Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review Subseries 3: The Tawny Man Trilogy (The Realm of the Elderlings) by Robin Hobb by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review

Subseries 3: The Tawny Man 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 will foster understanding about certain facts about this umbrella series that are required to make sense of things included in this particular review. 

In an attempt to spend less money on books that half the time I don't even enjoy, early in 2025, I figured out how to check out ebooks from the app my local library uses for this purpose. Utilizing Libby, I can check out ebooks and audiobooks. Unfortunately, the selection of material is limited. A lot of the books I like to read aren't available on it, but I was glad to see that most of Robin Hobb's titles are available. It's just a lot of waiting when I "place a hold" and patiently endure the, at times lengthy, delay in it becoming available for me to read. 

Robin Hobb is the author of The Realm of the Elderlings. Within this umbrella series, 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 two trilogies within this series, The Farseer and The LiveShip Traders trilogies, along with two miscellaneous novellas in the series, "The Willful Princess and the Piebald Prince" and "Words Like Coins". 

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 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 "liveships", which are the outer cocoons of sea serpents that were in the process of transforming into a dragon. These 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 includes the following novels:

Fool's Errand, Book 1 (2001)

The Golden Fool, Book 2 (2002)

Fool's Fate, Book 3 (2003) 

Once again, we return to Fitz from the first Elderlings subseries, The Farseer Trilogy. He's now in his mid-thirties. It's been fifteen years since the events of Farseer. The events of all previous stories that I mentioned above reviewing before play into each of these stories in a wonderfully cohesive and illuminating way that I really enjoyed. I felt like I was pulling threads from different tapestries until they began to fit into one. The author is to be lauded in how she meshed her subseries seamlessly, at least for the most part. 

As a preface to this review, in this series there are two "magical" talents: With the Skill, a person can reach out to another's mind, no matter how far away, and read thoughts and influence thinking and behavior. An even older magic is the Wit, in which humans feel such a kinship with animals, they share thoughts and behaviors, sometimes becoming so bonded that they themselves become little more than beasts. The strength of the bond can also lead to performing powerful attacks. The Wit is looked upon with scorn and fear by most humans. 

In the first book of the trilogy, Fool's Errand, Fitz is living a quiet life in the middle of nowhere with his wolf Nighteyes, to whom he's Wit-bonded, and a foundling son he's adopted as his own named Hap. 

In The Tawny Man, few know Fitz as anyone but Tom Badgerlock. Most believe FitzChivalry of the royal line to be dead. The man who taught Fitz as an assassin, Chade, visits Tom. In previous stories, Fitz conceived with the queen as King Verity used his body for the purpose of providing an heir to the throne. Their son has shown signs of being both Witted and possessing the Skill. Prince Dutiful is untutored and there are few if any teachers of both abilities in the current climate. At Chade's request that Tom teach Dutiful, Tom protests that his knowledge of both of these powers is incomplete and erratic. Chade also tells Tom of the unrest among the Witted in the land. The rebels call themselves the Piebalds. (The story of Piebald origins is told in "The Willful Princess and the Piebald Prince", a favorite of mine in this series.) 

Chade leaves after Tom refuses to train the prince, and later the Fool (who has remade himself in many ways, shapes and forms in his appearances in the series, becoming known in this trilogy as The Tawny Man, Lord Golden) visits him. In previous trilogies within the series, the question of the Fool's identity was revealed to be ever-changing. The Fool 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. I'd wondered in my review of the previous subseries The Liveship Traders Trilogy how/when this anomaly was revealed. Now I know it's in The Tawny Man Trilogy that the facts behind this situation come to life. The Fool is much more than any have previously suspected--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 that one is Fitz. The Fool reveals in this book that he doesn't believe he's fulfilled his destiny correctly--during the time he was Amber, he went awry and therefore warped all that came afterward. 

In Fool's Errand, Prince Dutiful is believed to have been kidnapped by Piebalds. In truth, Dutiful has been enslaved by a Witted Woman who died and forced her essence into an unwilling cat. Lord Golden and Tom, appearing as his servant, must rescue Prince Dutiful--possibly from himself. 

In The Golden Fool, Book 2, Tom intends to return to court and train Prince Dutiful with the intention of forming a coterie of Skill users. The group will include Dutiful, Lord Golden and Chade, along with the disabled servant of Chade's named Thick. Fitz's daughter with Molly, Nettle, also possesses the Skill, and she reaches out to Tom against the will of the person she believes to be her father--Burrich (from the first trilogy), who's now married to Fitz's love Molly and they have a Skilled son together named Swift. Additionally, a Witted coterie is in the works as the scourge against this magic is being actively turned over. The kingdom wants to show that Wit is a talent instead of a distrusted curse to fear. 

In this story, the Fool reveals his deepest feelings to Tom, believing him to be his beloved. But Tom can't accept this, and a schism forms between them. There's also a thread about the princess of the Out Islands potentially marrying Prince Dutiful to establish an alliance between their people, thus reunited the Six Duchies. However, she requires that, to win her hand, he must bring her the head of the dragon IceFyre, who's trapped beneath the ice on the isle of Aslevjal. The Golden Fool has foretold that he'll die there trying to stop this fate from happening. 

The trilogy concludes with Fool's Fate. Tom makes an effort to steal away by ship with the coteries to go to the Out Islands and give the princess what she needs to accept Dutiful's troth. Tom wants to prevent the Fool's death at all cost, but fate isn't so easily thwarted. The Fool joins them despite their scheming, and together the Witted and Skilled coteries attempt to free IceFyre from its prison. However, another White Prophet would see the dragon killed in order to prevent the Fool's prophecy that dragons would return to the world from being fulfilled. Though the Fool is destined to die during all these events, Tom refuses to allow it and intends to do everything in his power to save them both. 

