Daryl Tay.net

Royal Assassin By Robin Hobb

Royal Assassin is the second book in the Farseer Trilogy, a review of the first book, Assassin’s Apprentice, can be found here.

The story follows FitzChivalry after the ending of Assassin’s Apprentice and plunges him back into his world at Buckkeep amidst Regal’s ambitions for the throne, the Red-Ship Raiders, more Forged Ones and his love with Molly.

Once again, Robin Hobb turns in a wonderful character piece. Assassin’s Apprentice planted the seeds for the series’ characters and Royal Assassin takes those characters and really lets them develop. Burrich, Lady Patience, Kettricken, Verity and the Fool in particular have really evolved into my favourites of the series (much to my surprise for Patience), and I have rarely felt such disgust with a character as I have for Regal and Wallace. Unfortunately, Chade is not very prominent in this book, and I missed the character.

Compared to Assassin’s Apprentice, Royal Assassin has more action and Fitz has many a battle with Forged Ones and Red-Ship Raiders. However, it is still in disproportion to Fitz running around in the castle.

For about half of the book, I felt I was watching Fitz play an RPG (role-playing game) where he had to visit Patience, Verity, Shrewd, the Fool, Burrich, who would give him quests and he would go fulfill them , and this pattern would continue for chapters unending. This is the biggest complaint for me as I felt many of these chapters could either be shortened, or removed entirely. However, I also felt the introduction of Lady Patience was redundant in the first book, but it paid off in the second book, so maybe the payoff will come later.

The ending of this book, however, is fabulous. I was literally up until 4am just finishing it because it draws you in and will not let you go. Don’t read this book on its own, start from the beginning and see the trilogy through for a really rewarding experience.

[Image credits: Royal Assassin]