The Farseer Trilogy (Assassin's Apprentice, Royal Assassin, and Assassin's Quest)
The first book of the new year was Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb. This books is the second book in the Farseer Trilogy. These books follow the story of young bastard, Fitzchivalry as he struggles to save the kingdom from Zombie-like creatures called the Forged. Basically the Forged have had their prefrontal cortex shut offline and are incapable of the 9 functions of the cortex (as outlined by Daniel J. Siegel in Mindsight...see my last blog post). Of particular note, they cannot communicate, feel empathy, or modulate fear. These are truly terrifying creatures! These books tended to wind up fairly slowly with the first 3 books representing a lot of world building and character development. My absolute favorite part of this series is the wolf, Nighteyes, and his bond with Fitz. The developing friendship between Fitz and the Fool is fun to read as well. Be warned! These books do break 3 of my rules of peril: cannibalism, child abuse, and rape. All the instances of this were not described in an overly graphic way. However, the when I read fantasy, I read to get away...so in my opinion those things lessen the enjoyment of the books... So I rate this serious a 3/5 stars
The Liveship Traders Trilogy (Ship of Magic, Mad Ship, Ship of Destiny)
In some ways, I enjoyed these more than the Farseer Trilogy. In some sense it's a coming of age tale of the youth of Vestrit family. Althea ventures out on the open sea to save her family's liveship from pirates. A live ship is a ship that is given sentience through generations of a family giving their memories at death to the ship. This series has some of my favorite themes such as voyages to far off lands and exploration of deserted cities. Malta Vestrit grows into womanhood and learns responsibility. At first, she was such an irritating character, but I learned to appreciate her tenacity and strength. Overall, these were fast moving and fun reads. However, they deal with some pretty heavy subject like the linger mental effects of child abuse. Be wary...there is rape and child abuse in these books! So 3/5 for me....
My scale...
1 - I almost quit reading. I had to force myself to continue. Probably not going to finish the series.
2 - Just ok. Easy to put these down to go do the dishes. May take a week to get through...
3 - I liked them, but the library version is fine.
4 - I really enjoyed them. These are worth buying at least 1 version.
5 - Don't talk me I'm reading. Order a pizza to feed the children! Read as fast as I can and will read again someday. I bought the Audible versions and ebook so I can seamlessly move between the versions.
Ps. I'm trying to stop the 2 spaces after periods, but I'm struggling. So forgive the weird, inconsistent spacing.
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