book in Robin Hobb’s FARSEER trilogy, opens, Fitz’s situation seems hopeless. Only a couple of people know he still lives and Molly is not one of them. She’s gone, and it seems safest for Fitz to let her live in ignorance.

Meanwhile, Fitz’s uncle Regal has declared himself king in the Six Duchies. He demands exorbitant taxes, has abandoned Buck Town and left Buckkeep in the hands of a foreigner, and has in essence given up the area to the Red Ship Raiders. Not only has Fitz suffered at Regal’s hands, the coastal duchies suffer too.

Once Fitz is standing on his own two feet again, he decides to get revenge for what Regal has done to him personally and to the Six Duchies. But Regal is protected by a coterie of skillers and some rather nasty soldiers. As Fitz tries to hunt down Regal, Prince Verity begins skilling to Fitz and asking for help. Fitz is the only person who knows that Verity still lives, but it’s not long before Regal discovers that both of his worst two enemies, FitzChivalry and Verity Farseer, are alive. Of course, Regal wants to get them before they get him.

Assassin’s Quest takes a while to really get going, and there’s some rehearsal of old events, but I think it had to be that way — Fitz’s recovery must be slow, or it wouldn’t be believable. Hobb puts this time to good use, though. We learn about Burrich’s childhood and grow to love him even more for what he sacrificed for Fitz. Molly also becomes even more admirable as we see her trying to make the most of her unfortunate circumstances.

Once Fitz is able to travel — and there is a lot of traveling — the pace is still slow, but by now the reader is so devoted to FitzChivalry Farseer and his wolf that it feels more like we’re spending time with old friends than trying to get through a novel. Along the way we meet a few new characters, most notably the minstrel Starling and a mysterious old lady, and eventually Fitz falls back in with some characters who we already love and have been missing. Besides the slow pace, which I really didn’t mind too much, my only complaint is that I had a hard time believing that Fitz doesn’t want Molly to know he’s alive. This felt like it was contrived to break my heart, but I must say that it worked.

In the end there is some glory for Fitz and the Six Duchies, but it’s accompanied by much heartache. This isn’t one of those fantasies where everyone lives happily ever after. Readers should know that though this is the end of the FARSEER trilogy, Fitz’s story continues in Robin Hobb’s next trilogy, THE TAWNY MAN. I’ve been listening to Tantor Audio’s excellent version of FARSEER and so far they have not put TAWNY MAN on audio, but they do have LIVESHIP TRADERS, a related trilogy on audio. I hope we’ll be seeing TAWNY MAN in audio sometime soon because audio readers are not going to want to wait for it.

Originally posted at Fantasy Literature.(less)

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Jun 18, 2008 Erik rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

After the spine-tingling cliff-hanger at the close of the book two, I was fully expecting a cathartic close in this the third and final book in the Farseer trilogy. However, I found myself getting bored with the tiresome -- and seemingly endless -- quest that took far too much of the last half of this 700-some-page finale. Perhaps it was the monotony of the long-haul slough that our hero and his allies endured for 200-plus pages , or even the deus ex machina by way of dragons. (How convenient an...more

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Jul 22, 2009 Jamie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy

For all my complaints about this trilogy, it speaks volumes that I read all three fat paperbacks in less than two weeks. The narrative is riveting, even in this last book which has long sections where people are mostly walking. Not all of the characterizations were successful, but I don't often feel as much of a connection with a protagonist as I did to Fitz.

I'm slightly dissatisfied with the overall scope of the story, but I really enjoyed the details the author includes, details that may very...more

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Sep 24, 2010 Cameron rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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Nov 26, 2010 Tanabrus rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. In questo ultimo libro troviamo ad accoglierci un Fitz inedito. Rabbioso, animalesco, terrorizzato. Più lupo che uomo, come conseguenza del tempo trascorso nella mente del suo lupo mentre il corpo riposava sotto terra in una bara.
Seguiamo la sua lenta risalita verso l’umanità, il suo graduale distaccarsi dal lupo per riacquistare coscienza di sè.
La sua necessità di vivere una vita propria, dopo aver sacrificato tutto quello che aveva mai avuto per i suoi re.

