Rating: Summary: Very, very good. Review: Robin Hobb, Assassin's Apprentice (Bantam, 1995)Once you get past the (to be expected with books these days) complete incongruity between the cover art and the book's descriptions of its characters, this is one fine debut novel. I spent way too much time flipping between passages in the book and the cover trying to figure out what planet the artist was on when he took those words and turned them into that cover. But that's just me. Fitz, at the age of (approximately) six, is brought by the person he thinks is his father to the castle at Buckkeep and left there. We are soon apprised that, in fact, Prince Chivalry is Fitz' father, not that chap who dropped him off on the stairs (and this is about as much as we get of Fitz' live previous to his coming to the castle). Fitz is taken in by Burrich, the stablemaster, but soon enough makes himself known to the king. The king decides the boy needs to be made productive, and has him trained in the art of diplomacy from a distance-assassination. Like all good fantasy novels (especially those that come in trilogies), the book is not only about Fitz, of course. It's also about building a believable world in the Six Duchies and the Outislands, and describing it enough that the reader can get a sense of daily life there and a grasp of its geography without going into too much detail and bogging down the story. It is in this that the majority of failed fantasy novels fail. Hobb takes to it like a fish to water (or a Fitz to assassination, as it were), giving us what sometimes seems like an Upstairs, Downstairs set in an alternate world. Fitz' parentage allows him to move between the worlds of royalty and poverty pretty much at will. A tough task for any writer, but Hobb carries it off with aplomb. A fantastic beginning to the trilogy. ****
Rating: Summary: My all-time favorite trilogy Review: Robin Hobb is currently my favorite author. I think her later books(Live Ship trilogy) are a little drab, but her debut Farseer Trilogy is the absolute best fantasy series that I have ever read. I prefer Hobb's books over Robert Jordan, if you can believe it. Hobb has a wonderful knack for language, able to create a vivid world with a cast of characters capable of just drawing emotions out of you. The story is percieved through a first-person view of our protagonist, which lets us have a deep look at the emotional turmoil that he is forced to experience. We view the world through a first-person perspective of our protagonist, a bastard son of a prince who is trained to be a court assassin. We are privy to all of his emotions and internal reflections. I can't go into any more detail than that without spoiling the plot. It's not as complex as Wheel of Time but is immensely more satisfying. Yes, there is magic in this book, but its of a different style than most have seen before. Also, magic sort of takes a back seat to the plot, which works very well in this case(in other words, you dont have mages blasting each other with fireballs. In fact, there is only one person in the entire book who is fully trained in his area of magic. Verity is so cool!). Anyway, it's an excellent read. I guarantee you wont be dissapointed. Like most series, though, you need to read all 3 books to get the full effect, and the first book isnt as good as the second or third
Rating: Summary: Not too shabby... Review: I found this book in a thrift store while searching for old, collectable children books. I decided to glance at the fiction section and "Assassin's Apprentice" was the first book I noticed. I am not a fantasy reader, but the book looked mellow enough and it went home with me. The beginning starts out well enough drawing you into a life of an abandoned young boy who is later named Fitz. He is born a bastard to a Prince of the Six Duchies making him an embarrassment to the Royal Family. Fitz is shunned by the Royal Family and dubbed as "the Bastard". Left to be raised by his father's stable master, Fitz at first grows up in a humble setting of the royal horses and hounds. He plays with the local children, helps in the stables and for awhile his life is simple. But events lead him to being noticed by the King and he is placed into the royal castle of Buck. There he is trained under a secret assassin named Chade learning about mixing herbs, creating poisons, information gathering and how to kill. Six Duchies soon becomes victim to foreign raiders and the Kingdom falls in to disorder and turmoil. Fitz finds himself in a middle of all the turbulence and is placed in a position to fulfill his duty to his King to save the Six Duchies from further disaster. Robin Hobb did a good job of slowly lowering you into a pool of mystery and suspense. There is not a huge list of characters to distract you from the story line. The plot does get a slight complicated, but all the secrets keep you wanting more. I found "The Skill" and "The Wit" (concepts of magic) not too overwhelming. Instead Hobb gently introduces these abilities to the reader in a realistic fashion. It is easy to accept. The dialogue in the book is very clever and well written. What the book lacks (plot, character bios, etc) is later made up in the following books to the Farseer Trilogy. What I like most about the book was there was not too much sticky romance, overbearing magic or overdone drama. The main character Fritz is not portrayed as a magnificent hero but a simple boy stuck with a magnificent destiny. Through the book you grow with Fitz and experience his triumph, but quite a few of his failures. It makes him more likable and easy to accept. Also the women in the book are portrayed with strong beliefs and influence. I liked that a lot. Very "PC". I recommended this book to others and have received enthusiastic reviews. The whole series was a wonderfully written tale and easily remembered!
