Oldies But Goodies
{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review
Subseries 5: Fitz and the Fool Trilogy (The Realm of the
Elderlings)
by Robin Hobb
by Karen S. Wiesner
Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. Also, reading my previous appraisals of subseries in the umbrella series The Realm of the Elderlings will foster understanding about certain facts that are required to make full sense of things included in this particular review.
Robin Hobb is the author of The Realm of the Elderlings. Within this aegis, she's written five "miniseries" and numerous short stories. In previous Alien Romances Blog reviews, I covered The Inheritance & Other Stories, which contains a couple Realm of the Elderlings offerings. I also reviewed the first three trilogies within this series, The Farseer, The LiveShip Traders, and The Tawny Man trilogies; Rain Wilds Chronicles; along with two miscellaneous novellas in the series, "The Willful Princess and the Piebald Prince" and "Words Like Coins". All of these The Realm of the Elderlings installments have been published over a span of twenty-two years.
The Farseer Trilogy was focused on Fitz, the illegitimate son of Prince Chivalry of the royal line presiding over the Six Duchies. In that first subset, we learned something of the Elderlings (including dragons) and their ancient cities and settlements, now in ruins, around the world, especially in the Rain Wilds. In the second subseries, The LiveShip Traders Trilogy, we moved away from the royal Farseer lineage and problems within the nobility to focus on the Rain Wilds where "liveships" are crafted. These liveships are the outer cocoons of sea serpents that were in the process of transforming into a dragon. The logs were buried in the destroyed city of the Elderlings in the Rain Wilds and found by traders who excavated the ruins for valuable, magical artifacts. The Tawny Man Trilogy returned to Fitz and the Fool. In Rain Wilds Chronicles, Hobb fleshes out the re-emergence of dragons and Elderlings in the Rain Wilds.
As soon as I finished reading the fourth installment of Rain Wilds Chronicles, I was thrust into Fitz and the Fool Trilogy. For the first time ever, the ebook of Book 1 was immediately available on my library app (getting what you want to check out on library apps can be difficult as so often you're forced to wait in a very, very long line for sometimes a single copy of the book), as was Book 2. I'd found a hardcover of Book 3 at a used bookstore so that was already waiting on my to-be-read shelf. Rather than waiting months to recover from reading four enormous tomes back-to-back, I jumped right into this one, not wanting to lose access to them since library app lines can take too long to move. I do admit, I feared the worst in reading the next series so fast after I'd finished the previous. I was very worried I'd be too burnt out to enjoy this concluding (unless Hobb writes more in the series at a later date) trilogy in the series.
The author didn't cut any corners with this series set. Each book was absolutely massive! Of the ebook versions, the first book had 1,444 pages; the second 1,658 pages; and the third 2,092 pages! Unbelievably, from the very first words, I was mesmerized and yanked full body back into Fitz's world. My earlier fatigue was gone without a trace. Suffocating weight of volume aside, I had trouble putting this trilogy down from start to finish.
Let's get to summarizing and reviewing these installments:
Fool's Assassin, Book 1, was published on August 12, 2014. Here, FitzChivalry Farseer is in his fifties. With the death of Burrich, Fitz's original mentor, and Molly's husband, Fitz and Molly are finally free to wed and share their lives. Fitz (living under his Tom Badgerlock identity) and Molly are landholders of Withywoods, which had been his father and step-mother Patience's country estate. Despite her age, Molly becomes pregnant and her pregnancy lasts years. Fitz and Molly's older children are forced to conclude their mother has become addled, so desperately wanting another child with her first love Fitz that she's imagining the symptoms. However, after two years, a very small daughter is born and it's immediately clear that she's different. Molly holds her child closely, knowing others would have drowned this weak, sickly babe at birth instead of nursing her to health. Fitz isn't sure what to feel, nor Nettle, he and Molly's adult daughter, who lives at court as a part of a Skill (see previous reviews for a full understanding of Skill {similar to magic} and Wit abilities in this series) coterie, but he feels very protective of his new daughter. Molly names her little, late-life gift Bee. This wondrous child thrives under her mother's diligent care. Though Bee is tiny and her growth is so slow (one year is as two for her--just as when she was developing in her mother's womb), everyone assumes she's a dumb mute. Bee is anything but that.
Fitz tries to forge a relationship with this young bantam, but Bee won't allow anyone to get close to her--not her father or her sister…at least she won't until Molly dies. Suddenly Fitz and Bee are thrust together, reluctant survivors, inconsolable mourners, almost unable to cope and get out of bed each day. The two are wary of each other at first but begin to find their way until Nettle arrives and insists she's taking her baby sister back to Buckkeep with her. Nettle assumes Bee is mentally disabled because she's refused to speak and become close to anyone other than her mother up to this point. She hasn't revealed she can, in fact, talk and, much more than that, she's highly intelligent and capable, able to read, write, and draw with great skill. With the threat of being separated, Fitz and Bee fight to stay together at Withywoods. Nettle will only concede to allow this on certain conditions, and these ultimately place a huge burden on everyone who lives on the estate. But all are determined to make it work. Initially, Bee wants this because her mother was here and their lives were entwined in this very place, but Fitz and Bee's bond becomes fierce as they finally come to know and love each other.
