Trader clans made a deal with the dragon Tintaglia: She helped them defeat their enemies and they will take care of the young dragons as they emerge from their cocoons. Unfortunately, the dragons emerge both physically and mentally deformed. Moreover, Tintaglia appears to have disappeared. Neither the traders nor the young traders are happy with this arrangement. The dragons are draining the resources of the small village and they feel humiliated by their current condition. To resolve the issue, a plan is hatched to move the dragons upriver in search of an ancient lost city.

This is the premise behind Robin Hobb's Rain Wilds series. The first book in the series, The Dragon Keeper follows the gathering of the people who will travel with the dragons, care for them, and hunt for food to feed them along the journey. The group includes Thymara, a teenager born with her own deformities that mark her as outcast among her own people, Alise, a young scholar trapped in a loveless marriage of convenience, Sedric, a dandy who serves as Alise's aide during their journeys, and a barge captain with his own secrets who harbors an infatuation with Alise. Like the dragons, most of the keepers are drawn from the freaks and outcasts of society or those, like Alise, who don't fit into the mold society expects of them. Once they begin their journey, however, they find themselves free from society's strictures and begin to question whether they need to live under those rules.

But that's the second half of the novel. One of the criticisms high fantasy sometimes receives is that much of the verbiage of the bug-killing novels is simply used to set the stage and let the reader know what kind of world they're in. The Dragon Keeper is not a long book, but still, Hobb takes quite a bit of time introducing the characters and the setting that it's not until the midpoint that they actually being their quest. Readers who thought The Fellowship of Ring rushed its way to the Council of Elrond should appreciate the pacing. It's not that first half is boring or that the characters are dull. Far from it. They are truly interesting. It's just that, we know the story is going to be about the quest, but Hobb spends so much time putting the pieces on the board that impatient readers might want to get on with it.

Patience, however, is rewarded. The Dragon Keeper isn't just about the journey, but the people taking it and the more we learn about them, the more we root for them. So, despite a rather slow start, I recommend readers pick it up. This being the the first of a trilogy, it's not much of a spoiler to say that the quest will continue into the next book. The real test of a first of three book is, when you reach the end, will you feel anxious to pick up book two and find out what happens next?

I know I do.