Compromise and Conceit

Now that this monkey is finally off my back I can write about it. I just finished the third book of this hideously long trilogy (Assassin’s Apprentice, Royal Assassin and Assassin’s Quest) by Robin Hobb, which I have seen about for many years and never got around to reading – partly because I’ve largely given up on trashy fantasy trilogies. However, my friend recommended it to me, and I regretted it within about 1000 pages of starting (which is 999 more than most fantasy trilogies, I grant you).

These novels are nicely written, with a prose style my fellow sufferers have described as “lyrical”. I’m not sure what this means but it seems to fit so I’ll run with it. It’s not lyrical like The Wanderer (that beautiful old english poem) but it’s got a kind of flow and lilt[1] to it and a careful choice of words which makes it quite powerfully evocative of a simple, romantic fantasy world. It also (apart from 300 or so pages in the last part of the third book) has a wicked plot that keeps you well engaged and needing to find out what happens next.

Unfortunately it has a significant problem – it constantly requires suspension of disbelief. Not disbelief as in “you can’t do that” when someone uses magic. Disbelief as in “no-one could be that stupid” when for the 88th time a supposedly intelligent person fails to see the obvious glaring risk to their life, wealth, future and loved ones that is right under their nose. FitzChivalry, particularly, must be the stupidest character in print. He makes Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever seem like a happy-go-lucky, proactive kind of guy. Particularly in the third book, where it seems like the plot slips a bit and everything starts to wander.

Also, for a series of books about an assassin, there really weren’t enough assassinations. However, this was balanced by some quite nice ideas about magic, time, prophecies and the like which I thought quite refreshing for a trashy fantasy trilogy. Also, mostly, there were no elves or Dwarves or monsters of any kind. Yay.

Overall, original and fun but very very frustrating. Make sure nothing valuable is in front of you when you read the second and third books!

—

fn1: mostly. There are occasional jarring moments where modern business speak intrudes. But one can’t fault it really – I can’t imagine the editor who could plough through 2500 pages of this stuff and find all the little moments where the style slips