Fool's Errand

Possibly the most absorbing in the series yet... this is definitely a miss-your-subway-stop, sneak-it-at-your-desk-at-work, stay-up-way-too-late kinda book!
It's been 15 years... FitzChivalry has taken on the identity of Tom Badgerlock, and has been finally living the simple life he always wanted, a near hermit in a rural cottage, alone except for his adopted son Hap, and occasional visits from the minstrel Starling. But events seem to conspire to end this quiet time... Fitz says no to Chade's request to return to Buckkeep to tutor his genetic son, Prince Dutiful, in the ways of the magic that he is born to. But when the Fool, now in the guise of the wealthy and alluring Lord Golden, reveals that Dutiful has gone missing, there seems no show more option but to accede to Queen Kettricken's wish that they go on a mission to find him before the Prince's impending bethrothal to an OutIsland princess... But are they merely seeking a rebellious runaway, or is a more sinister plot behind the Prince's absence? Sentiment against the Witted (those who have the ability to communicate with an animal partner) is on the rise, and many innocents have been brutally lynched. The secret political group calling themselves the Piebalds, who claim to be working for the rights of those who have the Wit, are not helping with their antics. Fitz' bond with his wolf partner, Nighteyes, is more of a liability than ever, now... show less

In this follow-up to the Farseer and Liveship Traders trilogies, we once again follow FitzChivalry, who has retreated into seclusion since the events of Assassin's Quest and has spent the last 15 years making a life for himself with his wolf, Nighteyes, and his foster son, Hap. But old friends come knocking at his door, and it seems his Queen Kettricken has need of Fitz once again to save young Prince Dutiful from a new threat.

It's been years since I read these books -- I read this trilogy and the Farseer books in high school. The Farseer books spoke to me more then, following a younger Fitz as he comes of age, and I remember enjoying this trilogy but not as much as the first one. It was a joy to reread this and come back to an older, show more more weathered, and perhaps wiser Fitz as an adult. Robin Hobb is the master of the slow burn and the complex character -- in some ways this book doesn't truly kick off until almost halfway through, but I savored the slow parts as beloved characters reacquainted themselves and caught each other up on their lives. The end nearly broke me. 5 stars. show less

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96 points, 5 STARS!

Quote:

I reflected that perhaps I had been far more spoiled in my youth than I had ever known. Excellent horses, good tack, fine weapons, decent clothing, plentiful food: I had taken so much for granted.

Review:
I thought I was better, I thought I had recovered enough after the end of Assassin's Quest. I had read Liveship Traders. I thought I would be good.

I was not good.

I was a bundle of tears. I could not stop crying. I thought I gave myself enough time. It wasn't enough time. I don't think fifteen years would have been enough time. I was like an endless faucet of tears.

Being back with my Fitz was like coming home to my best friend. I love him, and was so show more happy. but he was still the same as he was when we left him. Fitz is still a broken person. A bit more content, perhaps, but still the exact same as we left him, all those years ago. And it broke.my.heart. Then the Fool shows up again, and I was as happy as the Fool was when they saw each other again. The bromance is real.

Fool's Errand book starts out slow, but I didn't care. I was with Fitz again. In the beginning, there was a lot of catching up to do. We see Fitz, we hear how the previous few years have gone for him. We cried for him a bunch. And then Chade shows up and fucks up Fitz's content life, asking Fitz to do something no one should have the right to ask of him And then the Fool shows up, and it is like my entire life was lit up inside and everything was going to be alright. Of course the Fool was going to show up, because dire portents are on the horizon and shit is about to go all wrong again.

And it does all go wrong. I love Robin Hobb.

Prince Dutiful, Fitz's son (though no one knows this but him and the Fool) and heir to the throne of the Six Duchies, has gone missing. Fitz has been recalled to duty find him, by any means necessary, before anyone finds out Dutiful is missing. There is also increased animosity against the Witted, and people are dying as a result. And it all clashes together in only a way Hobb can pull off. The search is long and it is hard. It has the worst consequences and it hurts my very soul to read. I wouldn't have it any other way.

And then that ending. Good god. So many tears. So much despair. I don't know how I'll manage to make myself read book two. Except for the same reason I was able to read all the other books from this amazing, evil woman: I need to see Fitz become happy.

Well, that sure isn't about to happen any time soon.