Il suo bisogno di indipendenza penso s...more In questo ultimo libro troviamo ad accoglierci un Fitz inedito. Rabbioso, animalesco, terrorizzato. Più lupo che uomo, come conseguenza del tempo trascorso nella mente del suo lupo mentre il corpo riposava sotto terra in una bara.
Seguiamo la sua lenta risalita verso l’umanità, il suo graduale distaccarsi dal lupo per riacquistare coscienza di sè.
La sua necessità di vivere una vita propria, dopo aver sacrificato tutto quello che aveva mai avuto per i suoi re.

Il suo bisogno di indipendenza penso sia riassunto perfettamente nel duro scontro verbale che Fitz ha con i suoi mentori, al termine del quale se ne va per la sua strada assieme al suo compagno animale.
Una buona metà del libro direi che si focalizza quasi esclusivamente sulla mente di Fitz, sul suo ondeggiare tra l’umanità e l’animalità, sul suo rapporto con il lupo. Una sorta di romanzo di formazione.
E un romanzo di formazione scritto benissimo, senza scelte forzate nè salti bruschi.

Poi gli eventi tornano a prendere il sopravvento.
La minaccia di Regis e della sua Confraternita è sempre più vicina e grande, il bisogno di raggiungere re Veritas impellente, le razzie dei Pirati Rossi sulle coste proseguono inesorabili e spietate… e a ogni scorreria Fitz assiste impotente, trascinato da sogni d’Arte, sballottato in diversi corpi a fare da testimone delle sconfitte e delle poche vittorie dei suoi concittadini contro gli attacchi dei Forgiati.
E c’è la regina in esilio, ancora in attesa del ritorno del suo re; le trame di Umbra, risorto a nuova giovinezza nel periodo più cupo del regno; l’incompetenza di Regis come re contrapposta all’eroismo dei nobili delle coste e di dama Pazienza; il segreto di Molly; l’incontro con una cantastorie segnata dal passato e con una vecchia misteriosa; la missione di Veritas e la verità sugli Antichi…

Un libro pieno zeppo di avvenimenti e di introspezione, uno stile fluido e accattivante che cattura totalmente.
Avevo dimenticato quanto possano essere avvincenti i libri della Hobb, ho appena finito il libro e già vorrei avere tra le mani una nuova trilogia di questa autrice. I mercanti di Borgomago la leggerò in inglese, trovo patetiche le operazioni commerciali che dividono un libro originale in due volumi italiani.

Un ottimo libro, che chiude perfettamente un’ottima trilogia. Un lieto fine come piace a me (penso al desiderio di Fitz di avere una vita normale con Molly e Urtica, penso all’amore di Kettricken per Veritas, penso al Matto e a Stornella), tutte le domande principali che trovano rispsota ma al contempo qualcosa che pare continuare ad aleggiare, un vago senso di incompiuto che immagino porti direttamente alla seconda trilogia dei Lungavista, la trilogia dell’uomo ambrato: come fare in modo che il cerchio si chiuda di nuovo, per la forgiatura? cosa ne è della bambina? e dell’Arte, adesso? senza Regis l’Antico Sangue non è più braccato… tornerà tutto come prima?(less)

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Sep 08, 2008 Nicole rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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Jan 22, 2008 Robert Beveridge rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: finished, cle-pub-lib

Robin Hobb, Assassin's Quest (Bantam, 1997)

Homicide: Life on the Street was for many years the best show on televison, hands down. Brilliant acting, brilliant direction, compelling plots that spanned episodes (one of which went the whole series, from the very first to the very last episode) without ever degenerating into the world of soap opera. It was almost inevitable, really, that Homicide would jump the shark, and it did so by cutting a major plotline short; after Pembleton (Andre Braugher,...more Robin Hobb, Assassin's Quest (Bantam, 1997)

