The Wilful Princess and the Piebald Prince by Robin Hobb
Published by Harper Voyager, October 2013; in the US by Subterranean Press.
160 pages
ISBN: 978-0007498130
Review by Mark Yon
I always find it’s a pleasure returning to Robin’s world of the Farseer. Her characters are often flawed, yet the world building is superlative and the style is crafted to a wonderfully polished sheen. Not a word is extraneous, not a moment wasted.
So some may be both intrigued and disappointed in this latest tale, a novella sized package of two tales, the first of Princess Caution, the second of The Piebald Prince.
One of the darkest legends in the Realm of the Elderlings recounts the tale of the so-called Piebald Prince, a Witted pretender to the throne unseated by the actions of brave nobles so that the Farseer line could continue untainted. The story is told here through the account of Felicity, a low-born companion of the Princess Caution at Buckkeep.
With Felicity by her side, Caution grows into a headstrong Queen-in-Waiting. But when Caution gives birth to a bastard son who shares the piebald markings of his father’s horse, Felicity is the one who raises him. And as the prince comes to power, political intrigue sparks dangerous whispers about the Wit that will change the kingdom forever…
This is a dark tale and not always pleasant reading. The world of the Farseer is quite brutal, and the characters are not always pleasant, nor endearing. Neverheless, the skill of the writer is to make this story memorable and one that lives long after you’ve read it. The language and the world building both make this quite striking, and for those who know later tales in the series, it has more than one level of understanding. As well as being a tale of courtly politics, hidden secrets and dastardly deeds, it is also a tale of the Wit and how the Witted became so reviled in the lands by the time of Assassin’s Apprentice.
The story is entertaining enough as a stand-alone, and can be read without any pre-knowledge. Though the tale’s length is brief, its skill in telling and the consummate craft of its writing show an author fully in control of her abilities. In the end, it was a bittersweet tale that left me wanting more.
Mark Yon, December 2013.