Rating: Summary: All Hope For Redemption Is Lost Review: This series is truely awful. I have never felt sick to my stomach as after reading this series. The main character goes through so much turmoil, pain and loss that its almost unbearable. The payoff for the pain (for the character and the reader): none. Leaves you feeling empty and disheartened at the end by the cruelty and unfairness of the world. A happy ending is one thing, an unhappy ending is another, the ending to this series is just downright depressing. Avoid. I was put onto this by George R R Martins recommendations, stick to Lynn Flewelling or just wait for teh next Martin book.
Rating: Summary: Skilled first-person narrative, bland setting, uneven plot. Review: Assassin's Apprentice recounts the coming-of-age of the noble bastard FitzChivalry. Hobb skillfully describes Fitz's emotional growth as a royal castoff through a first-person narrative. The flashback perspective of Fitz as an old man drips with somber nostalgia, producing a far more mature narrative voice than standard coming-of-age fantasy. Hobb excels at delicate tactile details of things that Fitz experiences, especially his mental bond with animals. However, the narrative offers no correspondingly deep details of many plot-related points, such as how he steals the letter left in Prince Regal's chambers or any of Fitz's assassin training. The first three-quarters of the novel drag as the plot bounces Fitz aimlessly through a string of mentors and trades, including Burrich, Chade, Lady Patience, and Galen, each period of his training ignoring the previous one(s). These characters and others, such as Verity, Regal, and the Fool, veer wildly from background to major importance with no apparent reason. Fitz's rare forays out of Buckkeep seem to only involve fleeting glimpses of external plot threads, like merely viewing the remnants of the raid on Forge. The Six Duchies never feels more than an ordinary, quasi-medieval fantasy kingdom, and the nobility's convention of taking names that fit their character traits provides ridiculous epithets like "King Shrewd" and "Lady Patience." The pseudo-historical passages opening each chapter feel like forced exposition from outside the point-of-view, rather than integrated historical accounts or the old Fitz's nostalgia that Hobb seamlessly weaves into the narrative. In contrast, the last quarter of the book speeds toward an abrupt climax of court intrigue, almost jarring in the shift of pace, plot focus, and style. The conclusion provides several surprises among the obvious twists, and most of the previously discarded characters retain importance as prominent or gratuitous participants. The city and culture of Fitz's mountain hosts are far more vividly and uniquely described than anything in the Six Duchies, but the emotional focus of the first three-quarters of the book is largely abandoned. The intrigue concludes without resolving the main external plot of the entire book, the coastal raids, and the sudden ending leaves the novel feeling like an incomplete set-up for the next volume of the trilogy. Assassin's Apprentice uses a skilled and emotive first-person narrative to tell an ordinary story through an unevenly paced plot, producing an above-average fantasy novel. It _would_ be a great debut for a new writer, but since "Robin Hobb" is the pseudonym for an experienced fantasy author, Assassin's Apprentice only gives a solid start to the trilogy.
Rating: Summary: Hobb has a great beginning Review: Robin Hobb can spin quite a tale. Learning about Fitz life as a fatherless child who is a prince and the next in line to the throne of the Six Duchies. His father decided not to take the throne which leaves Fitz in a very interesting life. From his childhood to his teenage years Fitz learns the truth about the outside world.