Homicide: Life on the Street was for many years the best show on televison, hands down. Brilliant acting, brilliant direction, compelling plots that spanned episodes (one of which went the whole series, from the very first to the very last episode) without ever degenerating into the world of soap opera. It was almost inevitable, really, that Homicide would jump the shark, and it did so by cutting a major plotline short; after Pembleton (Andre Braugher, one of film and television's brightest-shining lights) had a stroke at the end of one season, they opened the next season with his struggle to get back into the world after being released form this hospital. For one episode. After that, he was back to his old self with a few extra quirks, which seemed almost as if the scriptwriters had tossed them in as afterthoughts to make sure everyone remembered Pembleton had a stroke.

Assassin's Queststarts off by jumping the shark in the same way. Fitz, left at the end of Assassin's Quest the same way Pembleton was left at the end of season four of Homicide, spends the first few pages doing exactly the same thing. While he spends longer getting back into the ways of the world than Pembleton did, ultimately the thread is dropped (again, except for a few afterthought-like pieces). I got wary right about then. Five hundred pages later, Hobb started tying up all the series' loose ends, and everything got tied up far too neatly, almost to the point of deus ex machina. Another piont against the book.

The intervening five hundred pages, though, are prime Hobb, and while the book's two flaws above are major ones, they shouldn't necessarily keep you from having a fine time with this, especially if you've read the first two in the series. Fitz finally gets around to setting out after his two main objectives, the assassination of Regal and the finding of Verity, getting into various minor adventures along the way. All of which is quite fun and reminiscent of the first two books. What seems to be missing from book three is the intrigue. Granted, it's hard to have court intrigue when you're tramping through the woods, but it was part of what made the first two novels so pleasurable, and it feels like an empty space crying out for something else to fill it here.

It's good, but it pales in comparison to the first two in the series. *** (less)

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Mar 31, 2009 Kat Hooper rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review refers to the whole Farseer Trilogy:

I read The Farseer Saga years ago and it is still one of my favorite epic fantasies. Its main strengths are its simple writing style and excellent characterization.

Robin Hobb's prose is lovely — straightforward and simple. It never calls attention to itself (and therefore away from the story). The characters are complex and believable. Fitz is my favorite fantasy "hero" and someone I came to really care about. He's not perfect, he's not beautiful,...more

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Jan 26, 2009 Sammalpeura rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Sammalpeura by: Elli

Hengästyttävän ja sydäntä pakahduttavan hienoa kerrontaa. Kokonaisuudet, joita käsitellään ovat valtavia ja seassa on paljon pieniä kohtaloita, pelkoja, tunteita, ihmismielen pettämättömiä loogisuuksia ja epäloogisuuksia. En tiedä osaanko sanoa tätä ymmärrettävästi, mutta tässä kirjassa on kokonainen maailma ja elämä ja silti vain niin pieni osa siitä, että kirjan loputtua rintaa kaihertaa kun tarina päättyi.

Ymmärrän hyvin, miksi Näkijän tarua sanotaan klassiseksi kerronnaksi. Siinä on viisautta...more

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Elmeri Hih, nythän näit :D Ja koko trilogia paranee toiselle lukemiselle, kun olet jo valmiiksi kiintynyt hahmoihin. Ehkä tämä mielessäni olin järkyttynyt ni...more
Jan 28, 2009 01:39am

Sammalpeura Ai siitäkään huolimatta, että selkäpiini on vieläkin hyyssä siitä jääpurosta, minkä kielesi vuodatti niiden kolmen tähden jälkeen? "Olen kyllä vähän p...more
Jan 28, 2009 10:02pm

Elmeri Voi ei! En vieläkään ole tottunut siihen että ihmiset ei ymmärrä minua! :D Apua ja anteeksi! Mutta juu, osa palaa vielä aikojen kuluttua kuvioihin, jo...more
Jan 29, 2009 01:01am

Jul 08, 2008 Christian rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Christian by: My brother

Shelves: fantasy, never-again

I read this trilogy on the recommendation of my brother, who was thoroughly enjoying the novels.

