“Fool, there is no sense in trying to play that game with the past. Here is where we are today, and we can only make our moves from here.”

Time to talk about another beloved (pun intended, if you know you know) serie of mine, The Farseer Trilogy!

This first trilogy in this universe follows FitzChivalry, the bastard child of the heir to the Throne of the Six Duchies, as he grows at the court navigating political schemes, learns magic and eventually becomes the royal assassin. And, of course, you have an unknown enemy with unclear motives aside from wreaking havoc unto the kingdom. And legendary dragons! All good fun!

The first book in the trilogy covers the time when Fitz was a young child to his very early teenage years, while the second book sets up the bigger story and the third one resolve it. In this edition there are six books instead of the original three, Royal Assassin was divided into two separate books and Assassin’s Quest into three. At least the books look very pretty in my opinion.

I really enjoyed these books a lot, they are easy to read with a compelling story and a set of (mostly) interesting characters. Only mostly because I could have done without some of them but more on that later. Unfortunately, I can’t say anything as to the writing style of Hobb since I did not read the original version but the translated one. In any case what I read was well written, I especially enjoyed the evolution of some characters as they grew and the different relationships were generally very well built.

Another highlight of these books for me was definitely the magic. They have a really interesting, well developed dual magic system which we discover through Fitz’s eyes as he himself grows. Fitz’s magical link with his wolf, Nighteyes, was especially beautiful and we got to see it evolve as both characters grew and it was so so so lovely. I would read those books over and over just for that specific relationship.

The worldbuilding is also very well done despite the action being limited to mostly one place at first. The history of the kingdom and its lore is pretty well fleshed out as well as the clash between two set of cultures. I wish we had seen even more, because I really liked the universe, but there are plenty of other books set in the same world so nothing much to worry about there.

And then there’s the characters. Hobb really knows how to write characters that just stick with you and put you through all different kind of emotions. They are truly the backbone of this story, even the completely absent characters leave their mark, it’s amazing. As this is written from Fitz’s own point of view, we get to experience first-hand the depths of his emotions and his inner turmoil. While this can have its draw back as Fitz is a young teenager here and he typically makes stupid and childish choices that can be quite frustrating he is still a very attaching character and you can’t help but want him to succeed and be happy. To be fair though it’s nice to have a teenage main character actually act his age and make stupid choices literally every adult around him warned against, very realistic.

The only negative thing I have to say about the characters is that I really couldn’t care less for Fitz’s love interest. I found that entire storyline quite boring, but that might be a personal thing since I tend to dislike romance in fantasy books…

I also thought Regal wasn’t a very interesting character, maybe a bit two dimensional but ultimately he isn’t truly a main character so it did not impact my overall enjoyment of those books.

So in summary, it was a really good read, the main character can be frustrating but he’s young and quite likable still and the world created definitely made me want to know more.