While I enjoyed it, I concluded this subseries feeling a bit unsure what the purpose of it was. More than anything else, The Tawny Man Trilogy seems to be little more than an extremely long bridge (very close to 5000 pages!)--from the previous subseries to the next. You get to see events that happened before play out in the present here and, yes, familiar characters move along toward future events. Mind you, this isn't so much as a complaint as a comment that left me a bit baffled. Tom is a complex character, and I didn't always understand him. Also, in a tiny way, the whole plotline about the Fool's androgynous nature as a prophet that's reinvented itself over the course of perhaps centuries struck me as a little far-fetched and convenient to the plot in this subseries. Finally, apparently unlike, say, the council of wizards in The Lord of the Rings, White Prophets in this series don't work together and in fact can actively work against each other to see their own ends fulfilled. Who or what's guiding all that is anybody's guess. I'm not sure how or even if that'll play out further in the next subseries. 

As an aside, the ebook version of Fool's Errand was over 1,300 pages. It took me 7 hours and 19 minutes to read it. I was surprised I enjoyed reading an ebook, though it was annoying to drag my iPad around everywhere so I could snatch a few minutes here and there to read. It's also frustrating because I have crappy internet and sometimes I couldn't get the app to load the book so I could read when I wanted to. You never have that problem with a paperback. But I also didn't spend $30-$75 on purchasing the three books either used or new. There are trade-offs when reading traditionally or electronically, I'm learning. 

In any case, I enjoyed this trilogy, though it was a good 3000 pages too long for me. I was eager to see the evolution of the characters as well as the world The Realm of the Elderlings is set expanded. For whatever reason, I didn't feel quite as exhausted reading this third subseries as I did those that came before. I believe the ebook medium had a lot to do with that. But I also didn't enjoy this subseries in the Realm of the Elderlings as much as the last one I read. While I do want to get started on the fourth subseries, The Rain Wilds Chronicles, which has four books instead of just three, and is set in the city of the ancient Elderlings, I do need another break before I turn to those paperbacks I own. I suspect that final subseries will at last include everything I've been looking forward to so eagerly since I found this amazing series. 

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/

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Graceview Patient by Caitlin Starling by Karen S. Wiesner

 

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Graceview Patient by Caitlin Starling

by Karen S. Wiesner 

   Beware spoilers! 

Caitlin Starling's previous new release, The Starving Saints, garnered a lukewarm, undeniably disappointed review from me (see

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2025/08/put-this-one-on-your-tbr-list-book.html) here on the Alien Romances Blog. As a result, I decided to hold off on purchasing the hardcover of The Graceview Patient, released October 14, 2025, despite that she's written some of my favorite novels (The Luminous Dead and The Death of Jane Lawrence--also reviewed on this blog and accessible with a search). While waiting for the paperback release, the audiobook version became available on one of my library apps so I borrowed it immediately. 

In The Graceview Patient, we're set up with what sounds like an absolutely irresistible horror scenario that was described in promotion as "Misery meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers". Okay, well, more so the latter than the former definitely got me drooling. Margaret has a rare autoimmune condition that wrecks any chance of her living a normal life. Without a cure, she's barely making it day by day until she's offered a spot in an experimental medical trial that's fully paid for. She'll be forced to live at Graceview Memorial Hospital full-time and subjecting herself to a treatment that will all but kill her. The fact that she has no one to go through it with her (apparently she's alienated every single person she considered relative or friend) doesn't initially bother her too much. The man in charge of all this, Adam, is charming in a way that Margaret has no willpower to resist. As the trial progresses, she begins exploring the hospital and finds something that only becomes increasingly more sinister the longer her trial goes on.

I'm not gonna lie to you: The early chapters of this book were absolutely brutal--so boring, it was almost painful to force myself to continue. In part it may have been done in this seemingly innocuous way in order to throw the reader off. But I have to comment on two aspects of this: 1) The audiobook was recorded at such a low volume that, even with my speaker hooked up and at full volume, I could barely hear it, and 2) the audiobook narrator had a voice all but designed to put a listener to sleep. I realized later that the intention was to come off sounding like the patient who progressively becomes sicker and sicker. She captured that in spades. Despite that there was a reason the narrator read this book the way she did, it was still difficult to endure. If it hadn't been a Caitlin Starling book, I might not have continued with it all the way through. I am glad I did, though, but the narrator choice did skew my initial perceptions of the story. Do I believe that the ebook or paperback would have been any better? No. I'm almost certain I would have struggled even more with those formats than this one. This book was written like a dry textbook. Only when you were too far into the net to back out did it become exciting and suspenseful. At all times, though, it was like watching a train wreck in slow motion. At no point did that cringing let up. 

One further complaint: All throughout the story, the author sprinkled in what could only be perceived as annoying "tell the story before I tell the story" injections, such as things like "maybe I should have been afraid or suspicious by that but I wasn't". If you don't believe you can set up a horror story well enough to be frightening when the time comes, this is the method you'd attempt to make it so. I register a full poo-poo on such a weak and unprofessional delivery system! I was taught early on as an author to never do that, and I agree with the advice wholeheartedly. 

All these issues aside, you have to read this full-on horror story! I can't imagine a single person alive not being anguished at the thought of being sick beyond cure, desperate to find any hope at all, and taking a risk however perilous that might lead to life--a risk that never would have been an option until that point. I can promise you that, once you've read The Graceview Patient, you'll never go near a medical facility without wondering what you're getting yourself in for, without being justifiably a little afraid. Do an internet search for "what bacteria/virus/infection is prominent in healthcare settings" and read some of the articles that come up. Do you know there's actually an acronym for contracting an infection that wasn't present at the time of admission while you're receiving medical treatment (HCAI)? Apparently, some believe that medical centers should be completely "restarted" every decade or so, as it's the only way to really avoid HCAI. I didn't delve too deeply into HCAI in large part because I really don't want to know. There's enough horror in life these days without adding to it with a million "what ifs". 

