People are intimidated by a man who acts with no apparent regard for consequences.
I was some 60 pages from the end of the book in June, but then it meant I had to write something about it here, so I put it on hold while starting to read tons of other books through the summer in a very scattershot way, and here we are in September. (I also write this while having the “Golden” Kpop Demon Hunter song stuck in my head, somehow, creating a rather unprecedented cognitive dissonance)
This book cover shown is the edition I’ve read, and owned for roughly… 18 years. When I picked it back up, this year, I found that there were some of my notes scribbled in the first pages. As I usually do, I buy books and read 50-60 pages, then shelve them for a later point when I actually decide to commit for a full read. I’m mentioning this because it’s part of the “review” of this book. The reason why it took so long is because it never became a priority. Robin Hobb was and continues to be among the first tier of big names, but for me it lacks a stronger hook. As long my curiosity was quenched, at the time, to read a bit of sample and so being able to fit neatly in its mental space, well, there wasn’t any reason to go back to it, same as there wasn’t any real reason to put it aside as something I’m not interested about. It just waited quietly.
But on top of that there was also some active discouragement, because I’ve kept reading about the books, other readers talking about it. I know the general structure of the whole series. The first trilogy about Fitz, then the second trilogy that works as a separate section of the story, out to the sea on some weird sentient ships, to then return to a second trilogy on Fitz. To then find what’s considered its weakest point in a following duology/trilogy that got split in four books, only to then return to Fitz for a final trilogy that once again binds the whole series among the greatest. But accordingly to the readers, the first trilogy isn’t exactly smooth. Everyone agrees that the first book is a strong one, but then it moves on a downward trend, with the third book considered the worst. But also the size of the books. This first one is tiny if compared to standards of epic fantasy, but the second is already almost double the size of the first, and the third adds another 250 or so pages on top of that. The “weight” of the story is massively unbalanced toward the latter volumes. This is not atypical, as stories grow in the making, but here it seems readers didn’t enjoy the journey. Outside of the four books later in the series, the second and third are considered the lowest point in the whole thing. From the outsider perspective of a new reader, this means that you get to the good parts of the story only with the second trilogy, and only to the real core with the THIRD, because this is still mainly Fitz deal, and you don’t get to its strongest part until you get to the 7-9 books… It’s one giant delay of expectations. At that point you’d be at more than 1.5 million words into the series, to finally get the “real deal.”
If I picked this up this year it was mainly because it started surfacing again and again on random youtube videos (no it’s not the algorithm, I was already following these channels, for some reason there was some sort of resurgence of Robin Hobb in 2025). And then because of this review of the third book:
There were parts of the book that I felt it dragged a lot or that I did not find them very important plot wise but being used to Hobb’s prose and slow building I hoped that things would get more interesting as the story progressed. Some new characters helped to keep me interested at the tedious parts. Kettle or Starling for example. I am in love with Starling. And yes I was right. The final third of the book was a testament to Hobb’s beautiful melancholic writing. Eerie and mysterious to the very end with so many interesting characters conjoining to the heavily emotional aftermath.
Standing at end of the whole story I feel like Fitz was indeed the narrator and not the main character. This could be Verity’s story. Maybe it is. There is little significance to that. There is a certain magic in Hobb’s style that captivates you along its slow burning and mysterious rhythms and you get seriously attached without even noticing. I hope the Liveship Traders series that follows will keep me interested because I do not feel like waiting for so many books to read again about Fitz, The Fool and all those people.
P.S: Emotionally speaking its a 5 stars
I was coming from Modesitt, where I’ve experimented how the trick to enjoy a slow book is to slow down with it, despite your brain seems to pull in the opposite direction. It worked for Modesitt, and worked equally well for Robin Hobb. Despite it’s not a long book and there’s actually plenty of plot, the pacing is still very slow. But as the quote above states, the slow pacing here isn’t a weak point to overcome, it’s where the whole value is. You don’t look ahead to anticipate where the story will go, you stay in the present. The characters are vivid in the present time, with only a tiny dissonance, because the book is written from a melancholic perspective of future Fitz, introducing each chapter with a short section in italics. But that outside voice is very delicate and never directly interferes with the main story.
The idea coming from the above quote opened for me a new possibility, like a key to unlock a gate. Those second and third books (in perspective, it’s all about perception here, because I don’t know if I’ll ever read them, in practice) weren’t anymore a wearing mountain to overcome, to eventually get to something better later, but an hidden destination. A treasure inside that mountain. To slow down, to be in the present, within the page you’re reading, rather than looking ahead to see how many pages before the chapter ends. The following books, getting bigger, would be about forgetting the imminence of the backcover, of the book ending to start another. But to lose yourself instead within its limitless space.
This was the romantic view, but it carried me spectacularly well through this first book. It did work in practice. And it works because the primary quality of this book for me is not the characters, nor directly the emotional involvement that seems to win most readers. For me it was purely the prose. A quality of writing that sets itself from the first page follows an impossible straight line to the last page. This is a book to enjoy because of how well it is written. And it is prose first and foremost, with direct dialogue taking a backseat. It’s not what most people prefer, but it matches perfectly my own instead. The prose is DENSE. I love it. Same as I mentioned recently loving just the same Forge of Darkness by Erikson, compared to his other books, also because his prose gets a lot more dense.
