Assassin's Fate

Rating: 4.5

Assassin's Fate is an excellent finale to a phenomenal series. It carries through on all the talent and skill Hobb has been honing since Assassin's Apprentice especially as she pulls together everything to present what only feels like the correct conclusion to Fitz's story. My heart was worn ragged by the emotions throughout and I wouldn't have had it any other way.

That said, I cannot express how little I empathized with the Fool in this final trilogy which was disappointing since I liked him so much more prior to it. There was also yet another false death that I felt was completely pointless to the plot especially considering overcoming that false death only meant a delay to the inevitable. For these reasons, the rating show more ended up at 4.5 instead of 5. show less

She did it. Robin Hobb’s Assassin’s Fate might have started slowly—as did the prior books in her Fitz and the Fool trilogy—but the middle was worth the wait. And the ending was sublime.

The beginning drags for a few reasons: Fitz doesn’t know his daughter Bee is alive, but we do, a dynamic that saps tension. (In this trilogy, Hobb frequently withholds knowledge from her characters but not the reader. One or two instances is fine, but it started to feel like a crutch to me.) The lore about Clerres, the home of the false prophets who kidnapped Bee, is repeated a bit too often. And on the way there to take revenge, Fitz and his companions encounter a host of characters from The Liveship Traders trilogy and The Rain Wild show more Chronicles, related series set in the same world.

I probably would have enjoyed the interludes more if I’d read those books. But they slowed the story for me, mostly because Fitz is a bystander as protagonists from other tales take their turn on what should be his stage. The Fool knows them—he appears in their books—but I would have preferred it if Fitz had a more active role during the long journey to Clerres. He does little planning for his assault on the false prophets’ stronghold, and the few things of import that happen before then aren’t his doing. Yes, he’s emotionally battered, but he’s still remarkably passive for a character Hobb fashioned as a Catalyst, a disrupter of the timestream. At one point, he even admits this. “Since we had come aboard Paragon,” he says, referring to one of the Liveships that sails him to Clerres, “I had felt control of my plans slipping ever farther from my grip. Not for the first time, I wished I’d come alone and unhampered.” I felt that way too.

But when we finally get to Clerres, the story’s long fuse burns down to its core, and the plot explodes. The attack-turned-rescue-mission begins. Fire and fighting break out. Fitz’s companions prove themselves. Bee becomes even more compelling. And dragons add to the chaos. This section of the novel was exhilarating, and it sets up the beautiful ending, which I won’t spoil aside from saying it’s still with me. Fitz’s fate is fitting.

One other thing I liked: throughout the series, the Fool’s gender has been an open question. He takes on several personalities, some female. No one is quite sure of his true nature, and at one point, the mystery bothers Fitz a great deal. But by Assassin’s Fate, he’s in his sixties and more relaxed about issues of identity. “I’ve known him for many years,” he explains to another of their cohort, “in many guises. He was King Shrewd’s jester when I was a boy. The Fool. Then Lord Golden. Mage Gray. And now Lady Amber. All different. Yet always my friend.” There’s no resolution here, but it struck me as a good place to leave it—by acknowledging that the relationship mattered more than its exact definition.

So: my favorite fantasy saga not named Lord of the Rings is over. I might check out The Liveship Traders and The Rain Wild Chronicles eventually. But for now, I’m going to let Fitz’s tale linger in my memory. What a great ride.

(For more reviews like this one, see www.nickwisseman.com) show less

Everything you love about Robin Hobb's stories, and everything that exasperates you. The grain of long sea voyages, the rapid fire action, the abuse, the care it's all there. Fitz is so doggedly himself that you still want to hit him upside the head, and we rejoice at each long or not so long favored character is pulled from destruction more than we applaud the baddies going down. Alas, there are grievous losses, but some structure for future tales to hang.

Dedication : “To Fitz and the Fool. My best friends for over 20 twenty years” - OMG, OMG. I absolutely loved, loved this book and am going to enthuse like a total fan girl about it. The dedication alone made me emotional. I’ve waited for the series to be completely published before reading it plus I wanted to reread most of the previous 4 series before tackling it. And I am very glad I did as I think it would have been less effective if I had not. And I bawled – I spent the last 30 pages or so crying. Ms Hobb is one of the few authors who can do that to me. It was sad, it was happy, it was bittersweet and it was the perfect ending. This is one of my favourite ever series.
Everything else I have to say will have to be spoiler show more tagged. One of the reasons I love this series so much is that Fitz is so human. He is emotional. He doubts that anyone really loves him, yet he loves everyone around him so much that he has constant guilt that he has failed them even when there was nothing he could have done about it. Despite the many times that people prove to him that they do love him, he never quite believes it, so that even at the end he will not ask the Fool to join him in Wolf Dragon. The only creature he truly believed loved him was Nighteyes. When Bee yells at the Fool, “He loved you more than he ever loved any of the rest of us!” it hurts but it’s also true. And the Fool himself becomes more vulnerable himself in this series. He was always a mystery to us as he was to Fitz but here he is broken and uncertain of Fitz. And it is Fitz who knows that it is the three of them that make a complete creature.
Bee grew on me too even as she became scarred both physically and emotionally. I was so glad that we get more of Kettricken here at the end and I thought she might go into the Wolf Dragon too for a bit. But when Fitz gives Bee to her, that was so right, both for Kettricken and Bee. And the final sentence…..
I have sometimes wondered if as you get older you lose that ability to totally fall in love with a book, in that way you did when you were a teenager. But this series has proved to me that it doesn’t go away, it perhaps becomes harder but I did fall in love with this book and the series and the characters. Will there be another series with Bee at the centre? I don’t know but I’ll read it if there is. show less