The Graceview Patient sneaks up on you. You'll probably start out bored (as I certainly was) and, before you know it, you're canceling your next doctor's appointment because…you know, you're really not as sick as you thought you were. It does a psychological number on you, maybe permanently. You'll never look at health, hospitals, or experimental trials the same way again, let alone what constitutes sentience, what should be allowed to live and thrive… While this recommendation comes with quite a few disclaimers, if you like horror--especially the real-life-this-could-actually-happen!!! kind--you won't want to miss this one. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website and blog here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review Windhaven by George R. R. Martin and Lisa Tuttle by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review

Windhaven by George R. R. Martin and Lisa Tuttle

by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. 

In an attempt to spend less money on books that so often I don't even enjoy, early in 2025, I figured out how to check out ebooks from the app my local library uses for this purpose. Using Libby for my library system, I can check out ebooks and audiobooks. Unfortunately, it's limited. A lot of the books I like to read aren't available on it. Incorporating audiobooks into my reading repertoire has been something I've been intending to do for years. I began by purchasing audio cds a few years ago, but that got expensive. The apps that offered free audiobooks are restricted. Unless you pay, your selection is little more than books in the public domain. The Libby app does have a decent amount of audiobooks available (though rarely immediately, requiring me to put holds and wait) that are more modern. I don't want to spend the money on audio cds nor audio services like Audible. So this was a valid solution. 

Windhaven was the second audiobook I checked out on the library app. It's actually a sci-fi "fix-up" novel written by Martin and Tuttle, who became friends in 1973. Initially, it was three novellas: "The Storms of Windhaven" (1975), "One-Wing" (published in two parts in 1980), and "The Fall", which was specifically written for the expanded novel. The authors did a "fix-up", providing a prologue and an epilogue, when all three parts came together in one volume.

In this novel, the inhabitants on the fictional, stormy water planet of Windhaven are descendants of human space travelers. Crash-landing on Windhaven centuries before the events in the book, they've spread out and settled on the islands around their water world. Gliding rigs were made from spaceship wreckage to allow the inhabitants of the various islands to communicate with the rest of the world's population. As seems to be the case with these things, flyers in this setting have become pretty snobby and consider themselves superior to landsmen, as evidenced by the fact that only flyer families are allowed access to the "wings". In other words, no landsperson--however talented at flying--would be legally allowed to fly "professionally". 

The main character is Maris, a young peasant girl, daughter of a fisherman, who wants more than anything else to be a flyer. When she grows up and is given access to wings through her stepfather, politics force her to give them up to her stepbrother Coll, who wants to be a singer, not a flyer. The politics of the world are set to change by these two siblings. The story details how they manage this, but the world doesn't necessarily become ideal even with changes. 

Originally, two more books were planned, but the authors moved on and they didn't happen. I'm personally glad about that. I felt like these went on long enough. I learned about the term "fix-up novel" in the course of reading Windhaven and also learned the sad and disappointing lesson that a technically near-perfect story doesn't actually make it good. Windhaven is almost flawlessly written. It has everything it needs and nothing more. However, though it included everything I might want in a novel and there was nothing at first glance wrong with it, it also didn't really inspire me. I didn't hate the characters but also can't say I loved or even cared about them all that much. Their internal and external conflicts were well constructed, though not particularly compelling or unique. Overall, I wanted to know so many richer, vibrant details about the setting that could have made the book truly riveting, and much, much more about the original humans that came to the planet. To me, that would have been a more captivating tale instead of this one. I think Windhaven is more for readers who might find an "Amelia Earhart pioneer" tribute story mashed up with a science fiction landscape engrossing. 

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

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: I Am Legend by Richard Matheson by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: I Am Legend by Richard Matheson

by Karen S. Wiesner 

  

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. 

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson was published in 1954, a post-apocalyptic horror novel that set the stage for zombie and vampire literature that's flooded in ever since. As with many of these types of stories, the concept of a worldwide apocalypse spreads through disease. In this tale, the vampires that populated what was left of the world more closely resembled zombies, despite what the protagonist called them. 

Robert Neville is the last man on Earth. A terrible plague has either killed mankind or transformed them into vampires...and all they want is Robert's blood. Robert's wife, Virginia, and daughter, Kathy, died from the plague. Kathy's body had been thrown in a fire pit. He hadn't allowed that to be done to his wife--he'd tried to bury her, but she came back, and then he had to kill her as he had the others. 

For the past eight months, since the plague infected the population--a plague he himself is immune to--Robert has been surviving the only way he can while systematically trying to get rid as many of the vampires as he can during daylight. By day, he also tries to repair the damage done to his property during the night attacks. He lives by his watch because, as soon as the sun sets, he must be behind locked doors and boarded windows. The vampires are drawn to him every single night, howling, snarling and trying to break through the barriers he's erected to keep them out. They want his blood; they want to make him as they are. He understands little about them beyond that they stay inside by day, avoid garlic, can be killed by a stake through the heart, fear crosses, and dread mirrors. The creatures are white-fanged and powerful, frequently attacking each other because there's no union among them--their need for blood is their only motivation. 

Robert isn't sure how much longer he can do what he's been doing--little by little trying to reduce their unholy numbers. He has no time to slow down and think, because his struggle is never-ending, but eventually he's driven to test the blood of a vampire and finally isolates a germ--the cause of vampirism. Sunlight kills the germ. It's too late to cure those who have already been infected, but, if there are others like him, how can he cure them? 

Robert finds a dog that seems as whole and intact as he is; later, a young woman, Ruth, who's survived all of this as well. Having believed that his investigation into how to destroy the vampires is worthless and that he has no reason for staying alive, the possibility of a life other than his own, a companion, renews his determination to keep fighting. He's clung to the idea all this time that a human being not infected will come, that he isn't the last person on Earth. But Ruth has a secret that could change everything, all he's known since the plague started, as well as his own views about survival.  