Rating: Summary: Entertaining, but not much more Review: I feel like a jerk. There are a lot of people who apparently love this book. That was the whole reason I bought it. However, if this book was to be rated against other fictional works you really couldn't call it "a good book." Maybe rated against the tripe that most fantasy authors serve up this is better, but not much. It is not my intention to be hurtful, but this is not a good book. The characters are flat, their emotions are comically overblown, and their behaviour is completely unrealistic in most situations. Though assassination is at the heart of this book, it is never grappled with emotionally. In all cases, the choices are laughably simple and one-sided. Plus, the plotting is herky-jerky, the world is unoriginal and uninspired, and there is no emotional connection. Again, if you are considering buying this book, I am not writing this as a bitter reader. I came into this with an open mind, and now I want to spare those who might do as I did. This is not a good book. It is not good at all. Go read George R.R. Martin or J.R.R. Tolkien or Mervyn Peake if you are looking for good fantasy and good writing. You will not find it here.
Rating: Summary: A true diamond! Must own! Review: It's been a few years since I read it last. I normally don't buy books I've read, but I loved the book so much I bought it eventually a few days ago. To put it simply, the book is just stunning. Amazing. Astonishing. Beautiful. Wondrous. I never expected to read a fantasy book like this before. Lord of the Rings, for all its epic scope and grandeur, doesn't have the living quality that this book has. I didn't expect it to be good. First of all, the title is a bit gimmicky; 'Assassin's Apprentice'? I felt that it stank of D&D games. And then the summary of the book didn't help either; [illegitimate] royal prince, turned into assassin, standard court intrigue... Then the names... Prince Chivalry, Lady Patience, King Shrewd, on and on... But the thing is, it worked. It didn't 'manage to work in spite of it'; the book makes all the cliches and the strange namings fall in to piece like a jigsaw puzzle. It was wonderful to see the book evolve, inside my mind, from a mere cliche into a rich story set in a believable world, peopled with such vivid characters. From the very first page, I felt myself being drawn into this Fitz Chivalry character. I could SEE as he saw, I could FEEL as he felt, I could THINK as he thought. That's no mean feat; I do not live in medieval times, I'm not male, I'm not that young, and yet the writing rang so true and the world was so vividly imagined that I couldn't help but fall into the vortex of FitzChivalry's life. Most books tell you what happened. The better ones show you what happened. This trilogy, though, doesn't just invite you into its world; it will knock you off your feet and transport you into the Six Duchies, right inside the mind of FitzChivalry. I ached WITH Fitz, I did not ache FOR him. I was joyful with Fitz, not for him. I was angry, sad, grieved and tormented with him. I fell in love with the boy, he was so real and so human. He wasn't just a character moving the plot forward; he existed for himself, a throbbing, living identity I completely sympathized with. Robin Hobbs is quite definitely one of the best fantasy writers, no, one of the best writers I've ever seen. The biggest beauty of her writing is not its complexity, not its grandeur, though those are her strengths; it's her ability to capture the essence of what it means to be human and what it feels like to live as a human being. Even in mainstream writing this kind of characterization is rare. More so in the land of fantasy, where Tolkien [imitations] make the day. I promise you that this book is an original, extremely well-written, interesting book that is worth your time and money. I'd say it's on par with "Ender's Game", by Orson Scott Card, in the Sci-fi field. Even if you don't like fantasy, if you've lived long enough to experience the ups and downs of human life, you'll love 'Assassin's Apprentice' and the rest of the books of the FarSeer trilogy.
Rating: Summary: I was really impressed. Review: _Assassin's Apprentice_ has everything that a first book in this type of series should have. It's got compelling characters. It's realistic enough to make you believe the world it's set in while still being imaginitive enough to provide effective escapism. Moreover (and this got it the extra star to go from four to five) it's just a cruel enough world to really move me as I read. I'll be quickly looking for the other two bookes in the series. A must-read for people who like Fantasy epics.
Rating: Summary: An Exellant Read Review: WARNING! This is not some sugar-coated fairy tale! It's brutaly honest, and very emotional. It's a tell-it-like-it-is story about loyalty and self-sacrafice. Depressing? Not at all! Just intense. The story is told through the eyes of a boy called Fitz, who has very little time to be a boy at all. At six he is taken from his mother (who we know very little about) to live with his father's stableman, Burrich. As he grows his grandfather, King Shrewd, decides to have him educated. By the time he turns 13, he knows how to write, read maps, fight, and (of course) assasinate. Sound like a lot for a kid to deal with? It is. This is a story about his struggles and experiances in his service to the king. I recommend it to anyone who's tired of stupid Harry Potter knoc-offs and ready for something different.
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