J's Pages

by Robin Hobb 

So I succumbed to the temptation of a proverbial "bag of books" from the Library. I asked for some science fiction/fantasy and was given a stack of three. I wasn't expecting to like this one. As characters, assassins hold no appeal for me. I mean, if you talk about a character with cool skills in stealth and weapons, I think of the 1970's era Batman who was able to defeat his opponents without killing them. (Or even hurting them much, but I digress.) Fortunately Ms. Hobb really hasn't written a tale of an assassin in this volume. This is the tale of a boy--an illegitimate child of a prince and a commoner--who is abandoned by his mother and her family and dumped into the lap of the royal family. The father, the heir apparent, also forsakes the child, leaving him to the care of his stablemaster while he abdicates his position and goes off to reside in exile with his wife. The boy, Fitz, grows up in the royal community at the keep. At first he's mostly ignored, but later is selected by the king to be trained in secret as an assassin. As Fitz grows, life swirls about him. People drop in and out of his life; troubles occur in the kingdom. By the time he stepped into his disagreeable role, I was hooked by the characters and world Ms. Hobb created. It's a book definitely worth checking out. 

LibraryThing link

Labels: CheckItOut

// posted by John @ 2:54 PM