Assassin's Quest

I finally got down to finishing Assassin’s Quest by Robin Hobb after something like two and a half months of reading, and the fact that I took that long is a sign that I didn’t enjoy the book a whole lot.

Assassin’s Quest is the final book in the Farseer Trilogy (the first two books being Assassin’s Apprentice and Royal Assassin respectively) and it is a huge departure from the first two books. For one, Fitz (the assassin) is finally taken out of the castle where he grew up, and is out in the world, trying to exact vengeance on King Regal, who killed King Shrewd and took his place.

As much as I found the stories of him in the castle boring, his “newfound” freedom is equally boring as he’s alone and the supporting cast that were painstakingly built up in the first two books like Patience, Kettricken, Chade, Burrich, Verity and the Fool are now minor characters at best, replaced instead by Kettle (who harbours some secret with the Skill) and Starling, a minstrel who is convinced following Fitz around will allow her to witness a world-changing act that she can write a song about and propel her to fame. Along the way there are new characters who keep Fitz company for a couple of chapters, but that’s it.

In short, the story really meanders too much for most of the book and Fitz keeps getting captured and miraculously escapes too many times to be convincing. He’s trained as the royal assassin but yet is hopeless in dangerous situations. Yes I understand that Robin Hobb’s intention here is to let us know how deeply scarred and hurt he is by nearly dying (or actually dying) at Regal’s hands, but following a character wallowing in his own self-pity and incompetence for the better part of 600 pages hardly makes for an engaging read. Even introducing Burrich’s “origin” story is two books to late, and hardly even matters given that he barely appears in the book at all. The resolution of the Red Ship Raiders comes almost as an afterthought, which is particularly anti-climatic given how big a threat they were built up to be in the first two books of the series.

All in all, this book really is a disappointment given the strength of the two books that have come before. I can honestly say I would have been better off if I had treated the Farseer trilogy as a duology and stopped after the second book, and you probably should too.

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]