Also, in case you were wondering: Yes, the events of the Liveship Traders trilogy does influence the Tawny Man trilogy. Completely and totally directly influences. Perhaps you could read this without reading Liveship Traders and get as much out of it. I highly doubt it, though. I really don't recommend skipping that trilogy just because you want to get back to Fitz.96 points, 5 STARS!
Blurb:
Fifteen years have passed since the end of the Red Ship War with the terrifying Outislanders. Since then, Fitz has wandered the world accompanied only by his wolf and Wit-partner, Nighteyes, finally settling in a tiny cottage as remote from Buckkeep and the Farseers as possible.
But lately the world has come crashing in again. The Witted are being persecuted because of their magical bonds with animals; and young Prince Dutiful has gone missing just before his crucial diplomatic wedding to an Outislander princess. Fitz’s assignment to fetch Dutiful back in time for the ceremony seems very much like a fool’s errand, but the dangers ahead could signal the end of the Farseer reign.

Quote:

I reflected that perhaps I had been far more spoiled in my youth than I had ever known. Excellent horses, good tack, fine weapons, decent clothing, plentiful food: I had taken so much for granted.

Review:
I thought I was better, I thought I had recovered enough after the end of Assassin's Quest. I had read Liveship Traders. I thought I would be good.

I was not good.

I was a bundle of tears. I could not stop crying. I thought I gave myself enough time. It wasn't enough time. I don't think fifteen years would have been enough time. I was like an endless faucet of tears.

Being back with my Fitz was like coming home to my best friend. I love him, and was so happy. but he was still the same as he was when we left him. Fitz is still a broken person. A bit more content, perhaps, but still the exact same as we left him, all those years ago. And it broke.my.heart. Then the Fool shows up again, and I was as happy as the Fool was when they saw each other again. The bromance is real.

Fool's Errand book starts out slow, but I didn't care. I was with Fitz again. In the beginning, there was a lot of catching up to do. We see Fitz, we hear how the previous few years have gone for him. We cried for him a bunch. And then Chade shows up and fucks up Fitz's content life, asking Fitz to do something no one should have the right to ask of him And then the Fool shows up, and it is like my entire life was lit up inside and everything was going to be alright. Of course the Fool was going to show up, because dire portents are on the horizon and shit is about to go all wrong again.

And it does all go wrong. I love Robin Hobb.

Prince Dutiful, Fitz's son (though no one knows this but him and the Fool) and heir to the throne of the Six Duchies, has gone missing. Fitz has been recalled to duty find him, by any means necessary, before anyone finds out Dutiful is missing. There is also increased animosity against the Witted, and people are dying as a result. And it all clashes together in only a way Hobb can pull off. The search is long and it is hard. It has the worst consequences and it hurts my very soul to read. I wouldn't have it any other way.

And then that ending. Good god. So many tears. So much despair. I don't know how I'll manage to make myself read book two. Except for the same reason I was able to read all the other books from this amazing, evil woman: I need to see Fitz become happy.

Well, that sure isn't about to happen any time soon.

Also, in case you were wondering: Yes, the events of the Liveship Traders trilogy does influence the Tawny Man trilogy. Completely and totally directly influences. Perhaps you could read this without reading Liveship Traders and get as much out of it. I highly doubt it, though. I really don't recommend skipping that trilogy just because you want to get back to Fitz. show less

Fitz's days as a royal assassin are behind him. Having saved the Six Duchies and secured the Farseer throne, Fitz is happy to let most of the world think he's dead and retire to a simple life of exile with Nighteyes. Destiny, it seems, has other ideas. Prince Dutiful, heir to the throne, has disappeared. Fitz has been called again to serve his Queen and the Six Duchies to retrieve the Prince before he misses his betrothal ceremony, a necessary political event to ensure peace between kingdoms. Soon Fitz sets out on a seemly simple errand unaware of the web of treachery he's about to stumble into.

Fool's Errand is the first in Robin Hobb's Tawny Man trilogy. The story picks up 15 years after events in The Farseer Trilogy. The story is a show more slow build told from Fitz's first person point of view. Unlike other authors that beat readers over the head with reminders of what happened in previous books, Hobb works the high points in a way that flows naturally with the story while also filling us in on what happened to Fitz and Nighteyes in the years between stories. We are caught up on his current life and the new persona Fitz has adopted, Tom Badgerlock, and find he has been raising a boy, whom he loves like a son. Fitz has more than earned his rest and yet it is time for him to re-enter the world as it is his blend of abilities and skills that make him the one person uniquely qualified to find the prince.

As always, Robin Hobb is a master storyteller. Her characters are utterly believable. They are flawed and act on motivations based on their world view. They make mistakes and suffer the consequences. Fitz is the both the same and different. He's older and a tad wiser now though elements of the lovable boy we watched grow up are still there. His bond with Nighteyes has deepened and he understands the Wit much better now. Nighteyes, too, is starting to feel his age. He's no longer the young pup he used to be and has lived much longer than the average wolf. The Fool is back and a joy to read. We gain more insight into his background and his interactions with the other characters is phenomenal. Yet that bit of mystery around the Fool remains.