The first in the series was okay--not great, but good enough to keep me reading. I started becoming doubtful when I read the second, but when I got to this one, I was downright angry with some of the decisions "the good guys" made, and one decision in particular that I found downright reprehensible, which the character (and thus the author) essentially justified as "for the good of the people" and thu...more

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Apr 17, 2008 Leippya rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: any fan of Fantasy

Recommended to Leippya by: Phylia Kaitlynn

Shelves: fantasy

This book is like a drug. Any time you close it to get on with your life it will keep coming back to your mind and distract you with a craving to know how Fitz can escape, or how he can survive, or how he's going to get out of that one or solve this problem or just what he can do next after all he's been through, and the big questions that have been hanging since Book 1 and 2 push the reader to just. Keep. Reading. More.

Some might find the very beginning a bit slow, but to me the real story star...more

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Oct 14, 2008 Allison rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Allison by: Kathryn

Sucker though I am for angst-ridden fantasy books filled with trials and suffering, I couldn't really get into this series. Part of the reason was the first person narrative, but ultimately it came down to the fact that I didn't connect with narrator. That said, it was an exciting story, and I really felt for some of the minor characters (Kettricken specifically) and I kept coming back to it despite having very little time for pleasure reading. Overall it was a great escape from my drudgery-fill...more

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Jan 05, 2011 Brian rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

1/16/2004 - 10/10

book 3: great end to the series. a pretty sad, bittersweet ending. not quite as much a page turner, lagged some in the middle, as the others but great nonetheless. i liked the non-traditional ending

The Farseer trilogy is one of the best fantasy series I've read...right up there with George R.R. Martin. The characters were excellent...very detailed and extremely well drawn. The characters are very human - you can see them evolve and can come to care about them very easily. The ma...more

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Mar 24, 2013 Skolor rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I feel like this book kind of missed being something really great, but the trilogy as a whole kept me quite entertained. The entire book just seemed off in some sense. At least part of it stems from the disjointed structure. We have a quick build-up and climax, which it was painfully obvious was going to be a failure before Fitz even reached Tradeford, if for no other reason that there we were barely 1/3 of the way through the book. Entwined with that, we end up with the "enemies" now getting si...more

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Mar 10, 2013 Maryanne rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The first book in this trilogy is easily the best.
This, the third book, really suffers from saggy middle syndrome. The characters have been journeying since the second book, and the pace is just too slow, while over-using the device of a journey to keep the plot moving. It was hard to stay focussed - the book didn't hold my attention for more than about 15 minutes a time. It was just interesting enough for me to keep reading. Themes, ideas and characters were repeated over and over again with li...more

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Jan 17, 2013 John rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Though I absolutely loved the first two novels of the Farseer trilogy, this one felt a bit rushed. FitzChivalry returns to life with a burning desire to kill his uncle, the pretender king Regal. Meanwhile, raiders still ravage the kingdom and the Six Duchies are in danger of disappearing altogether under the threat of the Forging.

After some false starts, Fitz focuses on finding his uncle and the true king, Verity, who has long since left on his quest to awaken the legendary Elderlings to rid th...more

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Oct 17, 2012 Lara rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, speculative-fiction, fiction, high-fantasy

I'll just plop my review of the entire trilogy here.

The first novel was great. Also worth noting is that men and women are equals in the Farseer universe, able to serve as rulers, royal guards, minstrels, and everything in between, which is really nice to see in a medieval fantasy.

