Robin Hobb: The Farseer trilogy - a review

So even though most of book club has read most of this trilogy, I feel like I should write this review 1) because nobody else has done it yet, and 2) because I am sufficiently geeky and fantasy obsessed that I feel I might do it justice. I have slightly fudged my CV in this case because I have not yet actually completed the third book, because it has been misplaced or removed illegally from its owners house. Curses! However, having read and enjoyed the first two books I feel like I am at least prepared enough to take a stab at what the third book in the trilogy would be like, which is to say: he meets and falls in love with a woman/dog/his mother who is then his loyal companion until they/he dies/is maimed/is taken into the underworld by beelzebub himself. Yes, without giving too much away it is safe to say that Mr Hobb subscribes to the 'hellish agony for the protagonist' school of fantasy, which is predictable enough that at least you aren't ever SURPRISED when your favourite character loses a limb/his puppy/all hope of ever succeeding in life.

In the first book, Assassins Apprentice, we meet Fitz, who begins his life with the surely enjoyable experience of his first warm bed marred slightly by the fact that his mother was the crown prince's whore, he has been abandoned by her, the crown prince wants nothing to do with him and the one companion he has ever had is a small adorable puppy. Yes, the puppy is so adorable that Fitz discovers he has the little understood power to commune with, and direct, the thoughts of animals, a gift that child Fitz is unaware he even has until the man whose care he is placed in sees what he is doing and quickly helps him out by putting the puppy in a sack and 'taking care of it', mob style. Oh, and then his father the crown prince dies. Fitz, no doubt an emotionally stable youth, is then taken into the care of the King who wants him trained as a royal assassin, cos you know, if you have emotionally tortured bastards running around the court the best thing to do would be to teach them how to kill really really quietly so that nobody ever knows it was them. All this aside, he manages to do do the killing thing pretty well all the while hiding the fact that he has the 'wit', or puppy communing power, which is thought of a little like neo-Nazism in his world. Instead he focuses on the other realm of power known as the skill, which he would actually also be quite good at only the King thinks it would be smart to get the royal bastard trained by an actual bastard, who sort of magically lobotomizes Fitz so that he can't do it anymore. Meanwhile, the coastline of his kingdom is threatened by these fearsome Red ships that take villagers and 'forge' them into a sort of zombie, which then rain terror on their friends and neighbours. Anyway, the story sort of winds up with some good ol'court poisoning and hijinks - kids! Lets play 'guess who dies at the end of this book'!

The second book, Royal Assassin, takes off with Fitz recovering from his near fatal poisoning at the end of Ass apprentice (you guessed wrong!). When he returns to his home castle he finds that the King is sick, the new crown prince is killing himself by 'skilling' the Red ships away from their coast and the woman he has loved since childhood is ignoring him. Whilst spending the rest of the book pouting about the palace, he manages to befriend a young wolf cub who he rescues and forms a very strong 'wit' link with, establishing something like a pack bond with the animal. Also, his chick is suddenly totally down with hooking up with him as long as nobody knows. The crown prince, who Fitz loves like a father, discovers that he can hide himself away in Fit'z mind, allowing him to hear and see things in the court that he would otherwise not. This is groovy and all, but Fitz is after all a bit of an emotional wreck by this point and has had his brain messed with by various magical means so when the prince does this he gets a bit wobbly for allowing his thoughts out, and other people's in. Thus, he starts letting his wolf into his mind when he is doing the nasty with his wench, he lets himself into the prince doing the nasty with the queen-in-waiting, and he lets the whole castle feel his loins pulsating whenever he gets a boner. Its kinda weird, ok, but not as weird as this. Oh yeah, so there are lots more plots and he is eventually arrested as a traitor. Kids! Lets play guess who dies again! You are correct! Fitz is tortued and dies but he hides his soul (?) in the wolf and is saved, because the wolf returns his soul to his smelly corpse weeks later. It all turns out awesome in the end.

I am assured that in the third book (Ass Quest) all sorts of dragons happen, and Fitz totally kicks the asses of anyone who has ever wronged him (like, half the kingdom by now). I would love to believe this but I am more certain that he spends the rest of his miserable life hiding in an old monastery with nothing but his aged wolf to keep him company, while everyone he has known is turned into evil zombies by the weird Red ship raiders and his kingdom goes to shit under the rule of a crazed king.
Its not an uplifting trilogy, but it is very very well written and very clever in its court intrigue and the construction of the world. If you like fantasy and find George R. R. Martin slightly too depressing, give this a go. If you don't like fantasy, or want to read a book where the main character's progression is not directed by evil dicks who want him dead, then give it a skip.
I give it 4 Legolas heads.