cbr18bingo – One
I have been holding off on starting this part of Robin Hobb’s Realm of the Elderlings series. The Farseer Trilogy, The Liveship Traders Trilogy and The Tawny Man Trilogy were all fantastic, but when I looked at Dragon Keeper, the first of the four novels in The Rain Wilds Chronicles, I was a little bummed out. It looked like the characters I knew and loved from her previous novels weren’t going to get much page time and a whole new set of characters would be introduced. All of that is true, and it is also true that Robin Hobb again has me hooked and eager to dive into the rest of this series. Dragon Keeper runs 470 pages and I think I finished it in about 3 days. As ever, Hobb sets up drama, intrigue and possible romance amongst a group of characters who come from all walks of life and also from amongst dragons themselves.
Dragon Keeper picks up where Ship of Destiny (The Liveship Traders) and Fool’s Fate (The Tawny Man) left off. The dragon Tintaglia has seen to it that the sea serpents have made it up the Rain Wilds river to the cocooning grounds where they will incubate and emerge as dragons. She did this with the help of certain liveships and their crews. Liveships are sailing ships made of “wizard wood,” an enchanted “wood” that is actually dragon cocoons that never hatched. Tintaglia is arrogant and domineering (as dragons are) but she has come to accept that she must deal with silly humans in order to ensure the safety of these future dragons. Tintaglia protects Bingtown, the bustling and prosperous trading community that sits at the mouth of the Rain Wilds river and is constantly at war with the aggressive authoritarian Chalcedeans. In return, the Bingtown traders use their liveships and their wealth to support the Rain Wilds community up river that protects the cocoons. The waters of the Rain Wilds are dangerous; they are highly acidic, unsafe for humans, and they destroy ships not made of wizard wood. The deal made between Tintaglia and the humans seemed guaranteed to benefit all parties, but things went south.
At the end of Fool’s Fate, Tintaglia found a mate. While she is still concerned about the fate of the cocoons, she is also distracted by Icefyre, the male dragon freed from the ice and now able to make beautiful serpent babies with Tintaglia. The merchants of Bingtown are concerned about Tintaglia’s frequent absences, which threaten their defenses. The situation worsens when the dragons emerge from their cocoons. They are few in number and deformed, unable to fly or hunt for themselves. Tintaglia essentially abandons them, and the people of the Rain Wilds who host them are getting angry. Keeping the dragons fed is a bigger and more dangerous job than they can handle, and the Bingtown traders are starting to feel as if the money they send there is a waste. Eventually, the powers that be in Bingtown and the Rain Wilds agree that the dragons must be herded further up the river, where there might be more food for them and certainly more security for the humans. Or they might simply all die, which doesn’t seem to bother anyone very much. Tintaglia is gone, the dragons are a useless burden, and moving them up river might again solve a couple of other problems.
First, the traders and Rain Wilders are concerned about economics/wealth. Artifacts from excavations in the Rain Wilds have been very profitable. Once in the ancient past, the Rain Wilds had been part of an Elderling kingdom, where the godlike Elderlings, now extinct, lived alongside dragons and produced incredible art and wealth. Excavating Elderling cities will be easier if the dragons move on plus. Moreover, the dragons have memories of Kelsingra, one of the greatest Elderling cities, destroyed due to some sort of natural disasters (earthquakes, flooding). The dragons possess these memories thanks to inheriting them from their forebears, and they also take on the memories of dead dragons that they consume. The dragons, frustrated by their deformities and having to rely on humans, hope to find Kelsingra or die trying. And as far as the humans are concerned, if they find it, it might mean more wealth for them. One complication is that dragon parts have a high black market value. Some unscrupulous traders and Rain Wilders, as well as Chalced’s ruler, want to poach the weak dragons for their blood and scales.
The second problem that moving the dragons would solve would be getting rid of undesirable Rain Wilders. When the Rain Wilds council decides to move the dragons, they hire Rain Wilds youths who are deemed deformed and undesirable. There is a high rate of birth defects in both Bingtown and the Rain Wilds — children born with scales, claws, iridescent eyes, etc. — and usually such newborns are exposed to elements and killed. It is believed that if allowed to live, they will have short lives and that they shouldn’t reproduce anyway. But some children don’t show signs of difference until later in life, and the sight of them is distasteful to many. Using these young people as dragon keepers means they will move far away and most likely never return from this adventure. No one knows what is further up river.
The main characters who are making this trek are:
Thymara, a 16-year-old whose father prevented the midwife from killing her at birth. Thymara has claws and scales that are growing and spreading. She also is an excellent hunter, witnessed the “hatching” of the dragons when she was a girl, and has the ability to understand and communicate with dragons. She chooses to serve the female dragon Sintara, who could give Tintaglia a run for her money in the vanity and arrogance department.
Tats and Greft are other keepers on the journey and they do not get along. Tats has been friends with Thymara since they were little. His face is tattooed because he was once enslaved, and face tattoos were the way Chalcedeans marked them. In exchange for freedom and a new chance at life, many of the tattooed helped Tintaglia shepherd the sea serpents up the river. Greft, like Thymara, seems to have been marked with scales etc from birth. Many Rain Wilders, despite their own markings, are horrified by people like Thymara and Greft, believing they should not have been allowed to survive infancy. Greft is older than the other keepers and sets himself up as a leader, but Greft’s long term goals are unclear, and his domineering and condescending attitude grate on Thymara and Tats.
Alise Finbok is a self-educated dragon expert from Bingtown. The third daughter of a trader family that is struggling to survive, Alise expects to live as a spinster. She is average looking and bookish, so when Hest, the most eligible and wealthiest bachelor in Bingtown courts her, she is stunned and skeptical of his intentions. The contract they make when they marry seems to Alise like a good deal, but she soon regrets it. Hest is not the person she thinks, but as a trader he is a man of his word. When Alise insists that he honor his promise to let her go see the dragons in the Rain Wilds, Hest begrudgingly agrees, but only if his secretary Sedric accompanies her. Sedric and Alise have been friends since childhood, but readers learn there is more to Sedric than Alise understands. The Hest/Alice/Sedric triangle promises to lead to real danger and heartbreak.
Finally, there is Leftrin, the captain of a liveship barge called Tarman, which will take Alise up the river and later, if she wishes, along with the keepers as they herd the dragons toward Kelsingra. Leftrin develops a crush on Alise, which is obvious to everyone and angers Sedric, but Leftrin also has secrets related to his business dealings. The Alise/Leftrin relationship is another that is fun to watch. Alise is likewise attracted to Leftrin; he is kind and genuinely likes and respects her, something that Alise has never experienced before. She is getting a taste of independence and Leftrin is all encouragement.
When this book ends, relationships are changing, as is the balance of power amongst our actors and the dragons. There are some disturbing revelations about a few characters, and that means that as the party travels further up river, the danger and the stakes will increase. I can’t wait to see where Robin Hobb takes all of us.