Richard Matheson is a master at creating stories like these, where the descriptions of the chilling settings, scenarios, and characters are so robust and realistic, you become convinced you're huddled in a fortress of a house smothered by shrieking, starving and subsequently ravenous creatures who not only want you dead, but want to eat you for dinner--though, in this case, it'll probably be a last meal. Every ounce of torment and torture this lone character feels day after day, endless night after night, is detailed as if you're sitting right next to the character, experiencing the suffocating burden laid on these weary shoulders. The flicker of hope at the potential of no longer being alone is utterly heart-rending. Even if Robert is a man who's grown rusty and bitter, forced into isolation, the reader can't help but be shattered by every blow he takes as if we're also receiving it. 

Simply put, no one can really top this masterpiece that set countless standards in supernatural, creature horror, end-of-the-world fiction. Fittingly, the Horror Writers Association bestowed on I Am Legend the Vampire Novel of the Century Award in 2012. 

As for the author's inspiration in writing it, Matheson credits Mary Shelley's novel The Last Man, where an immune person survived a plague that destroyed the world. Three films loosely based on I Am Legend were made (some under different titles), but the one I like best is the one that actually took the same name as the book and starred Will Smith (released in 2007), though of course none of the adaptations really follow the book version closely, which is kind of a shame. 

Readers would be remiss not to give this influential story a first or subsequent read or a watch, if you'd prefer a more visual medium that can appropriately be enjoyed in the dark. 

Next week, I'll review another Oldie But Goodie you might find worth another read, too. 

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

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Survive the Night by Riley Sager by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Survive the Night by Riley Sager

by Karen S. Wiesner

  

Survive the Night was published in 2021, written by Riley Sager (pen name of author Todd Ritter). This suspense thriller has an intriguing premise with the "protagonist" realizing she may be sharing a car with a murderer. The basic story is that Charlie is a college student studying film. Her best friend Maddy was recently murdered by the campus serial killer. Par for the course, Charlie has more than a few personal issues, namely being prone to hallucinations whenever she's thrust into an emotional situation. She is also experiencing guilt because, the night of Maddy's murder, Charlie didn't want to stick around the club they were at because her friend was ignoring her. Because she can't handle what's going on, she decides to bail on everything--she's dropping out of the university, leaving behind her boyfriend Robbie, and going home. In one of the most boneheaded moments maybe in the history of fiction, she decides to share a ride with a complete stranger. Um, the college is being stalked by a serial killer. How stupid you gotta be? Seriously? 

I put "protagonist" in quotes in the last paragraph because the very nature of each one of Sager's "unreliable narrator" books defies having good guys and bad guys. Never believe a thing anyone says or thinks, or take their testimony at face value, is the foundation on which these stories are built on. I go into the reading knowing that upfront. Also, having read all but one of his other offerings utilizing this pen name, I also start every new tale by asking what the most insane twist could be on the basis of the scenario presented. My mind went crazy with this one and I thought I'd figured it all out, but even my wildest imaginings didn't prepare me for the windy path Sager led me on. Each time I thought the twist had worked itself out, another harrowing corkscrew was introduced, turning everything I thought I knew previously right on its head. 

Alas, I never really got past the "too stupid to live" introduction, with Charlie getting into the car with a stranger who could very well be the campus serial killer. Even with all the whipsaw action and unexpected surprises, nothing could save the story for me because of the foolishness of the protagonist. Why didn't the author instead have the guy giving Charlie a ride home be someone another friend recommended? At least she would have given the appearance that she wasn't a complete idiot to get in the car of a virtual stranger. Maybe if not for that fatal mistake, I could have really enjoyed all the nail-biting tension to come after it because it's absolutely not what I expected from start to finish. Nothing was as it seemed at any point in the story. 

Survive the Night was definitely not a favorite of his for me, though I usually love "closed setting" horror and mystery tales. If other readers can put aside the shaky premise of Charlie's brainless, initial decision, maybe this hair raiser would live up to the potential it otherwise had. 

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

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Gorgon's Fury, Book 1: Tales of Newel & Doren (A Fablehaven Adventure) by Brandon Mull by Karen S. Wiesner

 

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Gorgon's Fury, Book 1: Tales of Newel & Doren (A Fablehaven Adventure) by Brandon Mull

by Karen S. Wiesner 

 

Beware unintended spoilers! 

Brandon Mull's young adult fantasy Fablehaven Series (and the Dragonwatch spinoff) is one I've spoken of often in the past on the Alien Romances Blog, including in a full review. Find out more here: https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/search?q=Fablehaven. This is one of the few series where, every so often, I go looking for updates to see if there are new installments available. A few months ago, I did that and found out the first in a new Fablehaven spinoff was available, released March 2025. This time, instead of focusing on Seth and Kendra, it features the previous series' comic relief in a pair of satyrs. 

Newel and Doren have been spoiled by modern technology and cushy living on the magical creature preserve, even living in their own cottage. Seth traded batteries with the cousins in order to procure valuable information or help in the original series. The two actually become something of heroes in Dragonwatch. I can't be the only one who sees many similarities between this duo and The Lord of the Ring's Merry and Pippin. While both are impulsive rebels, Newel (like Merry) is the braver of the two and much more straightforward with everything he feels mostly on the surface. Similar to Pippin, Doren is slightly more awkward than his cousin, more of a thinker, more nervous and uncertain, and ends up with more regrets. Without a doubt, both goatmen are trouble, but they're fun and mostly harmless--the very kind of mischief-makers that make a book and series so charming and action-packed. Also, sometimes they end up saving the day, to no one's surprise more than their own.

In the first of the "Tales of Newel & Doren" called The Gorgon's Fury, the Fablehaven satyrs are hosting the annual Satyr Games with such events as Dryad Tag, Clobber Ball, and (the epic finale) the Prank War. Newel and Doren seem to win every single year, almost without trying. Yet this year they've got competition in Barrett and Hoff, who not only tie Newel and Doren for first place, leaving only the Prank War (and a wrestling match, if that doesn't do it) to decide the victors, but the pair also have a smartphone they've recorded their epic prank with. For the most part, Stan and Ruth, the caretakers, don't allow creatures to have modern technology--though not for lack of trying on Newel and Doren's part, of course! So where did their rivals get it? 

