Assassin's Quest

The last book in the series. Lots of turns, and a page turner. Good for young adult readers.

Oh, how bittersweet The Farseer Trilogy developed and ended. Fitz really broke my heart this time. In some way there is a classic battle between good and evil in this saga. Young Chivalry lives an outcast live; most of his old friends think him dead and he his consumed with hate and fear for usurper Regal. King Verity is far away on a quest to find the Elderlings, and he seems to be one of the few people Fitz could really trust. Fitz decides to help Verity and his dark, dark voyage over the Mountains kept me spellbound.In some way good will win over evil in Assassin's Quest, but this does not mean we readers become happier of it. Fitz does not get the reward he deserves, no matter how much pain and torture he has been through and because the book is composed out of his memory the readers' impression is dark and we feel terribly sorry for him. Still I think this is a quality of the story. It was the first time I was both happy and intense bitter after I finished a book, and it changed my view on classic fantasy. Too many series always have a happy end, with the major characters become all-powerfull, beloved kings and queens. Not this time; our hero is a hermit and he is as good as dead, with much to be proud of, but with no way to express it.Some readers will feel that some questions have not been answered or have been hastily worked out. I disagree. First of all this story has not ended yet, and why should all information be given in the trilogy? In 'The Liveship Traders' we already learn more from a different point of view and that's very refreshing.So, do not read this book as a faery-tale, but as a reading-experience. And cry if you want; there are enough books to laugh and feel a champion.

Most of the reviews for this book are on the mark, both good and bad: Somewhat depressing ending, yes; fantastic characterization, yes; an ending that seemed a little rushed, yes.All these qualities still add up to what was the best of the series. What impressed me the most was the newfound scale that the series achieved. The previous (middle) book seemed stilted and plodding with most of the events occurring in Buckkeep. Before reading this book I was worried--after hearing about the length--that this would be more of the same. But the tale expands and exceeds all prior constraints, in terms of both narrative and setting. Whole new parts of the realm are visited, and some of the places are quite imaginative. The Elderlings plot, suffused with an expanded role for the Skill, brings a focus to the story, and even imbues a sense of magic that was either avoided or excluded from the previous books.As for the ending. I applaud Hobb for not tying everything up in a nice little bow. Part of why I liked the first book so much was that little Fitz didn't get the girl (Molly)--it was a bold, unconventional move; unforunately, it was undone in second book, the weakest of the three. But here we have a satisfying if not wholly pleasing ending. True, I would have liked a little more resolution in regards to Fitz with some of the key characters, Burrich and the Fool especially. You are left wanting more, but often that is what great books do.

I read these books one after the other over three days. I was very much involved as a reader in the stories. In fact, they filled my dreams and nightmares while I was reading them. There is a great deal of writing skill in this trilogy. Plot twists abound and the characters are deeply drawn. This is well worth reading!The style and feel of the introductions reminded me a little of Proust's Remembrance of Things Past. The descriptions of scenery and life were all rich in the Proustian tradition she recalled. The ending recalled to me The Prisoner of Zenda, but not in as positive a light, but for the sake of comparison.The Prisoner of Zenda ended up much the same as Fitz except that it was entirely by his own choice, his own enlightened view of what was not only best for all of the people involved but what had to be the case if all that he had personally done to bring it about was to mean anything.I am one of the readers of this trilogy who was a little disappointed in the resolution (and the haste of it). I also hope that it is correct that another work concerning FitzChivalry is in progress (as one reviewer stated). It seemed to me that Kettricken, seeming somewhat royally petulent in the last volume, and Chade who became the court dandy and popularly conceived hero of the events made out quite well in the story. And the minstrel was still unfeelingly barging her way through any life she touched. I'm not sure whether the resolution is realism and cynicism or the fantasy writer/reader's love of royalty.I mean, I guess I can understand why royalty did what they did, but I would have felt more satisfied if, say, Kettricken hadn't just shown up at Fitz's once in awhile to not say anything, but simply sit there in silence with him ... because there was nothing that could be said. Read these books and hope with me that there is more of Fitz to come!

I would say the main strength of Robin Hobbs writing is her real world brutality. Her main characters are not exempt from a beating, from death, from embarrassment, or from any ill that would befall us mortals outside of the fantasy realm. The heroes ego keeps itself in check, and I think this is the major accomplishment of these last 3 novels Hobb has written. It is very easy to fall into the trap as a fantasy writer of allowing your main characters/heros to be invincible and omnipotent. What makes for a better story though are the flaws in these characters, and actually haveing them realize these flaws and work to make them better.This book was the last in the installment for the Farseer trilogy, and as sad as I am to see it end, I think Hobb did a great job of ending it. I am sure it took a lot of strength to say "This series sold really well, why not just extend it by 1 book, 2 books, 3 books, 4 books., . .. " until she got caught in the same vicious loop as Jordan and maybe Goodkind.The book is gratifying, it ends the series and ties up all the loose knots. Not all of them are happy knots to be tied up, but they are tied up nonetheless and the reader has to be content with this. Instead of just admiring the characters on a surface level when done with the book though, I got a much deeper feeling than that about them. The characters were not perfect, but they grew in their faults and their accomplishments much as i would in my life. I came to admire and respect deeply these characters, and it is because of this fact that I will buy any book Robin Hobb puts out after this one, no questions asked.You should do the same.

I was greatly surprised, reading the reviews here, to find so many mixed, not to mention downright negative, reviews. So I'll try and actually write out why I thought this book, or perhaps, more accurately, this series, was, as far as I'm concerned, about the best thing to come out in North America in recent memory.The most refreshing thing about the series, has to be its take on the whole heroic fantasy bit, which has, to be honest, been done to death and beyond. However, the equally overdone, morose antihero type cliche (equally over done in contemporary fantasy, I fear) has also been avoided. This book, and you'll forgive me for being full of myself in saying this, takes, not the protagonist who isn't a hero (a la George RR Martin, or Elric), but the hero who isn't the protagonist.To clarify, I believe that while Fitz is the protagonist, obviously, of the book, he's not the protagonist of the story being told in the book.I liked the ending a lot, although I can see what there is to dislike there, especially since we've been following Fitz around for as long as he remembers. It was in keeping with the hero not protagonist bit, however. I didn't think that the Red Ship thing was too rushed, and while it could have been spread out a bit more, I quite enjoyed the implication that, what with everything that had happened, the Red Ships were hardly important anymore.The characters were extremely well done as well. The main characters, from Patience to Kettle to Fitz himself, were all characterized, not explicitly, which is the easiest way, but implicitly, through their actions. They all seemed human to me, which is another thing that is sometimes difficult to pull off in fantasy literature.The plot was good too. 'Nough said about that I think. It wasn't exceptionally original, but it was carried off extremely well, and had a good level of complexity (not overly simplistic, but not to the monsterous levels of untrackable complexity of, say, WoT)A final word is on the length of the series itself. I like trilogies. It means that you get closure within a period of a couple years, and that things can happen in book two without having to worry about book 8. And Robin Hobb writes them far quicker than most epic writers.Ahhh... yeah. That's about it. Read this book, but not in the expectation of either a heroic, TSR fantasy or of a dark, gritty expose of the darkest corners of the human soul, but of something wonderful in between.