Review: Fool's Quest

Book two of the Fitz and the Fool trilogy
By Robin Hobb
Available now from Del Rey (Penguin Random House)
Review copy
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When Robin Hobb has a new trilogy coming out, I always get excited when it is time to buy the new book.  You can double that when it is a book about Fitz.  (This is the eighth book starring Fitz and the fifteenth set in this world.)  FOOL'S ASSASSIN, the first book in this new trilogy, made some choices I wasn't so sure about.  I'm still not sure about some of them - the new narrator speaks much less in FOOL'S QUEST and I'm not sure her separate point of view is actually needed.  Others are swiftly corrected, teaching me to trust again that Hobb has a plan.

FOOL'S QUEST ends with our heroes once more in peril, so I know I'll be on tenterhooks for the third and final book in the trilogy.  Those who were worried about the characters at the end of book one can look forward to long, soothing passages of recovery.  (Well, recovery for some characters anyway ...)  There's also some delicious, long-awaited vindication.  There were so many moments in FOOL'S QUEST that I've been waiting for as a fan of these characters.

And then Fitz does something else to prove he's too stubborn to learn easy.

As a fan, I continue to think that this trilogy is a delight.  I'm not sure it has much to offer newcomers, because it is more uneven than the previous two trilogies and generally expects the reader to be familiar with a large number of events and characters.  But seriously, it's worth starting at the beginning and working through these bricks.