“You always chose to be bound by who you are. Now choose to be freed by who you are.”

The second trilogy in the Fitz and the Fool’s adventure across Six Duchies!

The story picks up about 15 years after the end of the previous one so Fitz is now a grown man, living as a recluse with only his adopted son and wolf for company. Of course, his peace could only last so long before he is dragged back into Buckkeep to help the new generation of Farseer settle both internal and external unrest.

Again I read those books in French so there was seven books in this edition instead of the three original books.

I think I liked this trilogy slightly more than the previous one. All the elements I liked in the previous books are more developped. The worldbuilding initiated is expended upon as the characters travel further than before. Both magic systems are explored in much more depth and the fact that none of the characters are good at it at first is refreshing, we learn as they do, through trial and errors.

We get a much closer look at some previous characters, mainly the Fool (and damn if the Fool isn’t the best character in the entire serie) but even Burich and Chade. The previous relationships are also further explored. I think the relationship between Fitz and the Fool is probably one of my favourite written friendship ever. It can be frustrating at times because Fitz is SUCH an idiot but it’s wonderful anyway. I would read many many more books with just them exploring the world seriously.

The newly introduced characters were also quite intriguing and once more the clash of different cultures was very well done. Hobb’s ability to pull you in right next to her characters and make you feel everything they feel is shining even more brightly there and that in spite of the biased first person point of view of Fitz.

I also thought the main antagonist was more interesting than in the previous trilogy. That story arc also benefitted from being built on the previous trilogy as we already knew this world and some of its legend and historical conflict. And even more dragons and dragon history!

I do have one major reserve with this trilogy – well actually two but there are linked so. In the review for the previous trilogy I said that Fitz could be frustrating, it’s even more true here and he doesn’t have the excuse of being a teenager anymore. It’s one of the rare cases where I’m glad the story is told from the first-person point of view because if it wasn’t and we were blind to Fitz’s thought process he would just appear as a huge asshole. Instead he’s just ridiculously frustrating but at least you know where’s he coming from.

But that still made the ending really unsatisfying to me. I get that it made sense it the context but the entire books pull you in one direction only to brutally deny you that ending and push another one on you just because Fitz is a STUBBORN IDIOT. Or maybe it’s just wishful thinking on my part but in any case i was really unhappy with were Fitz ends this trilogy.

It’s not a bad frustration though, I had fun being as angry as I was with Fitz and I still like him, I just want him to sort himself out. Hopefully I will finally get what I’ve been waiting for since the last book of the first trilogy basically.