On the other hand, I find myself mostly confirming my own expectations, in the sense that having read the book didn’t really offer me that much. Outside of the enjoyment in the moment, already mentioned, it’s not a transformative read. I think this book is more a companion than something that shines a beam of light onward, to offer some inspiration. The plot itself is actually, surprisingly, excellent, but from an external perspective not so interesting. If I can praise the prose, I still do think I enjoy more reading Tad Willams. Hobb is probably a slightly better writer, but I’m more interested in what Tad Williams writes. And if I want to get there, I think maybe Michelle West writes characters better than Hobb (but I haven’t read enough, it’s just an initial impression). Like Modesitt, then, there isn’t some external compulsion to read Robin Hobb for me. I just have to make that choice.
It is a slow paced book, but the first 100 or so pages are short scenes separated by significant time jumps. Considering the close perspective of the main character, to carry the story, one may expect that these jumps would be quite jarring, especially when taking place so early, before you have time to sink in. But in practice everything feels smooth and no jump or disconnection is felt. Maybe it’s Fitz own peculiar voice, because I think has a strength by not being especially defined. I’d have expected a very strong personality, very strong characterization. But I think Fitz voice is actually understated. And it works because when something dramatic happens, it’s like there’s no screen. You don’t see melodrama, you don’t see the character screaming in pain, or being in shock. Everything happens in a sort of fatalistic way, it happens so quickly that there’s no time to contain it. These are all traits that you’d expect would work against an effective emotional impact and strong characterization, but that somehow work very well here. Fitz, by being just a kid, gets pushed along by circumstance. He doesn’t really make choices because from the very first moment he’s rejected from his family to be shoved into a new situation he doesn’t control. And he will continue being shoved on by other people having control, this way and that, trying his best to adapt and survive. But certainly not a strong character in the sense of strong personality, or making choices to determine his own future. He’s more like water flowing, and if he survives it’s mostly because some characters around him decide to take care. I think this kind of muted internal voice helps to instead bring up the other characters and places. Making the surrounding pieces more lively. What Fitz isn’t is arrogant. A personality that centralizes and demands attention. In the castle he’s just another boy, who blends in the crowd. Other characters populate plots and events.
Burrich is a character that stays relevant and carries most of the weight, but my favorites were Lady Patience first, and the Fool second, obviously. The Fool is the highest point because he stays a mystery. A mystery that crosses over to the metaphysical. He almost steps out of the story, and I guess it’s one thread that will link the future books. But Lady Patience instead doesn’t have any special feature, she’s indeed just another person within the setting. She relieves tension so effortlessly and she keeps trying to help people make sense. She really tries hard, but sometimes people just can’t be helped. She’s suspended there, fretting constantly to get things right. She’s just the best one out of the bunch.
I mentioned that I took a break of two months before reading the last 60 pages, and it made for quite a surprise because up to that point there had been some understated drama, but it was overall a rather muted experience. A quiet, enjoyable journey where bad things happened, but blended with the rest of the plot. Then everything unravels in just 40 pages. It doesn’t feel rushed, in the sense that the writing gets worse and the plot needed more time, but it really happens all at once, unexpectedly, and there are a series of revelations, one after the other, that you are in a constant state of “wait, what?!”, then again and again. Things move so quickly that if up to this point you were always constantly in sync with Fitz, now Fitz understands things and only has time to confirm something on the page, with me as the reader left completely behind, “wait, how did you figure that out?” Despite the two months delay I was still able to catch most things, but I’m sure a few still escaped me. I thought I was doing well when Fitz reused some words that Lady Patience told him some 60 pages earlier, but then those last 40 pages are a barrage of things coalescing all at once, and tons of hints and seeds scattered casually through the whole book now taking their precise place in the overall puzzle.
Even here it’s not all “perfect.” I’ll mention that it felt quite forced that, early in the book, in the span of just a hundred pages three times bad things happen to fluffy, cute puppies. This is contextual to the story and Fitz, so it has a sort of motivation, but it really does feel like the book didn’t mind taking some shortcuts, to win that emotional effect. It did feel a bit artificially manipulative. Then, as I said all plot that didn’t happen through most of the book, happens all at once at the end. And even there it becomes a giant tangle of references that too neatly match. A god-like alignment of relationships. It’s impressive because it’s perfectly realized, of how much fits together and solves things that seemed to have been abandoned, but there are also some solutions that are quite convenient. And it’s completely baffling that some actions don’t seem to have any other consequence, without spoiling the plot. The aftermath just appears to be absurd. As if the characters shrugged off what happened, and move on just as usual.
This is what it is, for me. There wasn’t a strong compulsion for me to read Hobb, and there still isn’t now. The prose is excellent and there’s just pure enjoyment in reading the book. Can’t do any better. But it does lack a purpose, a main drive that makes the reading something more. For my own fun I could move right to the second book effortlessly, but my reading habits are moved in many different ways by many different things. I don’t really know if I’ll ever get to the second book, considering that it took me eighteen YEARS to read the first…
P.S.
I want to mention that the book is written in first person, but it’s not as much a close perspective as I expected. This early passage at page 21:
I leaned my forehead against his back and felt ill in the brackish iodine smell of the immense water. And that was how I came to Buckkeep.
I wrote a note there, because at that early point Fitz had no exposure to the world, and so wouldn’t have any notion of what a “iodine smell” would be. I was expecting a much more closed perspective there.
