The Dragon Keeper > Part 1: Chapters 1 to 5

[Hanne]

Nearly Robin Hobb time again! Yay.

The 'official' starting date was put on monday, but in case anyone starts early: here we go!
Personally, I prefer to finish Tigana first, so I'll move to Hobb somewhere between monday and wednesday.

As always, however hits chapter 6 first, feel free to make the new thread!

[David Sven]

Yay! Back in the Rain Wilds. Looks like it follows on pretty much from Liveships except with different POV characters. I like the messages that the two keepers of birds keep passing between chapters.

[David Sven]

Thymara's claws are awesome...and weird at the same time. They seem to come in handy for climbing. It looks like she was supposed to be killed at birth and her father couldn't go through with it. Rogan hates her because maybe because he had killed one of his children and if he sees her as human he will have to face that his child was human as well.

[David Sven]

Alise and Hest. A marriage of convenience. Alise seems ok with it, but Hest is a real bastard. And I suspect he prefers men to women.

Ch5 - So Sedric tells Alise Hest isn't seeing any "women" - emphasis on women - I'm inferring from that that he is seeing other men - I think.

[Hanne]

OK, there was a plan to wait until Tigana was finished, but plans are there to be changed, right?

Prologue - Poor Tintaglia! Even if we already read a lot of what is about to happen from the previous trilogy, it was still such a pain to read about the tiresome journey up the river, and how many died along the way.


ch1 - and we immediately meet the first real fool in this story. Leftrin catches one of the lost logs, and thinks to make a fortune. Perhaps you will Leftrin, but Tintaglia will eat you alive


ch2 - again, we already knew the dragons would come out all deformed and stunted, but it was still painful to read actually. here they had made an entire feast of it, and they happen to look at an unintended circus.

Thymara's claws are awesome indeed. i guess scales and claws make her an Elderling, but for years and years the Rainwild traders have put these babies out so they would die

I also liked the bird messages between the two. Especially the more personal messages at the end. Sending lice infested birds to the other city. How rude!

[Hanne]

ch3 - Alise is an interesting new character. I like her already. Imagine a situation where "war is the only really exciting thing that had happened in her life". We know much of Bingtown runs superficially, so a smart girl without the good looks of her sister, nor the money, looks like she really doesn't stand a chance.

Given her liking to the Elderlings, I couldn't wait for her to wait someone like Selden, but Sedric really is the one to watch here. Because this proposed marriage sounds like a gigantic failure about to happen

[Hanne]

ch4 - So Tarman is a liveship, would it be an unquickened one? We know the liveships react quite strongly to the dragon-story, so why would the liveship keep quiet about this log they found and how they're trading it?
I hope a 'living' liveship will come soon into the story. I miss Ophelia!

Then unfortunately, Alise is already finding out about her mistake here. But at least she is selling out expensively and will have more scrolls than she ever dreamed about. It's like being a spinster, but wiht the money and the staff, right?

Hest was murmuring quite some things there in the night before consummating the marriage, about it 'being similar' (don't have my book here so i might have the wording wrong). Is Hest secretly gay? I'm with you on that one David, what else could it be similar to?

Also interesting, Sophie asking whether it wouldn't be weird the three of them living together. Alise answers no, but i think 'oh yes' would be the better answer. Sedric sounds like he knows and likes Alise a whole lot more than Hest does.

It was fun to hear the Rain Wild Traders being anxious about Tintaglia's whereabouts... :D

[David Sven]

I'm suspicious that Sedric might be more to Hest than just a friend. Hest did make that comment to Sedric early when he had just made the deal with Alise that he could pretend he was doing it with Sedric.

I wonder if Tintaglia will ditch the deformed dragons now that she can start over with her new mate.

[David Sven]

Yeah - I think it shows nobody cares whether they were virgin or not - but a child has financial/political consequences.

[David Sven]

Hanne wrote: "So Tarman is a liveship, would it be an unquickened one? We know the liveships react quite strongly to the dragon-story, so why would the liveship keep quiet about this log they found and how they're trading it?"

Tarman must be made of wizardwood - but I don't think it has a figurehead like the big ships so I don't know how that works - I don't think it's quickened in any case. Maybe they don't do the whole spilling blood thing with barges.

[Rob]

A little slow so far, but that's just Ms. Hobb's style. I'm enjoying it at least, although not quite making the progress I had hoped by this point, I only just finished the first section last night.

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So far I like Thymara and I'm suspect of the rest of the characters. Well and I like her father. Tats might be cool too. Despite what Thymara thinks, I think her mother is correct and he's sweet on her. I'm hoping he ends up going along with her on the Dragon Keeping.

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I initially liked Hest's honesty in his wedding proposal, but he shortly got on my shit list when talking to his "friend" Sedric about her. Sedric seems like a much nicer person, but he has no spine and seems to simply do whatever Hest tells him.

If the two of them aren't having sex together in Sedric's little cabin I'll be surprised. They way they skirted the affair issue by stressing the word "woman" in every sentence just screams confirmation to me of what I've been thinking since the proposal.

I'm torn on Alise. I feel a little bad for her, but she brought this on herself. She's not stupid, but is apparently naive. How she can't see that Hest is gay is beyond me. However, the near rape when she doesn't want to try to make babies (because really that's all it is, there is no love or passion there) is not cool.

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The Tarman is definitely made of wizardwood, and I think the tiller has a bond to it that allows him to better respond to conditions of the river. Plus now he's had it enhanced with the log he's made. I think the issue that makes his different from the Liveships is the figurehead like David said, so it has no conduit to come alive.

I'm not sure if ALL ships are made of wizardwood though. I recall Leftrin mentioning after the first ship, the value of wizardwood went through the roof and only the rich traders got them anymore. But I can't find the passage. His ship is older than the oldest liveship however.

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The dragons are tragic, but not surprising. I was curious where exactly this books fits in the timeline relative to Tawny man but I guess the events of the final book in that trilogy have passed already since Tintaglia is off with her mate somewhere.

I'm really hoping to see the Versits be on screen characters at some point in the series and not simply mentioned. They don't need to be POV characters, but I surprisingly miss Malta. Especially considering how much I wanted to throttle her at the start of Liveship.

[Hanne]

David, Rob - you guys are right.
It's mentioned that tarman is the eldest liveship, but it doesn't have a figurehead. So like Paragon couldn't see without eyes, this ship doesn't speak because it doesn't have a head.
I guess the first 'real' liveship had a figurehead as a ornamental design, and people must have gone nuts when it started talking three generations later.

Rob, re: timeline,
we skip 4 years somewhere in these intro chapters, so we're now officially a few years after the previous trilogy.

[Wastrel]

[Won't be reading this with you, I'm afraid - will get around to it, but other stuff first. Besides, you're way quicker than me anyway. Probably be with you next year when you do Fool's Assassin, though]