Robin Hobb

[guessingo]

I would like to try out her books. Which one do you recommend ?

[Patriotic Kaz]

Assassin's Aprentice

[Tombstone0]

Definitely Assassin's Apprentice.
All of her books (except the Soldier Son Trilogy) are tied together and it all starts with Assassin's Apprentice.

[guessingo]

Apparently Robin Hobb is a pen name. She wrote some novels under a different pen name in the 1980s. Are her older novels any good?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_hobb

[Tombstone0]

Never read them, so I don't know if they're any good, but they're not related to her later books.

[Moggle]

Robin Hobb appears to be the kind of author who is hyped up for no particular reason.  Assassin's Apprentice reads very much like someone's amateurish self published fantasy book.   Very cliche and bad on dialogue, story, plot, characterization, world building and magic system.

[ErikHolmes]

Robin Hobb appears to be the kind of author who is hyped up for no particular reason.  Assassin's Apprentice reads very much like someone's amateurish self published fantasy book.   Very cliche and bad on dialogue, story, plot, characterization, world building and magic system.

0.o

Did you read the same Robin Hobb as the rest of us?

Robin probably does characterization better than anyone else in the fantasy genre.

[Moggle]

0.o

Did you read the same Robin Hobb as the rest of us?

Robin probably does characterization better than anyone else in the fantasy genre.

Then you must have read a ton of god awful fantasy books with really shitty characters.  Her characters in AA are some of the worst if not the worst I have ever come across.   

[guessingo]

Like/dislike is often taste. I tried reading The Left Hand of Darkness and got 100 pages in and didn't like it.

I'll give Hobb a try, when I get the chance. I have several books before that and I don't spend as much time reading as many of you.

[Nessa]

Robin Hobb's Assasin's Apprentice stories take place across 6 books (the last 3 are the 'Tawny Man" series). Like any good series, the build up of characterization, setting, and the magic system is not instantaneous.  The pacing and plot of this series moves a lot slower because Hobb is focused on the characterization of Fitz--whose issues of bastardy, a magic he's not really allowed to use, and how he fits into the world he was born into, all shape who he is. He's really a fascinating character.

[Bookstore Guy]

AA is a good read.  The characters are solid, but as Nessa said, they get better as you read along.  You know, as they grow.  Much of the slow development, in my opinion, is due to the "era" in which the novel was written.  That was they way stuff was done in those days.

Moggle, try not to criticize and rip into everyone that just happens to have different taste than you.  And please try to keep profanity out of your posts.  I'm sure you like novels that other people think are terrible.  That's kind of the point of having a variety in the fantasy genre--everyone can find something that appeals to them.

All that said, I don't agree with Erik that she does characterization better than "anyone else in the fantasy genre."   I don't think she is even close to being the best.  She does a good job in her earlier works (her recent works, in my opinion, fail and fall into the realms of cliché), but I personally feel that others are much better.

[Recovering_Cynic]

By the end of the AA trilogy, I was burnt out on Hobb.  I won't read her again.  The books have some high points and are relatively entertaining, but the second and third books especially have vast amounts of NOTHING HAPPENING other than the MC whining and the occasional intrigue that isn't intriguing.  With a very limited amount of time to read, I have chosen to spend my precious hours on authors who entertain me more.

[Bookstore Guy]

She tends to focus on character issues, like Nessa said, rather than other things.  Much like Brandon's Warbreaker has a lot of people standing around talking (and doing little else), Hobb did the same thing.  This isn't a bad thing, it just means that it isn't for everyone.  Some people absolutely love that kind novel--as evidenced by Hobb's huge contingent of fans.  As a writer, there are many things that Hobb does right with characters that would be well worth studying.

[Recovering_Cynic]

I agree about the characterization, but on the other hand I found Fitz ultimately to be a little annoying, not all the time, but enough to turn me off.  Another main turn off was what I refer to as the Harry Potter syndrome (the MC's life is a living nightmare because he is picked on by everyone in the universe and thus the MC gains sympathy points).  While the Harry Potter syndrome can be effective (see, e.g. The Name of the Wind), the difference with Hobb is that the misery never stops.  Fitz's life is pretty much hell from page one with little in the way of happiness through the course of the books.  For me, personally, there needs to be some variation or the story starts to drag.

[Nessa]

Cynic, yes the first part of the series he does have a pretty crappy life. That's why I like to group the 2nd half of the series (the Tawny Man seies) in with it to look at it as a whole. Fitz really becomes an interesting character in the second series (in fact I read that series first). He's an adult in that series, and holds his own. It's not about misery, but about overcoming adversity. And it does ultimately have a happy ending.