Intent on topping Barret and Hoff's prank, our daring duo decide to talk to the ogre farmer they most love to nick vegetables from, only he's been petrified. Later, they find another satyr in the same stoned condition. They rush to Stan, who tasks the pair with consulting with the swamp hag. She directs them to her sister at Florida's magical sanctuary, who in turn sends them to a very creepy Listening Doll, who's said to possess the power to reveal the antidote for any magical malady. In order to do this, Newel and Doren will have to pass through the forbidden Fairy Realm, drive a vehicle, steer a kayak** through hydra-infested waters, and appear in public when necessary as human, thanks to a magical amulet. Since only one of them can wear it at once and no one would buy that the other is an emotional support goat or seeing eye goat (I love those lines in the book!), their task is none too easy, especially considering that Seth and Kendra's cousins Knox and Tess from previous series' will be accompanying them. For their trouble and provided they're successful, Newel and Doren will be rewarded with their own smartphones. Whatever prank they come up with will live forever in recorded cellular memory. 

**While it's hard to know for sure whether it was the author or the illustrator who didn't know the difference between a kayak and a canoe, I believe the author was at fault. A kayak has a closed deck, and that probably wouldn't have worked for the purposes Newel and Doren use it for in the book. What the artist in one of his wonderful illustrations drew was clearly a canoe with the open-top design, which is what I believe the author should have specified instead of a kayak.

 

You absolutely do not need to be a young adult or middle grade reader to adore all of the Fablehaven books, including this one. What's not to love in this whirlwind tale headed by a lovably familiar pair of rogues who describe themselves so hilariously? Essentially, Newel says this: "We're not ants; we don't build, store, or work (God forbid!). We improvise and freeload. We don't care about karma. We live in the moment, reap what we never sowed, eat what we didn't cook, win without practicing." To which Doren hear-hears with "Let's keep doing that!" 

Those who have read the previous series probably remember how large each of the books were. At first sight, The Gorgon's Fury was noticeably smaller. That was by design, according to the author in the acknowledgements included in the back of the book. Mull and his publisher thought shorter books in the new series would lure more young readers into trying it. What a sad commentary on the state of the publishing industry that we're catering to non- or reluctant readers more than to actual readers with our books. Oh, well! I do have to add that I myself was kind of glad this was shorter than all the previous Fablehaven books, most of which were quite the undertaking (but worth it). However, the end of The Gorgon's Fury seemed a little rushed to me.

Good news for lovers of Fablehaven that I have no doubt will resurrect the popular series all over again! A film adaptation was supposed to have started shooting in the summer of 2025, with the movie slated for 2026 release. This series is absolutely made for the screen, so I can hardly wait for it to finally come out. 

No word at the time of this writing (July 2025) when the next in this promising new series will arrive or what it'll be about. Stay tuned. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website and blog here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling by Karen S. Wiesner

 

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling

by Karen S. Wiesner

 

 

Beware spoilers lurking in a novel with more shadows than were probably intended! 

Wow, did I not know what to make of this dark, medieval fantasy novel, The Starving Saints, the newest (published May 20, 2025) from Caitlin Starling. This author is firmly on my to-buy list--and, in fact, I purchased the hardcover almost as soon as it came out. Even as I did it, I realized it was a risk, as I seem to react to Starling's books as either a ravenous fan or a reader irrevocably repulsed. Her novels The Luminous Dead and The Death of Jane Lawrence (both reviewed previously on this blog) are favorites of mine. That said, the stories I tend not to like by her are still uniquely, unmistakably Starling works. I'd want to read them, even if I ultimately hated them. Her handling of certain subject matters horrifies me…and probably not the way she would have preferred in this case. I'd have to put this particular novel firmly on the list of those by her that I didn't like. The reasons are as complex as the story itself. So let's get to it. 

The basic story here is that Aymar Castle (set in a made up, medieval fantasy world) has been under siege for the past half a year. With food stores running low, hope dwindles, and desperation becomes the order of the day as there's seemingly no way out of this place. Then, out of nowhere (readers are never really told or made to understand how or definitively why), The Constant Lady and her three Saints (a twisted take on established religion that cruelly portrays bees--unequivocally summum bonum in the world of insects!--as villains) appear. The so-called divine offer sustenance and healing in exchange for adoration, but the price is far too high--at least for three main characters. Having a trio of points of view offered a 360-degree rendering of this dire situation. Whether or not these viewpoints are adequately well-drawn is, to my mind, a moot point. 

Phosyne was a nun who's become a sorceress of sorts (no idea what brought that about). At the king's command, she somehow--even she doesn't know how she did it--turned fouled, toxic water into potable drink for the survivors. He's now tasked her with conjuring food out of nothing and nowhere, a known impossibility. But kings in any universe are always petulantly and imperiously demanding miracles of their underlings. That said, Phosyne wasn't a character to champion. In the latter half of the book, she speaks her true goal, and it's not pretty. Phosyne accuses the Lady of "playing with her food", and the evil deity shrugs off any guilt about seasoning her meat, keeping it occupied, and providing fertile fields for it to gorge itself. Soon Phosyne would understand the gratification of "having everything available to" her hungry teeth. It's at that point that this dubious heroine realizes she is hungry. "But it's not the hunger of an empty stomach. It's the need to taste. To chew. To consume. She wants to indulge." So, that's her angle in all its potentially ugly facets. 

Ser Voyne is a knight, a war hero pledged to the Constant Lady as well as to her king, even if she doesn't exactly respect him. Voyne is trying to keep order over a place plunged into utter chaos. She has to decide whether following orders is wise when the leaders no longer know or are willing to do what's best for the people. As a character, Voyne is wishy-washy. When she finally answers the question about who to "worship" (because that's precisely how she loyally obeys), it's little more than transferring her disturbing adoration from one unworthy target to another. 