Another subplot is that Fitz has spent these years haunted by the disappearance of the Fool (which took place in The Tawny Man Trilogy). Is he dead? If not, where is he? In the course of events, it's learned that the Fool has a son. As I said in The Tawny Man Trilogy review, the Fool has remade himself in many ways, shapes and forms in his appearances in the series. He worked as an actual "fool" at court in Buckkeep for the king in the first subseries. In the second, he was a she, the carver Amber in Bingtown. In later subseries, we learn that the Fool is a being called a White Prophet whose purpose is to set the world on a better path. As such, this creature invents and reinvents itself in order to serve its impetus. The Catalyst is the one who makes the changes, and the Fool believed that one was Fitz. In The Tawny Man Trilogy, the Fool reveals that he doesn't believe he's fulfilled his destiny correctly. Does this have something to do with the Fool's own child being the actual Catalyst, which means Fitz wasn't the Catalyst this whole time? Fitz and the Fool Trilogy is all set to answer that question.
I fell in love with Bee from the moment of her mention. Her birth and the years she spent growing up under her mother's loving care and then Fitz's fumbling, penitent but protective adoration only sealed my need to see her triumph over all. She had to overcome some very definite handicaps, in part because she was so small and underestimated. That only made her more courageous and amazing to me. Tom's efforts to help her and keep her safe also endeared me to both of them. When the Fool was found at the end of Book 1, I had trouble sleeping. I was around 50 pages to the finish line, so to speak, and I knew that Fitz was going to have to make a fateful choice--the Fool or Bee? Catastrophic events rounded out the book, causing a shocking twist I didn't see coming at all.
I borrowed the ebook of Book 2 days before I finished Book 1 because I didn't want any chance I wouldn't be able to start reading it as soon as I finished the first. That's how eager I was to continue.
Fool's Quest, Book 2, was published almost exactly a year after the first, on August 11, 2015. Before I summarize the plot, I have to reiterate my frequent lament. This book is so long, reading it as an ebook caused no end of problems. The library app I used set the page count as 1,658! I live in a small town and have the worst internet imaginable, so I'd sit down to read and wait five or more minutes, just trying to get the book to load on my iPad. By the time I'd given up, sometimes it'd come up (too late), or worst case, refused to load at all. Ah, the joys of technology. Good thing I had a hardcover of the third book, so I at least didn't have to face the trial it would have been to try reading that 2,092 page ebook, considering my unreliable WiFi issues.
A good third into this second story, we finally got back to Bee, whose part of the tale ended on a cliffhanger in the first book. Readers start this one with Fitz not even aware what's going on with his daughter for most of the story and, several times, giving her up for dead or getting distracted from her plight by other events. That slowed things down considerably. Added to that, the author spent a shocking amount of time summarizing past events in earlier subseries (or things that took place off-stage in those) in dialogue conveyed in long stories from one character to another. Let me tell you, these were no small speeches. They were frequently 20 pages long, setting down all the crucial elements needed to begin advancing the immediate story beyond those points. It felt a bit heavy-handed and tedious when I was so eager to return to the action in this particular book. As aware as I was that knowing all this was necessary, Hobb has proven to be such a skilled writer, I couldn't help noticing that this was the first time I've seen her resort to awkward frontloading techniques to impart necessary backstory.
Beyond that, however, Book 2's main goal was to reunite Bee and Fitz (and to get the Fool healed enough that he could again participate in the story events), making everything to get to that point so tense, I just couldn't put it down.
Assassin's Fate, Book 3, was released on May 9, 2017 (and what torture that must have been for readers who'd no doubt consumed the first two books, to wait so long for this conclusion to arrive!). The main thrust in this installment of the trilogy were the parallel lines of Fitz and Fool rushing to save their daughter (yeah, that's another major subplot in this trilogy) while scrappy little Bee was trying to survive with the help of her "Wolf Father" (Fitz's shadow wolf). Along the way, the author brilliantly intersected all The Realm of the Elderlings stories--both the Fitz and the Fool adventures with Rain Wilds' stories--so readers could see proper progress and tying up of all series threads. In other words, we got to revisit the LiveShip Paragon, Althea and Brashen, Amber (who is the Fool; here the White Prophet takes up that identity again), Wintrow, Malta and Reyn, the dragons, among others, as well as returning to the Elderling city Kelsingra. The fate of the dragons and the new Elderlings are brought to some state of resolution as well as all of the Fitz and the Fool chronicles, including a nod to the very first trilogy, Farseer. In Assassin's Fate, King-in-Waiting Verity's ultimate fate is now glimpsed. Additionally, we finally learn what happened to the first age of dragons and Elderlings. Previously, there was speculation on the devastation that might have taken place to end them, bury their cities and the source of their power so abruptly, without explanation. That all came to light in this trilogy, deeply and closely tying in with a secret society called the Servants, whose members dream of possible futures but use them to add to their own wealth and influence. The Servants are similar to White Prophets, like the Fool, but the Fool is concerned with helping humanity reach a better state of being instead of profiting from them. These Servants are the very ones who want to possess Bee.
