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.

I'm so happy to say that the last book of the triology is my favorite one.

It was everything the last books where but perfectioned, so much happened and the journey was so “journeylike”, you don't just get the highlights you get everything, but when things could feel a chore you get the big character moments that may happen during some mundane stuff but it is so well written and it feels so real that it explains the characters so well in that.

I also love the reveals and how the magic ended playing out in this one and also how Hobb writes it entangled with emotions and feelings is brilliant.

The character interactions and plotlines and how they resolve feel so realistic I can't explain how but it just feels like a reflection of real life and not something that's written for the sake of telling a story.

9/10

MILD SPOILERS I guess but if you thought this book was gonna have a big battle in the end you weren't paying attention.

4 out of 5 stars – see this review and others at The Speculative Shelf.

Robin Hobb writes character relationships like no one I've read. In Royal Assassin, the novel directly preceding this one, that skill is on full display — FitzChivalry Farseer is in a castle surrounded by his enemies, his allies, his confidants, and his lover. Fitz's interwoven relationships with these groups made for a very satisfying level of court intrigue. In Assassin's Quest, Fitz casts off on his own, leaving Buckkeep behind. It reminded me of the disappointment I felt toward the end of the Harry Potter series, when Harry is no longer at Hogwarts. Harry moves from place to place, spending large chunks of time camped in the woods. It never quite feels as magical as it did back within the confines of Hogwarts.

The word “Quest” in the title is apt. Fitz journeys relentlessly. There are only so many times one can make camp, hunt, and evade capture before it becomes a trifle tiresome. Things unfold so slowly that it feels like Fitz and his companions are wading through quicksand. The events that transpire along the way are interesting enough to recover some goodwill, but it was not always a satisfying journey to me as a reader. While Royal Assassin was always propelling the reader forward toward an ending, Assassin's Quest felt meandering and stagnant.

There is magic to be found here, however. Between the Skill and the Wit, Hobb has created two unique magic systems that are intriguing in their own right, but Fitz's possession of both makes for a dazzling combination. The issue is that Fitz is never in full command of his abilities. In fact, no character in this story is wholly themselves. Hollowed out by grief, or the Skill, or secrets, no one is operating at 100% and the wonderfully written characters cannot shine until the final pages. That being said, the conclusion here is epic and the story is capped by a beautiful and rewarding epilogue. Despite my aforementioned misgivings, Hobb's writing remains the beacon in the dark. Rarely have I read fiction so engrossing. Her words evoke such a clear picture in my mind as a reader that even a story with flaws can still take flight off the page.

This review is mainly for Assassin's Quest, but also for the Farseer Trilogy as a whole. My final thoughts revolve around how Robin Hobb lets me live out a lot of my guilty pleasures in fantasy literature without guilt. In this book she continues tropes like talking with animals, badass sword-wielding heroines, spiteful pretenders to the throne, and then she adds dragons. Maybe it's because this is a 90s series and makes me very nostalgic for the fantasy lit. of my teenage years, but I kinda dug the world despite cliches.