Treila is a noble pretending to be a serving girl who refuses to admit to herself that she'd lusted after the big, beautiful knight who'd murdered her father. Now she longs for revenge. Or does she long for something far darker? Imagine someone willing to do anything, no matter how depraved, to survive. In Treila's world, it's literally eat or be eaten. And she's fully capable of doing whatever needs to be done to help herself. Not exactly noble or worth rooting for from my perspective. 

All of these protagonists were weirdly complex and equally superficial. (Trust me, I think you'll understand that contradiction if you read the book.) One reviewer described the main characters' lack of development as "flip-flopping like a dying fish". True, we learned little more about them than what was necessary for the plot, a failure that struck me as sloppily convenient. That's just part of it though. None of these women were precisely good nor precisely evil--a complication that led to my lingering frustration over this book. If there's no one to root for, what's the purpose? Naturally, I couldn't champion the Lady or her saints--they were full-on evil. But the three heroines had agendas and motivations I didn't feel comfortable getting onboard with either. Starling's own definition of them as "complicated and sometimes terrible" was accurate. At least two of the protagonists were portrayed as selfish and abnormally self-serving while the knight seemed short-sighted and foolish with her blindly loyal veneration of unworthy beings. 

Starling is noted for her lesbian fiction, which is generally well crafted. But the three-way attraction between these women came off as forced and far-fetched. There was nothing sexy or authentic about it. Again, why? What purpose did it serve to force them to ally when few compelling, let alone strong, connections actually bound them? 

Unequivocally, The Starving Saints failed as the horror novel it was hailed as in everything I read about it. In an interview, the author said that she's a "big believer in limiting the narration of a story to what the characters perceive and comprehend, or don't. I keep my 'camera' very zoomed in." She asserts confidently that that enhances the horror. I found it did exactly the opposite. Not knowing what to be afraid of or to dread was my biggest disappointment with the story. Starling knows how to create atmosphere. She's effortlessly brilliant at it. However, as promising as this slow, plodding novel started out, the unnerving undertone quickly became mired in too many instances of dense fog. Should I have been horrified by the cannibalism (it was an unrestrained, gore-strewn, grotesque ick), the monsters (which ones were good or evil? who knows), the corrupt agendas of all, the shocking misuse of power by everyone who wielded it at various times as the story progressed? All hints at creepiness fizzled out because nothing came into focus clearly enough to scare the crap out of me--you know, my deepest longing when reading a horror novel. The author drowned readers with characters flagrantly telling, not really showing us, wild theories about all these hazy, shadowy things, but none were convincing enough to be presented as more than abstract methods of confusion. Ultimately, there was nothing scary, beyond that a writer would indulge in writing something like this without developing the plot and characters on a concrete foundation that helps ground readers from start of story to what I wanted to be a dazzling finish. (As to that, I didn't trust the hands left wielding all the power so it was the exact opposite of a happily ever after. But I guess those are no longer what readers are looking for.) In the end, it all came down to floundering for answers that were kept away--because the author herself didn't have any; hadn't even bothered crafting them. That stinks of laziness, not deliberate cleverness, to me. 

Long years ago, I remember going on my first ever fantasy LARP quest before it became a big deal or was in any way well-done. No one on my team knew how to get started, what we should be doing, what was, frankly, going on. We spent a lot of time racing around, searching for clues that providing little more than added uncertainty, and looking at each other, expressing our confusion in these glances as well as in our increasingly frustrated words. That's what I felt like I was doing alongside fellow readers while reading The Starving Saint. Readers need, at the very least, veiled, skillful directions, just as LARPers (especially beginning ones) do. My LARP team members were all thinking, Do you know what's going on? What that's all about? Is it important? What is important? Who should we be rooting for? Is that the bad guy? What should be paying attention to? Where are all these unformed details going? Is there a purpose to this or anything? I never really found out the answers to any of these questions before closing The Starving Saints for the last time. I felt lost and unsatisfied for most of the disturbing events in this massacre of a story. 

If I had to guess at the purpose of The Starving Saints, I'd throw out the nebulous theory that the author was playing with the ramifications of absolute power corrupting absolutely. Even someone who starts out altruistic will eventually fall to the hypnotizing lure and potential of power. But, as no one in this story qualified as a bona fide hero, that lesson didn't really come across. A wanna-be hero doesn't have far to fall themselves. There's little difference between them and the villain. Seems to me a waste not to set the stakes higher. But these days, it seems no one wants a hero in their fiction, something I'll probably never understand. 

The setting itself was deliberately sketched to be obscure; on the whole, a bubble world set nowhere in particular to deflect attention from it. However, this isn't an insult. In this, I felt the lack of development fit the needs of the story. None of the characters in the castle realized the outside world no longer existed because the indeterminate antagonist(s) had enclosed it in a honeyed hive, where nothing could touch or steal its prize. In soft echo, I was harkened back to Poe's brilliant "The Masque of the Red Death" with this tale. To me, that was its saving grace. 

A lot of minor things bugged me while reading this: 1) How often Starling fell into modern slang so out of place in a medieval setting, 2) how randomly and inconsistently the author used contractions, and 3) the use of cliffhanger chapters without adequate picking up of the threads once that particular point of view was revisited.

In the author's defense, (she tells us in the acknowledgements in the back of the book) she wrote the initial draft of this book during the COVID lockdown. She wrote it in a messy, out of order way--an attempt to mirror and/or sort out her anxiety. I remember the book I wrote myself during the lockdown--what I, to this day, call my COVID book. While I ended up really liking it, it's hard for me to read it now without concluding it was written a bit too perfectly. During that time, I was so hollow and unable to feel anything that layering emotion into the story was a brutally exacting exercise of my skill with the writing craft. Everything the story needed, it has, and yet I was distanced by my own experiences during that suffocating time. I know I'm not the only author who suffered deeply and yet didn't want to lose my heroic feats at continuing my profession during such a dry period. My publisher and I decided my efforts were worth releasing to the world, and, in that way, something good did come out of a terrible circumstance. I never envied other authors and publishers the task in trying to decide what was worth saving from that time for them either. If nothing else, Starling created something unique with The Starving Saints that leaves an indelible impression. If you're like me, you'll have to read it because she wrote it and it could be one of the best books ever written, though, unfortunately, I didn't find it to be worthwhile, as several others of hers are. 

