cbr17bingo – Citizen (for The Kingdom of Copper, in which the shafit are second class citizens)
The Willful Princess and the Piebald Prince
How does Robin Hobb do it? This novella is told in a straightforward, fairy tale-type manner, with relatively little dialogue, and it was still so engaging.
I will admit, though, that I had some idea of what was coming. I vaguely recalled a brief mention of what happened to the Piebald Prince in The Farseer Trilogy, so part of the reason I was engrossed was that I was tense waiting to see just how the end I was waiting for would come about.
Narrated by Felicity, the story tells the tale of Princess Caution and the bastard prince she bore, a prince who was gifted with the Wit. In this story we learn about how the Wit came to be viewed negatively, as readers saw in The Farseer Trilogy.
Even in the space of only 73 pages, Hobb conveys complex relationships and political dynamics, with the main limitation being that its pithiness leaves less room for character nuance. But the story makes up for this by being simply a good story. I really enjoyed it. And yes—without any spoilers, you can expect the same Hobbsian emotions you would get in any of her other Realm of the Elderlings books (or at least the 6 others I’ve read so far). I’m looking forward to seeing how this backstory will enhance my reading of the next trilogy in the series. 3.75 stars (it was good but not as emotionally connecting as her other books).
The Kingdom of Copper (spoilers for part 1)
I loved this book, the bulk of which is set 5 years after The City of Brass, though it wasn’t quite as strong as the first one. This is largely because it seemed to take a while for anything to happen. I didn’t dislike reading about what the characters were doing, but it was a slower start than I cared for.
We continue with the three main POVs from the first book. Nahri has come far as a healer and has an idea for how to continue to improve her skills while simultaneously improving life for the shafit. It gives her something to look forward to because Ghassan still has her on a fairly tight leash. He’s just as bad in this book, if not worse, and the amount of anger and hatred I felt towards this heartless, violent man was sometimes hard to contain.
Without spoiling Ali’s and Dara’s arcs, I will say that we do get to spend plenty of time with them, and like Nahri, they each have ideas of how Daevabad should look. Some of these characters make better arguments than others. We also get to deepen our understanding of the world but with much less info-dumping compared to book one, spend more time with Zaynab, and meet her and Ali’s mother. I can’t wait to see how the trilogy wraps up!