I started reading the Fitz books they were first published and I was in high-school. Reading this book was a culmination of decades of reading and re-reading about these characters and this world. I tend to read fast, but this was a book I took more slowly and savored, and was glad that it was long and a bit rambling. I really can't think of another story I have read that has spanned as long as this one and in which the characters almost aged in real time.

In the book Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians Alcatraz argues that author's are evil people because they create lovable characters and then proceed to do terrible things to them, and that authors love to torture people and/or make them squirm. If any author fits this description it show more is Robin Hobb.

She gave Fitz a happily ever after, and then said never mind. How many times did she kill poor Fitz and bring him back to life?

There were lots of things I loved about this book. I loved how humans are "put in their place" by dragons. I loved Motley and his sarcastic remarks to Fitz. I loved that Nighteyes was in this book. I loved how the Rain Wild series and Ship series intertwined with this one and how it made me appreciate those stories more. I loved when Fitz met Paragon. This was an emotional story and lots of tears were shed. show less

Assassin’s Fate is the third and final book in author Robin Hobb’s The Fitz and the Fool series. But it is not just an ending to this series but an end to many of the different stories in Hobbs’ Realm of the Elderlings epic fantasy told over 16 books in 5 series. I’m not sure how long it’s been since I read Assassin’s Apprentice, the very first book in the Realm written in 1995, on the recommendation of a friend but, from the first page, I was hooked.

It is hard to write a review of Assassin’s Fate without giving anything away but I really want to avoid spoilers here. Was it perfect – no, at times it dragged just a little, at times, it felt just a bit repetitive, and it could have been a tad shorter. And it is definitely show more not a standalone – to really appreciate the story, it is necessary to have read at least some of the other books and not just the other two in this series.

But, you know what, none of that really mattered. The characters, the adventure, the surprises, the absolute roller coaster ride both in the plot and the emotions it created made these flaws, which would have been huge in a lesser series, just seem like kindness on Hobbs’ part, a chance for the reader to catch their breath and get their emotions in check. And trust me, if it is true that Assassin’s Fate can’t be read as a standalone, if you haven’t read the other books but you would like a chance to immerse yourself in some of the best fantasy around, I can’t recommend the entire Realm of the Elderlings highly enough.

Hobbs has the ability to make even the most violent of characters sympathetic and to make readers care about them. Fitz and the Fool and many of the other characters have become like friends, people whose fate mattered to me. I have read several other reviews in which the writers talked of how they were crying by the end. I swore that I would not let this happen but Hobbs made a liar out of me. By the end, I had shed more than a few of my own tears. The story was compelling, heartbreaking, and satisfying throughout. The ending may not have been the one that I had hoped for but it was absolutely the right one.

I must say though that although I was satisfied with the way that this series and several of the others were completed and I have to thank Ms Hobbs for giving me so much pleasure over the last couple of decades, I really hope that there will be more entries in the Realm of the Elderlings because I miss the characters and the world already.

Thanks to Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review show less

"This is our last hunt, old wolf. And as we have always done, we go to it together."

Assassin's Fate is the final book in both The Fitz and the Fool trilogy and the Realm of the Elderlings as a whole. And what an end! I finished this book a couple days ago and that ending still has me conflicted. It is bitter and it is sweet. If you've read the prior books then you know approximately what to expect. Amazing characters, real feeling relationships, a slow pace, beautiful prose and an author that is brutal the characters we love until it's all brought together in one epic climax of story lines. The reason I rated this one at 4 stars instead of 5 is there are some serious pacing issues where the middle slowed down so much I almost set the show more book aside, a lot of repetition in one story line in particular and I'm still a little mad at the end. After talking about it with a friend (thank you @YouKneek!) I do think that the ending itself, with Fitz carving his wolf-dragon and then melting into it, was very appropriate. What has upset me is the events leading up and the timing. I almost wish he'd have died in the tunnel explosion as that had so much emotional impact for me. After miraculously saving himself and dragging himself half way around the world to get home, I feel slightly robbed that Fitz's ultimate end was given as Bee's POV as it wasn't as impactful as I was wanting. I wish Hobb had written just a paragraph or two of his feelings as he's rejoined by Nighteyes and the Fool as they all end in the wolf-dragon together. That would've had me crying my eyes out and given me the closure I was looking for.

My gripe aside, this series is fantastic. It's epic fantasy of the highest caliber. I look forward to rereading the whole thing at some point in the future. show less