Valentina's Reviews > Fool's Assassin

I had high anticipations and I started reading with some apprehension. I was one of those readers that never forgot the bittersweet ending of Fool's Fate. I felt if was unjust, especially for some characters. That said, I was more than happy to see where Robin Hobb wanted to go with this new story, I was thrilled.

I'll start with saying that the story proceeds at a very slow pace. This might be fine for the "old" readers, they are used to Fitz and his musings. At the same time it helps the new readers to understand a bit what happened before. It wasn't much the first part that bored me, but actually the whole middle section, from where we start to read our second narrator. This second narrator is interesting, yes, the problem is that in that whole section nothing much happens. At times we just get the same events from two points of view.
When something actually happens, it is relegated to just a few pages in a sea of common events, dresses, shopping and house keeping.
(view spoiler)[I didn't like Molly before, I already felt that Fool's Fate ending was too forced. In this book she is as plain as ever, I didn't dislike her and I actually felt that her going senile was very well written. Except she wasn't really going mad. I actually would have preferred that. (hide spoiler)]
I felt the characterization was a bit lacking too. Chade and Riddle had a bit more of spotlight, and they were the best ones in my opinion. I liked when Hap came up, and Patience and Kettricken were, as always, fantastic. As for the new characters, for now they aren't really memorable ((view spoiler)[Revel and Lant, who were the most interesting ones, are already out of the picture. I didn't connect much with Lant, but still it seemed like he was going to be an important character, so I think that maybe we will see him again. I hope the stable boy is still alive, because I had high expectations for his character (hide spoiler)]).
Moreover, I want to stress out that Fitz not only has lost his edge, but he is dumber than ever before. He is his usual insensible and self-centered self, but the real problem is that whenever a strange event occurs, he is unable to deal with it and to solve the "mysteries". Worse than that, they seem almost unimportant to him, he just makes a few questions, ponders a bit, and time passes and he is distracted by said house keeping. Let me elaborate in a spoiler heavy tag.
(view spoiler)[I won't even comment on his behaviour with the poor messengers. Let's just say though, that after he actually received the message, I cannot believe that he could not understand who the Fool was looking for. Surely, by now he had to guess his child was not normal, in so many ways. Surely, he had seen enough White Ones to get that there might be a relation. Surely, if your child grows up in such a strange way and talks about odd dreams, writes them down, and goes in a trance and speaks about pale ones... surely, as much as you love her, you might start to wonder. Hell, I think Chade would have made a connection, but Fitz didn't even think about it. The messenger had even said that Beloved was looking for "a son but not really his son". Now, I don't know how it happened that Molly gave birth to this child, it's even disturbing to think that in some way through Fitz she gave birth to the Fool's "child". This whole "son" thing is still a mystery, and I hope it will make sense later on. Even the Fool doesn't seem to know much. But again, even though I understand that at that moment Fitz was too shocked, when the Fool said he had found his son and a second before he was holding Bee... Fitz, please, wake up. (hide spoiler)]
The Fool's presence permeates the book, even though he appears only at the end. But when he does appear, that's when the book starts shining. We see him only briefly though and he is in such a state that I'm not sure I liked how he was introduced again. (view spoiler)[And torture? Again? Really, that disappointed me so much. There is something off about his characterization, but his appearance is so short and he has endured so much that I will just wait and see how the story develops. His state of mind is comprehensible, and we see a bit of how he was before with Kettricken too, so there is hope. (hide spoiler)]
Finally, in the last 100 pages the story starts. Up until that point we have just hints and recollections. This whole book just provides a setting. Usually in Robin Hobb trilogies it's the second book which goes at a slow pace. In this case, the first one is already really slow. I read the 600 or so pages in three days, but I have to admit that it takes a strongly dedicated reader, and one that really cares about the characters from the previous books, to go through this one swiftly.
There are some interesting concepts throw in there, the story looks promising. (view spoiler)[I'm not even mad that the Fool might have been wrong for all these years, the thought crossed my mind more than once. A trilogy based on the White Ones makes me curious, I wonder if we will see the Elderlings and the dragons too. We know that the dragons are starting to feed in the Free Duchies, and I think that since the Fool restored the dragons into the world they might have some importance in this trilogy. (hide spoiler)]
It is the Fitz and the Fool trilogy, but for now "Fool's Assassin" is a deceiving title, we didn't get much of the Assassin or of the Fool part.
Fitz is in for another world on pain apparently, and this time I really hope that in a few years we will read a truly happy ending, not a "content" one.


Overall I give three stars. It is a nice setting, a nice read to get in touch with the characters we loved so much, and looks promising. I can't give more because there aren't enough memorable moments in it.