Book Review: ‘Assassin’s Apprentice’ by Robin Hobb (diving into the Realm of the Elderlings)
The Realm of the Elderlings is a series of legend. Robin Hobb is beloved, and the inspiration for so many fantasy authors over the last 30 years.
Being on the bookish internet, it’s impossible not to hear about Fitz and the Fool, and witness the tears and stress that these (hugely chunky) books and characters deliver, in a strangely welcome way by its readers. For a long time, this series has been on my radar, but it’s a 16 books series with most books well over 500 pages. Intimidated doesn’t even cover it.
So I grabbed a copy of book one, ‘Assassin’s Apprentice’, from the library a few years ago and didn’t get further than a few pages in. But it’s a series that has lived in my head ever since - I just have a feeling about it.
Then Lianne from Literary Diversions on YouTube announced the #fitzalong:
IT WAS MY TIME.
But I only lasted 26% of the book before I DNFed it. While I was enjoying it as I was reading, I found it really slow and struggled to find the motivation to actually pick it up and I was getting frustrated. So I put it down.
Then I watched the playback of Lianne’s liveshow for the book and I committed to giving it one more go, this time via the audiobook even though I hadn’t gelled with the narrator when trying out the sample.
I listened to the rest of it in three days - I couldn’t get enough, and ended up loving it. I’m so glad I gave it a third and final go.
The depth of character growth and development throughout the novel is truly outstanding. Becoming grounded in this world is really easy, even though as an introduction to a new high fantasy world there’s a lot to adjust to, but it doesn’t make it a little slow for the first half. The attention to detail in the character and the world building comes at the cost of the pacing, but that’s okay. It was worthwhile, I just had to take a few attempts to get over the midpoint of the novel where everything starts to pick up and move forward.
I haven’t stopped thinking about Fitz, the Fool, Chade and Burrich, and the evils of Kalen, Regal and Shrewd - Hobb’s characters get under your skin.
The next liveshow will be for ‘Royal Assassin’ at the end of April so there’s plenty of time to join in! I’ll absolutely be there.
The #fitzalong is run by Lianne at Literary Diversions.
Written by Sophie
