Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Every Creature is Given Both a Place and a Time

Robin Hobb “Fool’s Assassin” (Del Rey, 2014)

(spoilerific, read at your own risk)
Unlike what seems to be the rest of the world, I have not read any of Robin Hobb’s earlier books.  I know.  No, I don’t really have an excuse.  I just never got around to it.  So I was psyched to get an opportunity to read an ARC of her latest.  

And I loved it.

Fool’s Assassin won’t be for everyone.  It is primarily a quiet domestic tale set in a fantasy world.  Fitz/Tom is retired and living on a country estate, happily married.  But I was transfixed.  Hobb’s skills as a writer shine, and the world is rich and vivid.  AND THE FEELS!  Maybe it’s because I have a newborn, but the relationship between father and child is so wonderful and real.

Of course I have to mention an interesting stylistic detail of this novel.  By alternating POV between Fitz/Tom and his daughter Bee, Hobbs has functionally written both an adult and a YA novel.  Or is it that a YA novel is nested inside an adult novel?  Regardless, it is intriguing and something that I’ve never encountered before.

Of course the plot does pick up (significantly) at the end.  And now…. I CAN’T WAIT FOR THE NEXT VOLUME!!  Yeah, I’m a big fan now.

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