FitzChivalry Farseer, bastard, assassin, Tom Badgerlock the Holder, Catalyst, Prince, and father. He has been all these things, he has died and been brought back to life. Father, and avenging father in particular is what drives him most in Assassin’s Fate, the finale to the Fitz and the Fool trilogy, and quite possibly* the final novel her overarching coda to all stories in The Realm of the Elderlings. Fitz is a character I’ve been following for nearly twenty years, so this novel holds much weight on multiple levels.
Expect some spoilers in the review…
The stunning conclusion to Robin Hobb’s Fitz and the Fool trilogy, which began with Fool’s Assassin and Fool’s Quest
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.
Assassin’s Fate picks up the story of Fitz and his longtime companion, the Fool, also known as Beloved, or the White Prophet to some, and Amber to still others. Hobb follows two first-person narratives – Fitz as he seeks out the Servants, those who abducted (and Fitz thinks killed) his daughter Bee and Bee herself as she is a prisoner by those who had tortured the Fool, setting in motion the events of this trilogy. In Fitz’s quest for revenge against his daughter’s captors, he and the Fool find themselves at odds with each other, years apart having driven a rift of distrust between the two companions. The Fool is a broken person, Fitz is a father robbed of his daughter. The distrust becomes an even wider gulf when Fitz and the Fool find themselves with at first Queen Malta of the Rain Wilds, then the Bingtown Traders Althea Vestrit and Brashen Trell and the Liveship Paragon. Readers who have been following Hobb’s Elderlings novels know what an issue this may present; the Bingtown Traders know the male Fool as the female Amber. The connections between the Liveship novels and Farseer/Tawny Man novels was always known, it was touched upon towards the finale of the Tawny Man trilogy, but the connection comes together wholly here in Assassin’s Fate. Hobb being the writer she is, the comingling of these two once separate groups is not exactly painless. As hinted, the Fitz-Amber relationship is not quite the same as the Fitz-Fool relationship and Fitz is less than pleased. It doesn’t help that the face carved into the Liveship Paragon strongly resembles Fitz.
To say that Assassin’s Fate is a complicated novel is an understatement. It is a novel packed with heart-wrenching, gut-tearing emotion. It is the culmination of so many things that preceded it (in other words, this is very, very far from the place to start reading Robin Hobb), from what exactly Fitz is as the Catalyst, his complex relationship with the Fool, his role as father, Bee’s questions about herself, as well as Dragons, Prophets, and Liveships. Hobb’s ability to interweave twenty years of stories, plot, and milieu elements together in this novel is a beautiful, staggering work of artistic genius. To go into details in the review (as I’ve said many times in reviews) is to rob the reader of the wonder of discovering Hobb’s masterful interweaving themselves.
Personally speaking, I’ve been reading these books for nearly twenty years myself. Few characters have been with me for as long as FitzChivalry Farseer, save maybe Rand al’Thor and Roland Deschain. Like those characters, I felt as if I’ve lived with them, experienced their pain which far outweighed the joys and triumphs those characters experienced. Whereas Rand and Roland aged only slightly. Fitz was introduced as a young boy, he loved and lost, had brief time of comfort and joy, and matured to an old man over these books, he’s grown from child to father, even died and resurrected.. Hobb’s ability to evoke emotion through her carefully crafted prose has always been a strength and Assassin’s Fate is the culmination of that skill.
Assassin’s Fate may be one of the most apt and wonderfully crafted series finales I can remember reading. I was so absorbed in the novel, I read the last half of it (nearly 500 pages) over the course of two days, basically picking up the book in the morning unable to do anything aside from walk my dog until I finished the book. Like the finale to Stephen King’s Dark Tower saga, I found myself fighting back tears reading through the end of the novel.
I’ll end this with a thank you to Robin Hobb: Thank you for gifting readers with such wonderfully wrought, believable characters and taking them on such an entrancing journey over the last two decades.
Highly, highly recommended.
*In the novels featuring FitzChivalry Farseer, Hobb utilized first person narrative. For most of those novels (as pointed out in earlier reviews in this series), that first person was Fitz himself. In the first book in this trilogy, Hobb introduced a new narrator: Bee. While this novel brings to close the tale of the Fool and Fitz, there’s potential for Bee’s story to continue.
© 2017 Rob H. Bedford
Hardcover, 864 Pages
Published by Del Rey, May 2017
Review copy courtesy of the publisher
http://www.robinhobb.com
I haven’t read your review since I’m reading the book RIGHT NOW. All I can say is that the first few chapters have me hooked (again). I love the characters, the world, everything Ms Hobb throws at us, even when she’s torturing our loved ones. (sniff) Please let this not be the last of the line.
Great review. Like you, I did nothing but read and exercise my dog while finishing it!