I’m so glad I’m finally starting my Robin Hobb journey. There’s a book club on Fable that’s going to read one of her Realm of the Elderlings book each month until we get through the whole series, and I’m excited about it.
I had heard that Hobb writes slow-paced, character-driven books, and I was a little worried about being bored, but this book helped me realize that I have been conflating “slow” and “boring,” and they’re not the same. This novel is not boring at all. It slowly takes us through the life of FitzChivalry Farseer (typically just going by Fitz or “boy”) from the age of 6 to probably about 15. Fitz is the bastard son Chivalry, heir to the throne (fitz actually means son of or bastard son of). He his abandoned by his mother and her family when he is 6 and brought to Buckkeep where the royalty live, and he is partly raised by stablemaster, and Chivalry’s man, Burrich. He never meets Chivalry, who ends up giving up his right to the throne.
Fitz leads a lonely existence. He doesn’t have any family, people treat him as an outsider and blatantly dislike him for being a bastard, and some people blame him for Chivalry’s abdication. He can form a psychic connection with animals, which is traumatically discouraged by Burrich, leaving him with no close connections and complex feelings towards Burrich. When he is about 10 he comes to the king’s attention and starts being trained in various skills, including that of an assassin.
This is an emotional, often sad, novel. Fitz is deeply lonely and for most of the book reads as a lot older than he actually is, which I attribute to his training, the expectation that he is a tool for the crown, and the emotional burden that puts on him. He has to be older than his years just to get by. But it’s still a very good book. I was engaged the whole way through, learning about the world as Fitz learned about it, and I will be starting the sequel soon.