This concluding trilogy in The Realm of the Elderlings series was
hands-down the best. The characters were so vividly drawn, and my heart was
invested in each and everything that happened to them. I wanted Bee, Fitz, and
the Fool to succeed, but, of course, in order to make good fiction, they were
thwarted at every turn. The tension was to-the-quick nail-biting all through
the trilogy, never letting up until the epic end. While everything I wanted to
happen for Fitz, Bee, and the Fool didn't come to pass under a beautiful canopy
of happily-ever-after stars, ultimately the trilogy and series conclusion
ticked all the boxes for me. We were even given a bit of a whispered promise
for more stories about Bee. This final book in such an awesome saga was
fantastic beyond my imagining. I unfathomably read the staggering volume in
just a few hours. The pages flew by chock-full of exquisite suspense as I raced
to find out what would happen with all the intersecting lines.
As deeply satisfied as I was by the conclusion of this trilogy and the series as a whole, I was left wanting more--in the best possible way. Though I'd been exhausted while I read each previous subseries because they were all so enormous, I fell in love with the characters, the locations, the intricate plots. I want more of all this world. Few series are this gratifying, intricately woven, and utterly heart quenching as well as heart wrenching (happy and sad aspects of the lives touched on within are intermixed beautifully).
In my previous review in The Realm of the Elderlings series (specifically, Rain Wilds Chronicles), I bemoaned that the author didn't separate Fitz and the Fool adventures from the Rain Wilds installments. If I'd read them as two separate, connected series, I think they would have been so amazing and much less exhausting. With this final Fitz and the Fool trilogy review, I'm going to reverse the order I initially suggested reading The Realm of the Elderlings series' stories. Now that I've read all of the crucial, currently available installments, I now advise this order to read them all in:
Fitz and the Fool:
1.
The
Farseer Trilogy
2.
The
Tawny Man Trilogy
3. Fitz and the Fool Trilogy
Rain Wilds:
4.
"The Inheritance"
5.
The
LiveShip Traders Trilogy
6. Rain Wilds Chronicles
Short
stories (listed chronologically in the timeline):
7. "The
Homecoming"
8. "The
Wilful Princess and the Piebald Prince"
9. "Cat's
Meat"
10. "Words
Like Coins"
11. "Her
Father's Sword"
12. "Blue
Boots"
Worthy of note: The Realm of the
Elderlings shorts can be read in any order, as well as stand on their own, but
keep in mind that some take place before
the very first series story, Assassin's
Apprentice, while others are somewhere in the middle of the first subseries.
If you're picky about reading according to timeline, you might want to inject
the short stories between the novels. For more information about where exactly
everything in this timeline fits together, visit https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/search?q=The+Realm+of+the+Elderlings where my "Series Review: The Realm of the
Elderlings" contains all the details needed to guide you on this
point.
Be aware that the only story I haven't yet read (or reviewed) in The Realm of the Elderlings series (in fact, it's the only one I haven't read of Robin Hobb's, period) is a short story called "Blue Boots" that takes place "somewhere in the middle" of The Farseer Trilogy. This 30-page tale is set within the world of the umbrella series but I don't believe it's otherwise connected to the Fitz and the Fool stories or the Rain Wilds' ones. It's published in Songs of Love and Death Anthology as well as in Songs of Love Lost and Found ebook collection, neither of which I've been able to get hold of yet. It's on my list for the future, and I expect to review it at a later date on the Alien Romances Blog.
Will there be more in The Realm of the Elderlings? It's unclear. There have been rumors that Hobb is working on a Bee FarSeer series (yay!), and I sincerely hope so. We'll see, but I'm not going to hold my breath. I've about aspirated doing that for Hobb's good friend George R.R. Martin, which was stupid on my part. I've resolved to be patient about these things. A hounded author retreats or, alternately, bites or craps on you--and some of Martin's fans deserve a double dose of those treatments, to be sure!
In conclusion, all of you entertainment producers out there, why aren't you making a television series or films out of The Realm of the Elderlings? You couldn't get something that's better set up, ready and waiting to be visualized in this media. (Apparently this series has been optioned many times before but nothing's come of it, though the author is open to the right company producing it.) Alas! On that uncertain note, I'm concluding this six-part review of Robin Hobb's magnificent The Realm of the Elderlings series. Whatever you do, don't miss it.
One last note: Assassin's Fate is the 250th book I've reviewed on the Alien Romances blog!
Karen Wiesner is an award-winning,
multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.
Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/
and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog
Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/
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