The plot, while initially simple, has a lot of twists and turns. Just as you think you understand where things are going, events twist and then twist again. The pacing is well done. The slow build pays off well with a climax that will keep you reading long into the night. All lose ends are nicely tied up in the end. I know this is just the first book in a trilogy but it could almost be read stand alone.

I laughed. I cried. I was swept away to far lands and completely immersed in the characters, the world and their story. Highly recommended. show less

Reading some authors (Jim Butcher, for example) is like downing a shot: the experience is fast and fiery, with no time to catch your breath before you’re done. Reading other authors is like sipping something mellower and savoring the flavor. Robin Hobb is my favorite vintage for this.

I loved her Farseer Trilogy, but I’d been delaying starting her next one because I knew how fully it would suck me in. Waiting didn’t lessen its hold: I read most of Fool’s Errand, the 670-page opening to her Tawny Man trilogy, in less than a day. (I guess I didn’t really sip this one.)

Not because Fool’s Errand is a perfect book; it starts extremely slowly. Fitz Chivalry, the protagonist and narrator, doesn’t leave his secluded homestead and show more launch the story until page 221. Yet in the interim, Fitz receives several visitors, and their conversations fill in the fifteen years since the last book ended. I didn’t necessarily need the details, but I delighted in hanging out with these characters again. Fitz, Nighteyes, the Fool, Chade—they don’t have to be saving the world for me to be interested in what they’re doing.

As usual, Hobb’s writing is excellent. (One of my favorite quotes: “So on and on, he peeled callus away from my memories and brought all the old faces fresh to my mind again.”) She also continues to find new ways to interrogate the series’ central theme of identity and how it changes over the course of a life. Fitz goes by the alias Tom Badgerlock now, hiding from his past and the general populace of the Six Duchies, who don’t realize what he’s sacrificed for them. But confronting the kingdom’s new threat will require him to assume yet another set of roles, some of which see him acting as the teacher instead of the student.

I liked this arc, and the sense of coming full circle. Hobb’s characters are never static—not a one of her mainstays are the same as they were in the first books. I also enjoyed how she flipped the dynamics of her magic system. In the first trilogy, practitioners of the Skill (a revered form of telepathy between humans that has many additional uses) were among the realm’s many enemies. In Fool’s Errand, wielders of the Wit (a reviled form of telepathy between humans and animals) are the primary danger.

But again, these are character-driven tales. If you don’t like Fitz and Nighteyes, you won’t like this book and its meandering opening. On the other hand, if you don’t like Fitz and Nighteyes … I’m not sure what to make of you.

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

It took me kind of long to read this, but not because I didn't like the book - I have a feeling I'm experiencing a reading slump without exactly knowing it. It's like I'm in denial. Heh.

ANYWAY, concerning the book itself: I loved it a lot, but I was not surprised by that. I already read and loved it at least twice. This is Fitz, older, and gruffer, and much more mature. That I missed him and the Fool terribly I think goes without saying. Again they have to set out together to save the world - or at least the Six Duchies - at great expense for themselves. Again they succeed, but only barely. I laughed and loved and ached and cried throughout their adventure, and am sure to do so again.

Fifteen years after the end of Assassin's Quest, Fitz reluctantly returns to Buckkeep to fulfill a mission that requires his particular blend of Skill and Wit.

Robin Hobb has very quickly become one of my favourite authors, and I consider this her best book yet. It continues the story begun in her Farseer series, (with a few brief mentions of the Liveship Traders books, as well), and I'd definitely recommend reading those books first. Fool's Errand does cover new ground, but I'm pretty sure that anyone who hadn't read the first trilogy would find at least the first two hundred pages either confusing or boring, if not both. As someone who greedily devoured the previous series, I considered this a welcome chance to catch up with old show more friends, but it does delay the point at which the action begins.

Once it gets going, though, this is a fast-moving and readable book. Once Fitz returns to Buckkeep, things wrap up in the space of about two weeks; quite a departure from Hobb's previous books, which all cover at least a year's worth of activity. There's always something going on, and it all directly relates to either the plot or the character development. It's fantastic. The book flew by.

Despite the strong plot, the story's main strength lies in its characters. Hobb really excels at crafting characters who grow and change even as they retain their core character. Fitz is no exception; he's still very definitely himself, but the reader can really tell that he's lived every moment of the past fifteen years. It was his relationship with the Fool, though, that really made this book for me. The two of them fit together so well! There's great tension between them, and great empathy as well. I loved it. It was also great to see him renewing his ties with Chade and forging new ones with Dutiful.

Overall, this was absolutely fantastic. I highly recommend it, but really urge you to read at least the Farseer books first. show less