The Farseer Trilogy
This review is on the Farseer Trilogy which is actually the first three audiobooks in the Realms of the Elderlings series by Robin Hobb. Assassins’ Apprentice, Royal Assassin, and Assassins’ Quest. I will start this off by saying this is as far as I’m going with this series. This trilogy is Narrated by Paul Boehmer. All combined this trilogy is around 83 and a half hours long…
Narrator: Paul Boehmer is another Narrator I would put on the good enough list. He improves from book to book which is good cause he takes a bit of getting used to in the first book. Overall he does a good job.
Setting: The Farseer Trilogy’s setting is what I would call a low magic Fantasy. There are not a ton of wizards and witchs wandering about. There is magic just not prevalent. There are no monsters running a muck in the country side, other then the human variety. That being said it is one of the highlights of the trilogy. Robin Hobb does a really good job of making her world have unique aspects and cultures. It was really enjoyable to explore the world and its inhabitants.
MC/Characters: This is both the best part of the book and the worst. Robin Hobb’s dialog is really good. The interactions between characters is very well done and you do find yourself caring about them. But!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Her main character starts off great. In the first book he is a child and I have no complaints about him. In second book and far more so in the third book he gets older but still acts like an idiot child. Obvious things that you as a reader pick up on goes right over his head. Also he continuously does things he knows he is not supposed to no matter how many times he is warned not to and no matter how many bad things happen to him and those he loves. Its not so bad in book two but in book three it is terrible.
Story: In books one and two the story is really good. Things are happening and you want to know what happens next. The main character is the bastard of the next in line to the throne of a kingdom. Due to the scandal of his existence that prince gives up his inheritance to the throne and it goes to his younger brother. The story follows the young bastard as he is raised in the castle of the king. As you can guess from the title he is trained to become an assassin. Without going into too many details it follows the court intrigue, schemes, and conniving’s of the royals.
Overall Review: Books one and two are good, but book three comes really close to ruining it for me. I think it honestly did. I was actually depressed for like a week after finishing it. It’s not a sad ending its a depressing one. But before that depressing ending its a huge slog of stupid actions by the MC. The book is far longer then the other two (17h,29h,37h)and not much more really happens. I honestly felt like more happened in book one then three and its 20 hours shorter. I was very disappointed. Also the ending is very abrupt I didn’t know this was the ending of this trilogy because I didn’t know it was a trilogy. I had seen that there were more books so until it “Ends” I thought I was going to be listening to many more books. That being said there are more books to this series, far more apparently, but I will not be continuing. The narrator for the next three books in the series is just not good. The reviews say the story is but I cannot stand a bad narrator and the reviews for the following books are not promising. With how sad I was at this trilogy’s end and the prospects of the following books not looking good i’m calling quits. If you like books that are not necessarily happy but delve into introspection and the morals of action or inaction then you will probably really like this trilogy till around the end. If you decide to listen to it I would recommend only seeing it as this trilogy and then you can maybe push more if you are still into it.