Rating: 
Summary: Better than anticipated
Review: My first foray into Robin Hobb's literary world was the book Fool's Errand--> at the recommendation of George RR Martin's website. It (of course) was very good. In fact, it was jolly well enough to compell me to read the originating Farseer trilogy. The first book (Assassin's Apprentice) was OK-- a 3.5 star effort-- a good start to a series.Royal Assassin, however, is a different beast. Whereas Assassin's Apprentice was a good, but not great, beginning, Royal Assassin is the consummate trilogy midpoint. A 5-star effort in every sense (think: "Empire Strikes Back" kind of mid-trilogy effort), leaving disappointment only in it ending & heaving empathic protagonist-despair. Both expected, of course-- being the calling card of a trilogy-- but also excellently implemented. Are there hairs to split? Of course. The Fool is, perhaps, way too heavy with the ranting which, empathetically, is a huge stepdown from his portrayal in book 1; Regal, a pleasant villain, is portrayed as both amazingly vainglorious and treachoroulsy thorough-> a good character point, but, in my eyes, left slightly lacking in portrayal; Molly, accurately--to fault-- painted in puppy-dog/first-love love eyes... but these are minor quibbles. Again, though, the book is a good read, solid read. It is a strong step forward from its predecessor and left me wanting more. Those are sure signs of an investment well made.
Rating:
Summary: A feeling of helplessness.
Review: This is the second book in the Farseer trilogy (following Assassin's Apprentice and followed by Assassin's Quest). In the Mountain Kingdom, Fitz is slowly recovering from poisoning, when he has a Skill dream. Seeing through King Shrewd's eyes, he witnesses the Forging of the town of Siltbay, where lives his childhood friend Molly, whom he's secretly always been in love with. Has Molly been Forged too, is she dead, or alive but in great danger? He has to find out. In Buckkeep, Prince Regal's ambition is soaring, and he will gain access to the throne of the Six Duchies by all means. And King-in-wainting Verity is too busy Skilling in his tower to protect the kingdom from the Forging raids of the Red Ships, and the old king's strength is slowly leaving him. Even with the help Verity's new Queen-in-waiting Kettricken, who decides to take up arms and attack the Raiders, and Fitz's new Bond with a wolf cub, the situation grows more and more hopeless. In this middle volume, unexpected alliances are forged and treacheries unmasked. With the pressure of Regal's treasons building up, the story becomes richer and steadily gathers momentum, and I was compelled to keep turning the pages.
Rating:
Summary: laced with intrigue and brutal action, excellent
Review: Book 2 of the Farseer Trilogy This second entry in Robin Hobb's "Farseer" trilogy picks up where the first book let off. FitzChivalry was poisoned by Prince Regal when he was in the Mountain Kingdom to bring home Princess Kettricken. Kettricken is to wed Fitz's master, King-in-Waiting Verity. Fitz is battered, both emotionally and physically and it is a long time before he is able to return to Buckkeep and rejoin the royal court. When Fitz returns to Buckkeep he steps back into his old role as King Shrewd's Assassin, as well as into a new role as Verity's helper in fighting the Forged Ones. The Forged Ones are citizens of the Kingdom of the Six Duchies who have been captured by the Red Ship Raiders (who have been terrorizing the coast) and turned loose as near zombies who can't think or feel but know only to attack and feed like ghouls. The King is sick. He is losing strength and Verity's younger brother is plotting both against the King as well as against Verity. Fitz is doing what he can to protect Verity, but there isn't much that he can do since Regal is a legitimate son and Fitz is only the illegitimate child of a dead Farseer. Any action Fitz may take can be construed as treason, and he must be careful as Regal already hates him. In the midst of the plotting and intrigue there is some romance. Fitz is still in love with a street girl he knew years earlier named Molly. Molly is now working at the castle as a maid for Princess Patience, and though Fitz knows that this relationship can be used against him by his enemies, he cannot stay away from Molly (once known as Molly Nosebleed). This is a fairly long and deep fantasy novel, but the world that Robin Hobb has created feels real. Hobb's world is brutal and our favorite characters are spared no pain. Reading this, I never really knew which characters would live and which would die, even Fitz (you really don't believe he'll die, but Hobb did such a good job with this world that I felt the threat was real). There is not a lot of action, but when it happens it explodes with huge implications. In my view, this is some good fantasy. I'm already looking forward to book 3 "Assassin's Quest".
