This was an excellent book that I’m not likely to ever re-read, and I imagine I’ll say that about the other books in the Realm of the Elderlings series. Robin Hobb can tell a great story and an emotional story. The Farseer trilogy has evoked a lot of depressed and anxious feelings from me. They’re emotional, heartbreaking books, which is why I say I probably won’t re-read them. But they are masterfully told, which is why I will be continuing on with the rest of the Realm of the Elderlings books.
Assassin’s Quest starts with Fitz slowly recovering, physically at least, from the events at the end of Royal Assassin before deciding to embark on a quest to kill King Regal. This is absolutely the quest book that the title claims it to be. After traveling inland to find Regal, he continues on to seek out Verity with a group of other characters that almost start to feel like found family, and we finally learn a bit more about the Elderlings.
If you liked the pacing of The Lord of the Rings, you may like this. Fitz and Nighteyes, and later Fitz, Nighteyes, and that small group, spend a lot of time traveling, mostly on foot. Like, a lot of time traveling. I imagine that it could get boring for some people, but I liked the time to get to know the other characters, to learn about what was happening elsewhere and see Fitz’s reaction to that knowledge, and even to take in the scenery that Hobb describes in the kind of detail Tolkien did (which admittedly I didn’t care for the first time I read Tolkien, but it grew on me). There’s also a large chunk of the book as Fitz and Nighteyes travel when they are finally independent of all of the obligations that had been on Fitz, and I wish I had taken more time to appreciate it in the moment.
While I didn’t mind the pacing for the most part, the end did feel a bit rushed. It was kind of one big info dump. Hobb might have needed a couple hundred pages more to keep it from being so much exposition, and it’s already a hefty book. Could she have sacrificed those pages elsewhere in the novel to devote to the end without losing something in the process? I’m really not sure. I would also hesitate to call the very end of the book truly satisfying, though it ends in a way that fits in with how Hobb wrote this trilogy and is true to how the novel is set up in the very first few pages. You can’t fault Hobb for being honest and setting up expectations from the start.
One thing I want to mention, especially because I don’t think I’ve seen it come up much in other reviews, is the sense of humor in the books. There isn’t much of it. Hobb doesn’t tend to relieve tension with humor, but when it shows up as a wry or sarcastic thought or comment, it stands out, and I appreciate it all the more for its infrequency.
This trilogy has helped me realize how much I’ve grown as a reader over the years. When I was in high school, I only wanted to read books with happy endings. I don’t think I would have gone for books as emotional and heavy as these are. But I can appreciate them now, maybe even love them, in spite of and sometimes because of the author’s deft way of evoking feelings, as well as her nuanced character work. It might be too much for me to re-read them (although I am awfully tempted to try annotating them, which would be first for me), but I can’t wait to continue on with the series and eventually visit Fitz’s life again.