All this said, I'm still eagerly looking forward to Starling's brand new release, The Graceview Patient, (released October 14, 2025). 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website and blog here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review Subseries 2: The Liveship Traders Trilogy (The Realm of the Elderlings) by Robin Hobb by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review

Subseries 2: The Liveship Traders Trilogy (The Realm of the Elderlings)

by Robin Hobb

by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. 

Robin Hobb is the author of The Realm of the Elderlings. Within this umbrella series, 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 trilogy of novels within this series, The Farseer Trilogy. After recovering from the intensity of that first offering, I took a month or so off before I could get myself to read anything else the author has written within this overarching saga. Following that break, I was able to read two miscellaneous novellas in the series, "The Willful Princess and the Piebald Prince" and "Words Like Coins", and those reviews have also been posted previously on this blog. 

Almost immediately following that, I started reading the second trilogy set, The Liveship Traders Trilogy. Technically, I'm reading the subseries in The Realm of the Elderlings in order of publication, not the suggested reading order. The reason I'm doing that is that I sometimes feel like an author makes the most sense of a series by writing the installments as they come to her--even if particular stories don't fit in chronologically with what's come before. I figure if the author gained understanding of it that way, then it's also how I as the reader will best piece it together as well. 

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 around the world, especially in the Rain Wilds. 

(The) Liveship Traders Trilogy includes:

Ship of Magic, Book 1 (published 1998)

(The) Mad Ship, Book 2 (published 1999)

Ship of Destiny, Book 3 (published 2000) 

In this second subseries, we move away from the royal Farseer lineage and problems within the nobility to something very different. The main setting is Bingtown, a colony of Jamaillia, and deals with "liveships". Liveships are built from wizardwood, which isn't actually wood but the outer cocoon of a sea serpent that was in the process of transforming into a dragon. These 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. After three family members die on board, a liveship ship "quickens" and becomes a living, sentient ship. From that point on, these merchant ships have consciousness all their own. With supernatural properties, liveships are the most coveted of all in the realm. The liveship of the family that paid to have it created becomes deeply bonded with all generations of their owners. Once upon a time, owning such a rare and special ship all but guaranteed prosperity for a trader. Not so any longer. 

Liveship traders have fallen on hard times because of the war in the north (detailed in The Farseer Trilogy). Trade is the lifeblood of Bingtown and it seeks independence from Jamaillia and Chalced in particular, not wanting to deal in raiding or slave trading. But a selfish, short-sighted, pleasure-seeking Satrap who controls trade for the realm demands that tradition must change with the times. Meanwhile, pirates, migrating sea serpents, a slave rebellion, and a newly hatched dragon complicate things. 

In Ship of Magic, Book 1, the main focus is on Althea Vestrit. Her family holds to their contracts and traditions with a death grip until the male head of their family passes away. Althea is the younger daughter and has given her life to their liveship Vivacia. She fully anticipates becoming the captain of the ship someday. However, her mother talks her father out of it, something she soon regrets, just before his death. The eldest daughter is married to a Chalcedean sailor, Kyle Haven, and he gains control of Vivicia after the elder male Vestrit's death, turning her into a slaver vessel. Kyle forces his oldest son Wintrow, who has been training as a priest of Sa for years, to become a sailor because a direct line of the family must always be aboard when a liveship sails. 

When she's forced off Vivacia permanently by her sister's pompous, boneheaded husband, who's also been given complete control of the family fortune, Althea leaves Bingtown to find a way to retake her ship. Her family scrambles in her absence. Malta, the manipulative, self-seeking young daughter of Althea's sister, insists on being treated as a woman of marriageable age though she hasn't had the proper training and is barely old enough to be out of pigtails. A series of greedy, spoiled choices on her end have her abruptly being wooed by Reyn, the youngest son of the Rain Wilds trader that provided Vivacia. Althea's family remains indebted to them for the ship, but a marriage between the families could mean the Vestrit's financial situation doesn't prove as dire as it's rapidly becoming. 

Althea is wroth at all that's befallen her. Her only allies in regaining control of Vivacia are her old shipmate, roguish Brashen Trell; a mysterious Bingtown woodcarver named Amber; and the Paragon, a notoriously mad liveship owned but essentially abandoned by the Ludluck family. Paragon can't remember how he got the way he is--insane and beached at Bingtown for the past thirty years. 

Meanwhile, Captain Kennit is a pirate following a prophecy that tells him he'll become King of the Pirate Isles if he can capture a liveship. But first, on the advice of his first mate, he becomes the hero of slavers when he begins capturing slaver vessels and liberating them. 

As with the subseries that came before, these books are undeniably massive, and very introspective and slow-moving. The sheer number of characters thrown in almost from the first page of Book 1 became a chore to keep track of easily. Even the points of view of a tangle of sea serpents following the liveship in search of "She Who Remembers" are included in these books. 

While reading the first book, I kept wondering how in the world these seemingly disparate plotlines could possibly converge and make any sense. But they actually did--and explosively. Ship of Magic established the plots, and they were all just the first brutal wave of a hurricane of events and players. As intense as the first 832-page mass market paperback (mmp) was, it was also wholly gripping. I was immersed in each and every aspect. As soon as I finished it, I jumped headfirst into Book 2 despite that I was rapidly becoming exhausted. 

(The) Mad Ship starts where Book 1 left off, continuing all the plotlines. Althea learns from Brashen that Vivacia has been claimed by Captain Kennit, and she determines to retake her. Althea and Brashen's relationship is strained due to unresolved feelings between them. Further complicating the situation is her recent marriage proposal from the son of another liveship trader. She's been working aboard that family's liveship Orphelia in order to prove she has what it takes to be captain of her own ship. Meanwhile, Amber is determined to save Paragon with help from Althea and Brashen, and the mad ship begins to remember the traumatic events that led to his madness. 

