Book Review: Assassin’s Fate
- Author: Robin Hobb
- Series: Fitz and the Fool #3
- 847 pages, Hardcover
- First published May 4, 2017
From the story of Fitz
Exactly one year ago, when I finished Assassin’s Apprentice, which began my adventure in the Ancestral World, I said it was one of the best books I’d come across.
To this day, I stand by my words!
12 books later, “Assassin’s Fate” ended the best fantasy series I’ve ever read.
I’ll admit it: it’s hard for me to write an unbiased opinion about books I love so much. It won’t work, so I’ll share my feelings about them without promising that they’ll be the same for you as they’re for me.
The story of the life, love and adventures of Fitz the royal bastard is probably the only book that has broken my heart in every way imaginable. And yet it made me want to keep reading.
Growing up from a lonely orphan to someone with a life experience I wouldn’t wish on anyone made him the most memorable real life character in my “humble” literary experience. I’d have wished for a different fate for the character I’ve followed for so long. But he had the most logical…
“Does life ever get easy?
Just for a few moments, my dear. Just for a few moments.”
The appearance of all the memorable, or rather surviving, characters from Hobb’s other books was, of course, very exciting. Traders from the rainforest, living ships, people from the pirate islands and more gathered one last time and became entangled in a whirlwind of events surrounding the fate of the assassin and his mission. On that note, if you don’t know the other books in this world, the latest Fitz and the Fool trilogy won’t be dense enough for you.
The stories of Robin Hobb
I understand the somewhat polar opinions on the dear author’s works. She tells stories that not everyone wants to hear… or is ready to hear. Stories that are so painfully true that it’s hard to swallow them and still remain the same person. There is a fair amount of violence in every form in these books. If you’re a parent, the last part especially will shake you.
Beyond that, though, there is absolutely haunting, beautiful prose that evokes the calm of a quiet fire in the fireplace at home.
“Assassin’s Fate”
will destroy what little happiness you’ve seen in her previous books by showing things as they always were and as they should be. If you’ve let your guard down after “Fitz and the Fool”, I can tell you that there are no bedtime stories here. But ones that blow all expectations out of the water – typical of the author’s style. And yet… this is the perfect, bold and well-developed ending that the series deserves.
If you’re not one of those people who can accept Robin Hobb’s “Retribution’ in its rawest form, then this isn’t your book.
I’m closing the last page and putting Hobb first in my collection of books that will always be in my library.
More than twenty years ago, the first epic fantasy novel featuring FitzChivalry Farseer and his mysterious, often maddening friend the Fool struck like a bolt of brilliant lightning. Now New York Times bestselling author Robin Hobb brings to a momentous close the third trilogy featuring these beloved characters in a novel of unsurpassed artistry that is sure to endure as one of the great masterworks of the genre.
Fitz’s young daughter, Bee, has been kidnapped by the Servants, a secret society whose members not only dream of possible futures but use their prophecies to add to their wealth and influence. Bee plays a crucial part in these dreams—but just what part remains uncertain.
As Bee is dragged by her sadistic captors across half the world, Fitz and the Fool, believing her dead, embark on a mission of revenge that will take them to the distant island where the Servants reside—a place the Fool once called home and later called prison. It was a hell the Fool escaped, maimed and blinded, swearing never to return.
For all his injuries, however, the Fool is not as helpless as he seems. He is a dreamer too, able to shape the future. And though Fitz is no longer the peerless assassin of his youth, he remains a man to be reckoned with—deadly with blades and poison, and adept in Farseer magic. And their goal is simple: to make sure not a single Servant survives their scourge.