The second and third novels were a bit disappointing after the strength of the first, however. During the second novel the characters and plot slowly start to devolve into obvious, but unfortunately earnest tropes that...more

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Oct 14, 2012 Tracy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

For me there's always a lot of pressure on the third book in a trilogy to wrap everything up in a way that's neither a happily-ever-after cliche nor a complete downer. This conclusion does a good job of striking that balance -- maybe a little more on the downer side, but it helps to know some characters reappear in future books where they may get a chance to improve their situations. This story is less about politics and more about questing, and I liked the chance to see the characters taking on...more

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Sep 26, 2012 Denis rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. The ending of this book, and hence the series, seemed very abrupt.

In the first 600 pages or so, we discover how Fitz has been resurrected and now travels to the Mountains in an attempt to find Verity.

I was supremely bemused at how long it took Fitz and his 'pack' to finally find Verity. When they eventually succeed in this, the conclusion of the book fast approaches, with everything being wrapped up in a few chapters.

I know it is said that the journey is far more important than the end result, b...more

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Sep 10, 2012 AnnaBanana Pascone rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I enjoyed this book up until the last 25%. It seemed almost like a different book at that point. It just...didn't really make sense. Maybe it was just too late at night. I understand that it was from Fitz's point of view, and we aren't supposed to understand what is going on...But apparently Fitz is an idiot who is completely incapable of any sort of reasoning abilities. I hate what he ended up doing after he found out what happened to his romantic interest. It just seemed a confused jumble of i...more

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Sep 02, 2012 Charn Singh rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy

Hobb ends the epic with an epic!
The last book of Farseer saga delves in to tie all the lose ends.
The literature of the work was as perfect as other two preceding books.
As I mentioned in my reviews for book one and two, this story is quite offbeat from general fantasy stuff. Sometimes while reading if it causes you to hold your breath; or keeps you turning page after page and still keeps wishing it never ends, I will say the book well-written.
I will refrain as usual from discussing the story in m...more

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Apr 23, 2012 Laura rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Robin Hobb takes Fitz down a far more self-analytical road in this book; examining the "who am I", and "what's the point" questions that I'm sure any teenage boy who'd been "murdered" by his uncle would go through.

Having shown he's no great assassin with his desire to right the wrong quickly and loudly, Fitz embarks on a long, long, long, long adventure to find King Verity.

Did I mention "long"?

The Good Stuff:

The writing is nicely paced, dragging only when Fitz starts to think inwardly. Thankfull...more

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Apr 05, 2012 Smcleish rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Originally published on my blog here in February 1999.

Why is it that publishers' blurbs always describe third volumes of trilogies as "triumphant"? The standard end of a fantasy trilogy is of course the triumph of good over evil, with the heroes and heroines going on to fairy-tale rewards (there is even a passage in David Eddings' Belgariad giving a justification of this ending in terms of the destiny ruling that fictional world rewarding those who have helped it).

There is a triumph of good over...more

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Feb 05, 2012 Katrina Ly rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The only reason why i'm not giving this TOTALLY AWESOME book 5 stars is because i think it drags a lot in the middle and also because it took me nearly a month to finish reading this book. usually it only takes me a few days to finish a book that i'm really into but this didn't really hold on to my interest so i was pretty much reading like 5 other books in between every few chapters of this book.

that being said, i can honestly say, reflecting back, that its a really really good book! the ending...more

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Jan 05, 2012 Jacqie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book was a great finish to the first Farseer trilogy by Robin Hobb. I think I'll give myself a break before I dive into the Tawny Man trilogy (didn't like the Liveship books).

Fitz is alive, against all odds and reason, and must decide on his own for the first time what he wants to do. Revenge is his first priority, but then he is Skill-compelled to seek out Verity, the true king of the Six Duchies.

This book is spent almost entirely in travel. Fitz visits the Inner Duchies and marvels at new...more

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May 16, 2011 Sunny rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Ah, where to start. I guess I'll start by saying that while this book doesn't quite reach the greatness of the other two, it still had its moments. I actually did enjoy the book, no matter how much I rant in this review, and I believe it had great potential. It really did.