Rating:
Summary: Even better than the first!
Review: Royal Assassin caught my attention from the very beginning, and I couldn't put it down until I'd finished.
There is just something about this book. I can't quite figure out what it is though.
It could be that the characters have flaws and virtues, that they act and think like real people. You understand what motivates them, and you feel a certain empathy towards them, even the villians. And that, I believe, is the true test of a book. That the characters, even the bad guys, are seen as real people.
Or, maybe it's the first-person perspective. Robin Hobb has the unique gift of writing a story from Fitz's point of veiw, without letting us get so close that we can't see around him. You live the story through him, but you never lose sight of the rest of the world around him.
Or perhaps it's just that this story seems to touch something inside you. You live this difficult time right along with the rest of the characters.
This book takes Fitz and the rest so far from where they started that you might not recognize them by the end.
So, to sum up, read this book! You will not regret it!
Rating:
Summary: Well done: how to make an assassin a sympathetic character
Review: I read this book first, then read Assassin's Apprentice to see where it started, then finally Assassins Quest with bated breath. Glad I picked it up. "Royal Assassin" is a lovely play on words, best understood once the story is over, as is the premise that "Chivalry ain't dead" which, while never uttered, provides the foundation for the protagonist's existence. That sense of irony is ever present throughout the series, and is beautifully complemented by Hobbs' use of adjective given names: Shrewd, Desire, Verity, Constance, Regal, etc. The measured development and revelation of each character's flaws and motivations is a beautiful example of how to write a book that startles you with plot twists, all of which ultimately make sense. The hardest character to reach is Regal, which is a shame, since he is a believable self-justified villain. Hobb's system of magic is easy to grasp, and does not require too great a suspension of disbelief to incorporate, since so few people in the book actually practice the Skill or the Wit. Her ability to demonstrate the suspicions and superstitions of commoners is admirable. Most compelling, however, is her ability to get inside the "coming of age" problem with a stark realism that most cannot achieve. Hobb is also able to address intimate relationships, love, and marriage from a very human, and often humorous perspective, a skill that is rarely displayed in the fantasy genre. The setting is rich with vivid depictions of life in a medeival castle. You can smell the stew cooking in the kitchen, and taste the warm bread that Fitz wheedles from Cook when it is fresh out of the oven. You also appreciate the plain difficulty of getting things done, even for one endowed with the Skill. And you empathize with the archetypical ailing king, whose hold on life and his kingdom are both weakening, and who nonetheless battles to impose his will on the events shaping his kingdom. Best of all, Fitz is an imperfect protagonist, who must rely on tenacity and his various friends to achieve his goals and survive in the deadly environment of court intrigue. The only problem with reading this book is that most contemporary fantasy pales in comparison. Robin Hobb has raised the bar.
Rating:
Summary: Up there with the best of fantasy
Review: To be honest, I can't remember where this book started or stopped. The series is so good throughout the three books I basically read it from beginning to end as one story. It's not very often an author can keep readers totally engaged for that long. Fitz matures but keeps learning lessons the hard way. We get to know his mentors better and see the story develope more. But you'd have to be crazy to stop all the way to the finish line. Hobb doesn't let up with gritty action sequences, surprises and the story's momentum. Hobb is now my third favorite fantasy author behind Tolkein and George RR Martin. If you like the latter, I think you'll love this series - and you can finish while you wait for Martin's fourth book to get published!
Rating: 
Summary: What happened?!?
Review: Sorry folks - I could not disagree more with all of the good reviews I am seeing. This book is a let down and fails to live up to the first on many accounts. This is because the story is COMPLETELY TRANSPARENT, the author is a frequent flier on "deus ex machina" airlines, employing it hither and yon to save her sorry and predictable plot lines and characters at the last moment. Redrawn history, convenient omissions - I could go on but basically the trade-off is not there like it was in the first book. Expect 90% bored frustration at stereo-typical plot, dialog, character interaction (assuming you have read ANY fantasy, a child's fairy tale, or even watched Saturday morning cartoons in the 80s) and only a 10% recompense mostly for the characters (still good) and some few plot surprises. I get the impression the author did not expect to have such success with the first book, and so did a patchwork job of this one. If your cup of tea is simple black and white morality with a "Happy Ending" then by all means enjoy, otherwise save yourself the time (maybe the error was mine - but how was I to know this was a children's book?).