I think I also enjoyed it because it's not an entire cliche. General spoilers, so locking just in case. One of the best surprises for me was Fitz' relationship with Molly. I have to say that for most of the second book and every time he mentioned Molly in this book, I groaned. It's not that she's an awful character, but she always pulled me out of the story and back into Fitz adolescent romance. Adolescent romance is my least favorite thing to read ever. Give me a phone book; it's more interesting. I like that Hobb recognized it as an adolescent romance, something Fitz had to go through and from which he would mature. They get their happy endings, but not with each other. Fitz doesn't even get a stand-in for Molly (I wouldn't count Starling). He just has to grow up and move on. Not enough fantasy books show that this is often what people (especially teenagers) have to do.Hobb writes animals like nobody's business, and Nighteyes' growth into partly human is more interesting to me than Fitz' wolfish natures. I like the slow transformation, the fact that Nighteyes grows to realize he wants a pack and won't have one among wolves, so he builds one among humans. It's slow and subtle and easily the factor that sets this book apart from all those fantasy tropes. The Fool was a character I grew to love quite a bit more in this book. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed him before, but I enjoyed him in the way all fan favorites are enjoyed. There's no question people will like him; he gets to be the sardonic tongue making fun of the story in the background. This book gives him background of his own, and while I found the White Prophet backstory a little flimsy, his relationship with Fitz more than makes up for it. The Fool gets to be genuine in this book, and it turns out unique and beautiful.Chade, whom I loved for many of the reasons I love the Fool, also gets to be a bit more genuine. I loved seeing him in his prime, and I wished he was present for more of the book. The other characters don't engage me as much. In the second book, I was about done with Fitz. He's more palatable in this one, particularly in the beginning where he's learning to be human again. However, he still gets all Molly, Molly, Molly too much for my taste and too often makes such stupid decisions. He's a believable character, but one I want to smack down nonetheless. Kettricken and Verity are also similarly believable if disappointing. It saddened me to see two of my favorites so weakened, and Verity is used as an emergency save a bit too often. I like Kettricken's steel spine, but I would've liked to see her take more action other than "Gotta find Verity." I wanted to follow her dragon story past the ending. That is my Kettricken.The new characters didn't move me too much. Starling is a bit irritating and Kettle was clearly marked for death from the moment she came on stage, so I don't have much to say about them. Regal remains too simple a villain for my taste.That said: This ending rocked. Very spoilery from here.Hobb gave me all the clues to her ending, but I didn't pick up on a single one of them. Skill-imprinting is such a basic tenant of all the books, but I never expected Fitz to be able to use it. Imprinting Regal to be a fanatical Farseer loyalist is absolute brilliance. I'd also totally forgotten about the little ferret from Blue Lake. What a fantastic comeuppance. My hat off to you, Ms. Hobb.I also enjoyed the Forging reveal. While it's a little bit abracadabra, the idea that Forging is an accidental side-effect of dragon exposure which destroyed a people totally unintentionally is a unique angle. I still think maybe the Redships would have pointed out this was a revenge mission, but then again their perspective is one where sense doesn't factor in. I still don't understand Forging all that well, but the how isn't as important as the why in this case.

So final thought-wise, this book isn't for everyone, but it mostly worked for me. You have to have a taste for fantasy tropes and a willingness to deal with a teenage (he might be older now, but he still talks like one) first-person narrator. If neither of those things bothers you, there is a lot to be said for the characters, story-telling, and world building here. It'll probably take me a while to get to the next trilogy in this universe, but it's definitely on my to read list now.

I struggled. I struggled so hard. The first half of the book dragged and dragged and eventually I realised it was because all of the supporting characters, who masked Fitz's incompetence, weren't there. Fitz and his wolf BFF does not make a compelling story (for me). Once Fitz met up with some old cast members again, it was a bloody great story to the end. But that first half dragged so long for me, this only gets an ‘I liked it' review.

On the other hand, Wit-bees. Fucking marvellous.

Even though I didn't love this as much as the first two books, I still think it deserves 5 stars. Robin Hobb is brilliant and the characters alone are 5 star worthy. I love this world so much. I just didn't expect the Elderlings to be what they were. I thought that whole part was kinda trippy. That being said, I am still excited to continue on. Also, I loved Kettle! The narrator did a fantastic job, especially with Kettle. It made the experience even more enjoyable.

After completing the second part of this trilogy I was left unsure of my feelings about the tale; the story had turned claustrophobic and it didn't really feel like a huge amount of progression was taking place. It is fortunate then that the final book finally gets out of Buckkeep and heads out on something more resembling an adventure, with a suitably neat, if a little predictable, conclusion.

Having said that, although Robin Hobb writes well, there is an awful lot of grind to get from A to B. Dealing with the consequences of the end of the second book, before we set out on the quest, takes about 100 pages without any obvious impact on the overarching story. Of course, that is not to say that the sequence of events does not follow any logic, which illustrates what I think is the main failing of the trilogy: every action, and the actions stemming from that action, are followed though to their logical conclusion and described in great detail. As I say, the writing is good enough to carry the reader through, however this does not make for a quick, fast-moving read. If you start reading this trilogy, you need to face the fact that you are in this for the long haul.