I'll start with the good. There was some great characterization in this book. The fool, enigmatic as ever, goes through a great change, and the reader feels enlightened yet at the same time more confused with his character. Sta...more Ah, where to start. I guess I'll start by saying that while this book doesn't quite reach the greatness of the other two, it still had its moments. I actually did enjoy the book, no matter how much I rant in this review, and I believe it had great potential. It really did.

I'll start with the good. There was some great characterization in this book. The fool, enigmatic as ever, goes through a great change, and the reader feels enlightened yet at the same time more confused with his character. Starling is also a nice character to watch unfold, and she can be calm and collected sometimes and very annoying at other times. Hobb goes to great ends to produce realism, and at many times this is good, such as the characters becoming colder as the story progresses. The scarce Skill and Wit scenes also were good, but at the same time there really wasn't enough of them.

The bad may seem to be more than the good, but it really isn't so. It's just that the last 50 or so page seemed to leave a bad taste in my mouth about the entire series. I realize that the books had never been, well, happy fantasies but they weren't complete tragedies either. It seems that Hobb suddenly decided that Fitz is a terrible person, and deserves to suffer greatly for it. Tell you the truth, Fitz is by far the most poor and broken character by the end of the book that I have ever read about. I have never seen so much crap thrown at a character in my life. I know Hobb was trying to be realistic, but the genre is fantasy, not ridiculous realism, that after a point I felt wasn't even realism, because no one can mentally survive the crap Fitz has to go through. The entire book seemed to be about one betrayal after another, and Hobb was relentless about never giving Fitz a break, the most agonizing of which was Molly's choice. I knew from the very beginning that there was no chance that Molly and Fitz would get together, as they were much too different for that, but her getting together with Burrich, and having kids with him was sickening and like a slap to the face, especially as I had come to see Burrich as a foster parent for Fitz, and it pained me that Fitz let her and his daughter go so easily. I look back, and sometimes I think that it would have been better just to kill her off, and make it a complete tragedy. The ending was very rushed, with all that we looked forward to happening in the last 20 pages or so. And in some ways I think Regal had a better fate than the crippled on Fitz does.

All in all, this book was not bad, and I really want to rate it higher, especially since the last two were perfect fives to me. The book, however, was just too depressing and went far beyond realism at times to mercilessly punish Fitz. I really look forward to the next trilogy, however, and I can't wait to start it!(less)

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Apr 06, 2011 Emma rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 1-star, epic-fantasy, fantasy

I very rarely give only one star; it feels melodramatic, especially since I gave Royal Assassin five. But after the quality of the first two books in this trilogy, I was shocked and appalled by this one--and, what's worse, I was bored.

In this book, Fitz leaves Buckkeep and all of the other characters we've come to know and love over the first two books. He spends most of the 760-page book hiking across the continent, much of it alone, much of the rest with random throwaway characters who appear...more

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Mar 09, 2011 Ben Johnson rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

*This review is for the entire series. There are no spoilers*

The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb is the story of Fitz, a bastard of the royal line and tool of royal family. He struggles to carve out a life of is own while serving as a playing piece in the games of courtly intrigue at Buckkeep, all the while struggling to come to terms with his affinity for the Wit - an empathy with animals viewed as an abomination. Meanwhile, the lands of the Six Duchies are threatened by unnatural raiders from fa...more *This review is for the entire series. There are no spoilers*