Rating: 
Summary: Trilogy keeps going strong.
Review: Robin Hobb, Royal Assassin (Bantam, 1996) There should be a law against ending books like this, especially when they're the second part of a trilogy. Imagine what it must have been like for the poor souls who read this on the day of release, and then had to wait another year to find out what happened next. Royal Assassin continues the story of Fitz, son of an abdicated prince, assassin for the king, user of magic both human and bestial. It also continues the building of the world of the Six Duchies, and adds a new component; while most of the diplomacy (outside the small world of Fitz, that is) in the world of the first novel in this trilogy took place with what amounts to a sledgehammer, the second novel brings in political intrigue on a much more delicate level. The king's two younger sons, Verity and Regal, sit ready to leap at one another's throats, as the four coastal duchies (who support Verity) and the two inland duchies (who support Regal) sit poised on the brink of conflict. It doesn't help matters much that the Mountain kingdom, which sits on the other side of the inland duchies, just married its daughter and queen-to-be off to Verity. Things look pretty bad for the inlanders, right? Well, if they were, we wouldn't have a novel. Royal Assassin continues on at the same pace as did Assassin's Apprentice; it may be a huge-looking effort (my trade paperback version is 580 pages, and almost as thick as the trade paperback edition of that doorstop known as Harlot's Ghost), but believe me, now that you've gotten yourself into the story, the slowness with which it begins (as did Assassin's Apprentice) is easily forgivable, and you'll be sitting and reading long after you'd promised yourself you'd stop. I warn you now: stop before you get to page five hundred, and wait until you've secured a copy of Assassin's Quest before reading the end of this novel. The twists and turns will leave you growling in frustration if you have to wait to dive into the last book in the trilogy. It's almost as memorable, and frustrating, an ending as we got from George R. R. Martin's A Storm of Swords (and two years later we're still waiting for the fourth book in THAT series, a form of slow torture that is crueler and more unusual than anything the U. S. Justice System has ever come up with). And with that, I'll go back to chewing my fingernails and waiting for the library to get the third volume back in (since I can't find it in any of the bookstores near me). ****
Rating:
Summary: Character-centered, plot more focused, excellent writing.
Review: In "Royal Assassin," Robin Hobb continues the development of Fitz's character as he perseveres through more young man's emotional growth. Hobb's strengths, the tactile first-person narrative and the fluid realism in Fitz's mental connections with other characters, flourish as Fitz's mind becomes even more intertwined with Prince Verity and a new animal character. This parallels his emotional development through interactions with the youthful Molly, the exhausted Verity, and the wasting King Shrewd. However, Hobb's consistent weakness, the glacially moving plot, struggles to carry this character development as Fitz languishes in Buckkeep for the first 500+ pages. The continuing Red-Ship raids provide external pressure on the leaders, but until Neatbay, the actual raids feel distant from the insulated narrative. Fitz's brief summer as an oarsman reads like a contrived plot detour to allow the narrative to witness a few battles, but the gritty counterattack at Neatbay provides a crucial visual face to the raiding and features key plot points for Fitz and Nighteyes, Burrich, and Kettricken. Against the backdrop of the coastal-inland political tension, the vicious royal intrigue feels like a natural element in this book, unlike the abrupt shift at the end of "Assassin's Apprentice." Hobb boldly casts Fitz emotionally adrift, as his three closest mentors, Chade, Burrich, and Verity, all spend long periods of time away from Buck before the conspiracies rush to a climax and Fitz descends into frantic countermoves. The ending would have been cheesy deus ex machina in the hands of a lesser writer, but hints in the Epilogue and the first pages of "Assassin's Quest" show that to Hobb, it is merely another character choice that has benefits and consequences. Hobb's intensely real depiction of Fitz's character and the growth she steers him through manage to carry "Royal Assassin" on the strength of that developing character alone, without any fast-paced ordinary fantasy plot.
Rating:
Summary: Right in the Middle
Review: Robin Hobb knows how to write a good tragic fantasy novel. With Fitz right in the middle of a controversy to take over the Kingdom and while the King lies dieing in bed. The young Fitz must make the decision to save his beloved Buck from forces in the inside and those from the outside that wish to destroy it.
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