So, where doesn't this leave the trilogy? As mentioned, you certainly get your money's worth; by the time you get the end you can be confident that you will feel like you have been on the quest yourself. The conclusion ends where it should, albeit in a little too predictable manner; there are few surprises given the foreshadowing that comes before, however there is a satisfaction in knowing that it couldn't really end any other way based on what came before.

If you measure your trilogies in terms of pages read and events encountered, you will not be disappointed. This has many of both, with the added bonus of being well written, however personally I could have done with a bit less detail and a few more twists.

I felt this to be a pretty good conclusion to the initial trilogy. I do wonder what will become of many of the characters, but could be content if there were no other books to read.

That said, I'm planning to make time in the next few months to reading the next two trilogies.

I feel like many of the larger question were addressed to my satisfaction, but could be explored further. There especially seems like more can be learned about both the Skill and the Wit.

Assassin's Quest was not a perfect book, but was the perfect ending to the trilogy and left me feeling extremely satisfied with the time I spent with Fitz, Nighteyes, and all the rest. Starting with the good, I love the quest aspect of the second half of this book. It had a sort of Fellowship of the Ring feel to it and I felt a genuine connection to the mission and all of the characters on it. There were real stakes, suspense, and growth for that portion of the book. The final part in the quarry(and beyond) was where the real payoff came. I won't spoil anything, but the ending put each character(except for Regal, I didn't love his ending) in the place that I felt they were meant to be all along. The bad part of this book, was Fitz and Nighteyes' solo travel in the first half. It wasn't all bad, but it felt like a tv show where they have to put some kind of action in each episode to make people watch, but none of it is particularly relevant to the main story. That can be entertaining, but in this case it felt repetitive with Fitz essentially getting his ass kicked every time. The poor guy just couldn't catch a break and I didn't feel like that was necessary. Overall, just like in the first two books, the strength of this book is Fitz. He was a character I thoroughly enjoyed spending a couple of months reading about and the reason I would certainly recommend this entire series.

I didn't like this that much as a book, and I actively disliked it as the end of a trilogy. I can't imagine reading this in 1997 when it was first published and people didn't know there would be 13 more Elderlings books.

I could excuse the long journeying and meandering, and lack of important characters for large chunks of it, but the conclusion is just so unsatisfying for me. I thought the big reveal about what the point of the quest was, was silly. I was like

What an ending to a series! I won't get too far into the plot of the previous one for fear of spoilers, but this story picks up right where the second one left off. We follow Fitz on his quest to help save the world from fate and from the Red Ship Raiders.

The beginning of this book was definitely slow. Fitz is alone for a long time while he is on his journey. It isn't until later in the book that he meets his travelling companions. While there was intermittently some action, a lot of that beginning chunk is travel. I didn't feel bored throughout this because Hobb used it to really show the reader Fitz's state of mind and his struggles with the Wit and the Skill. However, it definitely was slower paced.

However, the last quarter of the book was jam-packed with action. I could hardly put the book down. Everyone I've see that's read this series says “Royal Assassin” is their favorite installment, but I really thought this one outshone that one. I liked this one more because it had what I thought the other 2 were lacking. This one really explored so much more magic and fantasy elements. The last 2 books didn't feel as much like fantasy besides the use of the Skill and the Wit. However, this one dove into the deep end of magic. I loved it. I am fascinated by the magic system and the lore of this world. The ending made me so excited to keep reading Robin Hobb's series set in this world.

Hobb is a titan in the fantasy world. These books perfectly mix characterization with plot. Everything is so well thought out, and every character is so unique, that you feel truly immersed in this incredible world she has created. I have officially become a Robin Hobb stan.

Read her books if you like fantasy. The end.

TW: ableism, assault, awttempted murder, blood, bones, childbirth, death, famine, fire, gore, hallucinations, infertility, kidnapping, miscarriage, misgendering, murder, pregnancy, PTSD, rape (off page), slavery, torture, violence, war