The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb is the story of Fitz, a bastard of the royal line and tool of royal family. He struggles to carve out a life of is own while serving as a playing piece in the games of courtly intrigue at Buckkeep, all the while struggling to come to terms with his affinity for the Wit - an empathy with animals viewed as an abomination. Meanwhile, the lands of the Six Duchies are threatened by unnatural raiders from far shores, and the royal family is hard pressed to resist. The series is compelling and weighty, an experience rather than escapism because it is too emotionally draining to be read lightly. But it is an experience not to be missed, one that transcends its genre by doing what fantasy does best: challenging our assumptions regarding fantasy worlds and our own society, and how the two relate.
Assassin's Apprentice is the story of a child growing up outside the courtly romance of the royal family, who is treated as a tool as much as the servants and soldiers. Royal Assassin focuses on the domestic sphere during a time of crisis: as the powerful men are out fighting and plotting, the queen and other members of her sphere are left to deal with the problems they create. Finally Assassin’s Quest takes the characters of the series, who had been mostly confined inside castle walls, and places them on a heroic journey of their own.

In a previous review, I lamented the fact that the author seemed to take no real risks with her characters. Robin Hobb has no such problem. Her characters - particularly her narrator Fitz - find very few instances of true contentment or joy and suffering is frequently extreme. Hobb is not scared of seriously injuring a character during a fight that would be routine in any other work of fantasy, and the characters bare an increasing amount of scars - physical or otherwise - as the story progresses. It sometimes feels as if Fitz goes from one convalescent period to another with little gained in between, but rather than an annoyance this lack of authorial protection adds welcome tension to the action.
And it is not only in the fights that Hobb is willing to make her characters suffer. Emotionally this series is less roller-coaster and more bungee-jump. Sure, after a plunge there will probably be a recoil back up - but you’re not going to be as high as you were, and there’s no avoiding the next drop, and there’s no way you can get higher than you started. The series is occasionally bleak, sometimes depressing, but it is in these lows that catharsis is reached. In my opinion, worlds of fantasy are only as real as the suffering they contain - too little and they are merely an artistic fancy, like Disneyland compared to downtown LA.

On top of this, the series is slow-paced. If I was to summarize the major points of the over-arching conflict between the Six Duchies and the Red Ship Raiders, there would be a few in the first book, a couple in the second, and then a whole bunch at the end of the third. Same with the courtly-intrigue. And this just goes to show, the series is not about it’s political conflicts, it is about its characters. Specifically, it is about Fitz. Fitz is the plot, and the slow pacing combined with the first person narration invested me in the character as few books have. I can’t say that everyone will appreciate the strategy as I did - if action is what you’re after (and that’s not a bad thing), you might not make it to the end of the the series. On the other hand, the deliberate pacing combined with Hobb’s willingness to hurt the protagonists means that the action that does occur is all the more thrilling. The books simmer like a kettle on a stove, and when they finally boil over they are impossible to put down. During each book I kept a fairly standard reading pace until the last 20% or so (I have a Kindle so I can know these things), and then finished the book in a marathon reading session.

Every once in a while (and I mean like once or twice every book), there is a brief section that can only be described as an interlude for social commentary. In Assassin’s Apprentice this takes the form of speculation over what sort of women would be the best wife for the prince. “Verity deserves a companion, not an ornament to wear on his sleeve... Someone to ride beside him of a morning when he takes Hunter out for a gallop, or someone who can look at a section of map he’s just finished and actually understand just how fine a piece of work it is.” These interludes feel a bit out of place, but they do highlight the significance of the author’s breaks with “conventional” fantasy. The confinement of the characters to the castle; the vagueness of the external conflict combined with the detailed exposition of home life; the focus on the bastard child, the wife, the fool and the stablemaster as the primary protagonists - all act as a challenge to the primacy of military chronicles as the basis for fantasy novels.

