Assassin's Quest

This book is very, very long. You'll read 100 pages about Fitz walking up a road. But if it hits you right, you'll love it.

Hobb's character work is beyond good. She is able to elicit tension, grief, jealousy and every other emotion under the sun with her writing. She also manages the first ever strong climax in this series, ending on a real high note.

I really struggled with either a 4 or 5 star rating here. While this is definitely a fantastic book I would recommend to anyone with the patience for it, I do feel it meandered a tiny bit more than Royal Assassin and that brought it down to 4 stars for me.

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, he's not a master swordsman. He's an abandoned bastard coming of age. He's insecure, he's lonely, and sometimes he broods. Not in an annoying whiny way, but in a normal, realistic way.

Things don't always go so well for Fitz. His story is heart-wrenching, and I felt emotionally drained after I finished it. But somehow, that was so satisfying.

Read more Robin Hobb book reviews at Fantasy literature.