In an attempt to save himself and his father, who are hostages aboard the Vivicia, Wintrow heals Kennit. The pirate captain begins to recover from having his leg bitten off by a sea serpent. Kennit's bond with Wintrow and Vivicia increases. Elsewhere, the Jamaillian Satrap intends to sail to Bingtown and force the traders to bend to his will. The corruption in Bingtown is forcing Old Traders to compromise on nearly every front but rebellion is afoot and one of the Satraps own "heart companions" (traditionally, advisors) schemes to deal fairly with Bingtown traders, though a trauma experience en route changes her for a time and makes her self-protective at any cost. Readers also begin to learn more about Captain Kennit's past, his connection to Paragon, and why his pirate heart is so justifiably black. Also, Althea, Brashen, Amber, and other Bingtown traders begin to outfit Paragon for sailing once more in order to retake Vivicia. 

Finally, Malta becomes even more nefarious in her quest to secure the rich, extravagant life she feels entitled to and manipulates on many fronts to see her selfish ends achieved, playing two men in seeking her hand at once and doing her bidding by saving her beloved father Kyle. 

Reyn has fallen for Malta, but part of his mind is ensorcelled by the very last dragon in existence. She remains cocooned in the wizardwood trapped in the Elderlings ruins. Reyn longs to free it, but to bring it out of where it's all but buried would be a monumental task requiring many men. No one else wants to see a dragon reintroduced into the world for fear it'll seek to destroy instead of coexisting or even helping them. Malta is also able to communicate with the dragon through the trinket Reyn gave her from the ruins. The dragon promises Malta anything she wants in exchange for her help in freeing her. A schemer like Malta thinks of nothing beyond her own desires. If she unleashes a volcanic explosion upon the world in the process, what does it matter to her as long as she gets what she wants? 

At 864 pages in the mmp, this middle story was both even more overwhelming than the last and impossibly more engaging. 

The final book of the trilogy, Ship of Destiny, had another daunting 800 pages (mmp). All the twists and turns that have been playing out in the last two books slowly resolve in a way that I heartily approved of and had been hoping for. The bad guys got what they deserved, the good found victory, and many characters realistically made a transition to become heroes instead of villains in the course of the trilogy. The climax wasn't a single action scene but a process that took at least a full quarter of the end of Book 3, including exciting peaks and emotionally satisfying valleys. 

As mind-blowing as this trilogy was, I won't deny that I was almost too tired to enjoy the final tale the way I would have if the endeavor hadn't been so daunting. How I wish the author had chosen to divide each installment into three or four books instead of one massive, overwhelming tome! A twelve to sixteen book series of manageable volumes would have been much more enjoyable for me, not to mention less mentally (and physically--the huge paperbacks became hard for me to hold for any great length of time, cutting down on my ability to read faster) taxing. There's simply so much here, I sometimes felt while reading the three books that my head might explode with it all. 

While I originally thought I wouldn't be a fan of this second trilogy because the main character Fitz in the first subseries doesn't really factor into them, I ended up liking The Liveship Traders Trilogy even more than The Farseer Trilogy, which is saying a lot. I loved them both. I'm apparently not the only one who feels that way. George R. R. Martin describes it as "even better than the Farseer Trilogy—I didn’t think that was possible". It's apparently also a favorite of author Orson Scott Card. 

Not surprisingly, this series has been compared to A Song of Ice and Fire--not in content, but in execution. (The two authors are friends.) Hobb has a similar manner as Martin of writing a story almost as if she's setting down the facts in a history book and not flinching as she establishes every last, excruciating detail just as raw and painful as it gets. Her characters are so realistic and life-like you can't help becoming enmeshed in their lives--sometimes, whether or not you actually want to be. There are a lot of villainous characters in this trilogy, but they're not through and through evil. The reader is given not just a one- or even two-dimensional portrayal of them, but the full three dimensions. Some of those aspects aren't particularly pretty or redeemable, which might be difficult for some readers to stomach. Nevertheless, always, the characters are made understandable. And that's even better. You may dislike or even hate them, may be shocked or sickened by the things they do and say, but you can at least understand the makeup of the characters and what drives them. I do have to warn you that there were several rapes in this series. None of them was detailed or gratuitous--the author handled them skillfully--but beware those who are sensitive. 

I can't wait to find out where all this is going in the wider world Hobb has created in The Realm of the Elderlings. I'm open to any direction at this point, as long as there's more of everything I've come to love. All this said, I do wish entertainment producers would make a series of this. Like A Song of Ice and Fire, The Realm of the Elderlings would be amazing in the form of several movies or a TV series. 

Incidentally, I read in many articles posted on Wikipedia concerning The Realm of the Elderlings that the character of Amber in Liveship Traders supposedly played the part of the Fool in the Farseer Trilogy (though no sources for where they came by this information are given), but I will say that I didn't see actual reference to that being definitively the case in the specific books for this subseries. In other words, it didn't explicitly spell out, "I'm Amber in The Liveship Traders Trilogy; previously I was the Fool at court in The Farseer Trilogy." Maybe I missed something because there was simply too much here for that not to be a possibility. Make of this what you will. Maybe it becomes important later on in The Realm of the Elderlings. I'm really not sure at the point I am in traversing this world. 

In this second subseries trilogy, I learned much more about the Elderlings and the Rain Wilds than previously. That's definitely the overarching plot in all the subseries that keeps me coming back eagerly for more. Here, dragons are reintroduced into the world with humans aiding them. There's also a bit of a disturbing implication that the dragons so influence humans that they're physically and mentally changed as a result--possibly outside of their own wills. In any case, I look forward to more expansion on all of this in further installments of The Realm of the Elderlings. 

Unfortunately, I just read in excess of 2400 pages with this subseries. I'm finding I need another lengthy break before I can start on the third subseries, The Tawny Man Trilogy. 

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

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/