I entered the series with my own assumptions in place: the domestic sphere of the castle is the realm of the women and children, while the king and soldiers do the meaningful work outside. I think that for a very large percentage of fantasy works this expectation is validated. Think only of how many stories focus on a warrior, or a king, or a band of soldiers fighting on foreign soil. Generally, the meaningful work is done outside of the home, on a quest in a far-away land. And yet this “meaningful” work is never really shown in the Farseer Trilogy. In the series, the most significant conflict points are not external but internal ones; the plot is primarily concerned with Fitz’s inner struggles and his interactions with his friends and enemies inside the castle. By shifting the story into the domestic sphere, Hobb shows that this sphere is really no different than any other. It is not gendered, it is not safe, and it is not without it’s own intense struggles. It is not separate from the external sphere of wars and diplomacy, as the concerns of each affect the other. My own expectation of the world as consisting of these two separate domains was no longer valid - there is only one reality, and it is shared by all. Hobb’s fantasy world is not an escape from reality but an insistence that some of our “realities” are more fantasy than we realize.
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Mar 01, 2011 Liam rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book starts off pretty good, and picks up as it goes along, just as the previous 2 books did. This time Robin Hobb didn't use the annoying "Fitz pondering the past" method of reminding the reader of previous events, she integrated the reminders more subtly.

This book becomes fascinating near the end, I couldn't stop reading. I was set for an amazingly epic ending to a trilogy I had come to love. Ultimately, I was disappointed. The ending so surprised me with the completely crappyness of it,...more This book starts off pretty good, and picks up as it goes along, just as the previous 2 books did. This time Robin Hobb didn't use the annoying "Fitz pondering the past" method of reminding the reader of previous events, she integrated the reminders more subtly.

This book becomes fascinating near the end, I couldn't stop reading. I was set for an amazingly epic ending to a trilogy I had come to love. Ultimately, I was disappointed. The ending so surprised me with the completely crappyness of it, that it angered me. I was so disappointed. Robin Hobb employed a "Deus Ex Machina" ending, which left me aghast that a writer who had built herself up as one of my favourite author's would resort to a shitty romance novel plot device. She also heightened the depressivenes of FitzChivalry's life, past levels I would have thought impossible. At the end of the book, his life is so bad, it will leech your own enjoyment of life until you get your head completely out of the book.

There are scores of questions left unanswered, which I won't write specifically which ones, as knowing that their explanations aren't present may sway you from reading this book (you should still read it).

The thing that saved this author from my wrath is the fact that she continued Fitz's story in the "Tawney Man Trilogy". I'm about 3 quarts through the book, and I'm much happier with the direction things are going in. Questions left unanswered by the "Farseer Trilogy" appear to be on the verge of being answered, as they are still important topics in this trilogy.

Basically, expect to be disappointed by the books ending, but take heart in the fact that Fitz's story does continue. Before judging the Farseer Trilogy, read "The Tawney Man" trilogy, as the two series should never have been split into two separate parts.

(Possible Spoiler ahead, if you haven't read the book yet, I suggest you stop reading my review here)
The revelation pertaining to Burrich near the end was unexpected, which is something I appreciate in a novel (it keeps me on my toes), but I was a little revolted. It just felt so wrong, not just his age, but the level of trust he broke, and the fact that Fitz's death didn't influence his choice at all. Some will argue otherwise, but Burrich's actions made Fitz's life even more depressing than I could ever have thought possible.(less)

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Sep 06, 2010 Benjamin Thomas rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy

I read an average of 100 or so books every year, many of them in the fantasy genre. I picked up the first book in this trilogy, Assassin's Apprentice, because of very favorable discussion in various fantasy chat rooms. I was very glad I did. Don't tell my boss but I even skipped work to finish this one!

I connected somehow with Fitz, from the very beginning. Perhaps that is due to the first person narrative that Ms. Hobb uses to such good effect, but perhaps more so, it was her story-telling styl...more

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About Robin Hobb

** I am shocked to find that some people think a 2 star 'I liked it' rating is a bad rating. What? I liked it. I LIKED it! That means I read the whole thing, to the last page, in spite of my life raining comets on me. It's a good book that survives the reading process with me. If a book is so-so, it ends up under the bed somewhere, or maybe under a stinky judo bag in the back of the van. So a 2 st...more

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