Review of Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb

This book, the second in Robin Hobb's Assassin trilogy, had a lot in common with the first in terms of structure. But I felt it was a lot richer in every way. The characters from the first book revealed more depths and the main character went through a lot of changes on his path towards a manhood that's going to be...interesting. 

There was a lot of unexpected things that happened in the story and I think that's what made it most interesting to me--it's not that there aren't tropes that she's using; it's just that she still manages to make them fresh and sometimes, they plot goes places where you'd never think it would.

Like the first book, the rising action rises rather slowly as Robin Hobb weaves what seems like the elements of a seemingly directionless, though entertaining, tale together into a rather complex tapestry of politics and character...and then there's the last twenty percent or so--where it all kind of explodes. The ending actually took me by surprise and I'm quite interested in seeing where it is going. 

The only real criticism, and I'm not sure if it's really a criticism of the writing so much as a personal taste thing, is that I miss the depth and breadth of world-building that my favorite fantasies have. It's not so much that it's not there...there is history. There are realms in this world mentioned but unexplored, glimpses of history...but I don't...FEEL it. There's a lack of specificity or something to it all. I don't sense the world. Part of that might be the fact that much of the novel is stuck inside the claustrophobic world of Buckkeep(other than a few outings, on sea and land) but it's also just the way it's written. I think Hobb is about characters first and foremost.



Robin Hobb's books, all of which are set within the same world, are more influential than I first thought. Recommended to fans fo fantasy.