Royal Assassin

The Farseer Trilogy, Book 2

By: Robin Hobb

Narrated by: Paul Boehmer

Length: 29 hrs and 17 mins

Publisher's summary

Young Fitz, the illegitimate son of the noble Prince Chivalry, is ignored by all royalty except the devious King Shrewd, who has had him tutored him in the dark arts of the assassin. He has barely survived his first, soul-shattering mission, and when he returns to the court, he is thrown headfirst into the tumult of royal life.

With the king near death, and Fitz's only ally off on a seemingly hopeless quest, the throne itself is threatened.

Meanwhile, the treacherous Red Ship Raiders have renewed their attacks on the Six Duchies, slaughtering the inhabitants of entire seaside towns. In this time of great peril, it soon becomes clear that the fate of the kingdom may rest in Fitz's hands - and his role in its salvation may require the ultimate sacrifice.

©1999 Robin Hobb (P)2010 Tantor

Critic reviews

“Hobb manages to create a kingdom that looks like a fairy tale but feels like the real world---which makes it almost impossible not to become immersed in Hobb's fantasy epic.” ( Publishers Weekly)

What a cruel story

This book is hard to read. The pain that the author puts the main character through is seemingly endless, but I couldn’t put the darn book down until it was over. I do highly recommend this read but prepare yourself for a spiraling depression once you finish it.

i guess the headline is not (Optional)

The narrator reads sorrow better than any i have heard. The story is great, beast magic and kings.

A good story held back by incompetent characters

I listened to this book right after the first. The epilogue tells us that everything is well, the leash is being yanked on our bad guy (and he's made to look somewhat incompetent or misled). This book throws all that away. I greatly enjoy the day to day of our protagonist and his friends, the characters are great and the voice talent is greatly acted.

Where this book falls short is where any lazy writing fails: incompetent good guys. One of my major issues with any story is where the bad guys do well because they are smart and capable, but because the good guys are just stupid. This story is FULL of that, and some of it can be forgiven due to the main characters youth, but much of it cannot.

Much of the reasoning behind why so much is ignored, so much plotting (out in the open no less) goes unremarked, unsolved, is due to oaths and loyalty. It appears that it is so easy to usurp a throne. Our main character is a spy/assassin with no network or allies. He lacks any kind of information spying or wetwork in this story. He's constantly told to ignore the problem, despite knowing there is one.

The king and king in waiting are incompetent and disconnected. Somehow neither of them have loyal followers or a spy network working for them. No one at any time appears to work to disrupt the bad guys in the castle, or try to infiltrate them. The best we get is "you should go see the king". That line gets CONSTANTLY repeated, we are CONSTANTLY reminded of the plotting, yet no one does anything to subvert it. There are hints that part of this reason is another character being gone, but there should be SOMEONE there that can make these decisions. Throughout the story I kept asking "okay, but like, where's the dude that would handle that?".

There is but ONE guy who would "handle that" and somehow the bad guy just has control of him, in every case. I understand that there is SOME conflict between giving your king your word and loyalty NOT to do a thing. But if ignoring that thing leads to his death or the ruination of his legacy, is that not worse? Constantly I kept wondering when the poisoning would come, even just something to remind the bad guy that, yes you too can be touched and we HAVE noticed. Or hey what about an accidental trip down the stairs? Maybe something important is missing from his chambers and placed elsewhere? I understand they need to be doing the bad stuff for our story to move, but the total lack of retaliation constantly being shoved in our face just keeps reminding that any kind of competence should've been able to deal with this plot.

A good tale, I did not see the ending coming.

I liked this better than the first book. To the wolf, we are pack.

Among the absolute best!

This series is so good, I've listened to it twice and I'm on my third listen, in three or so years, and it's still just so good.
There are some things which make this series speak to me, personally. One of those things is the way that animal characters are presented as emotional and intelligent, and mattering,
The world created in these books is a sort of medieval Europe plus some magic, and the system of magic is interesting.
If you enjoy fantasy, I highly recommend this series, and anything else by Robin Hobb.

Better than book 1

I really enjoyed the first book but book 2 is even better. I can't wait to read book 3.

Fitz and the Fool

Robin Hobb is a true master of the fantasy genre. The story of Fitz is a coming of age book, which almost has a Shakespearian and Arthurian air. There is something for everyone in the series of Fitz books.

I could probably speak for hours on the merits of this series, but I won’t waste your time, that you could be spending listening to this series instead.

AUDIBLE 20 REVIEW SWEEPSTAKES ENTRY

good but could be great

This story definitely gets better as it moves along. there is fantastic character growth and storyline developement. However, i was left a bit disappointed with how little of action there was. it's almost like the word "assassin" shouldn't be in the title, for there was so little that dealt with actual assassin work....

Use the Wit!

Where does Royal Assassin rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

It's a solid 20 year old fantasy novel, and while I like it, it doesn't always read like a contemporary fantasy novel along the same style as Pat Rothfuss, Kevin Hearne, or even Lev Grossman. It's from a different time in fantasy writing.

What did you like best about this story?

I like that the narrative all takes place with Fitz like in book one.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No. While this is a really good book, it could use editing. It traverses a quite a bit of time and I still cannot for the life of me figure out why Fitz can't go murder a guy who quite deserves it other than story, it doesn't make a lick of sense.

Any additional comments?

Editing, this book could use some editing. It felt really long and while stuff was always being set-up or happening, I still feel it could use some editing and cut a handful of hours from the story. It would improve the story and the pacing, granted the book is 21 years old, but it feels like it got bloated. I'd cut parts of the Molly scenes, Verity scenes, and scenes with Nighteyes. Not completely of course, but enough to trim the book and make it a tighter story.

Love this story!!!

Engaging on a thousand different levels! Robin Hobb is a master of weaving inner conflict, detailed characters, and a wonderfully thick plot. And with word craft that makes it all ring like a bell. Lovely as always.