Loved it, wept through it, adore her. Robin Hobb is a genius, and this was an incredible continuation of the Fitz & the Fool books.

Incredible. Fitz, Fool, Nighteyes... I will love you forever.

**I reviewed 4 of the books from the series for Grimdark Magazine. Royal Assassin, Assassin's Quest, Ship of Magic, and Fool's Errand. I am planning a re-read of this series next year and I will review all the books that I didn't on my first read. I just realised I never returned any sort of NetGalley feedback for this book, so I am doing it now. The Realm of the Elderlings is my second favourite fantasy series of all time, and the Fool is probably the deepest, and most interesting character I've had the pleasure of following.

Kind regards,
James

The story of Fitz and the Fool finally comes to its end. Although not as good as the original trilogy, there's still a lot to love here and it's hard to say goodbye.

Should definitely only be read if you've read the first two books of the trilogy. This trilogy can be read on it's own, but I would recommend at least a passing familiarity with the setting and the lives the characters have lived. Robin Hobb doesn't let them escape their past, but she does provide enough reminders that the reader is not left out in the cold.

Fantasy often focuses on the young heroes. Hobb is giving us a deep and involved story of heroes who have grown up and wish to retire, but the world won't let them.

I've been sitting on this review for quite a while. I was given the opportunity to read a galley before Assassin's Fate was released, and finished it about two days before the book actually came out. It took me a long time to read because its something to be savored. It took me even longer to actually write the review, because, quite frankly, it's hard to say goodbye.

I don't have the same story as others who have been following the series from the beginning. I was six when the first book came out, and even though I've always been an avid reader, it would have been a little daunting to me if it even would have found its way into my hands. My relationship with Robin Hobb's Realms of the Elderlings series actually started when I was thirteen, when I read Ship of Magic for the first time. I was young, still very much discovering what I liked in books, and instantly feel in love with Althea. She was everything I wanted to be when I got older. Since that time, I very much had an on again - off again relationship with Robin Hobb's works. I devoured Ship of Magic and Mad Ship, but by the time Ship of Destiny came out, I had already moved onto something else. But Robin Hobb's books always found a way back to me.

Many years later, while wandering through the library looking for something to read, I stumbled across Dragon Keeper. I was very much in my dragon phase (still in that phase, tbh), and recognizing the other books on the shelves as ones I had read before and enjoyed, I immediately took the first book home with me. This was the fantasy book I had been looking for. For the first time, Robin Hobb would restore my faith in the fantasy genre. I read that book in a week, quickly falling in love with Sedric and Alise, and got the next one as soon as I returned it. Tore through that one in a hurry to go back to the library and get the last two. To this day, Carson remains one of my favorite characters. I would love for him to come back in another book.

It was then that I started collecting all of Robin Hobb's books, as she had cemented herself firmly as one of my favorite authors. Then I started reading some really bad fantasy and almost gave up on the genre again. There are only so many times I can read about the same heterosexual white male reluctant hero redefining sex for women before I start to get bored with it. Then I got an e-mail from Netgalley informing me that Fool's Assassin by Robin Hobb was available for request. I sent off the form, keeping my fingers crossed but not really hoping for much. My position as a reviewer then was the same as it is now. Nobody reads my reviews and I have no followers. Twitter is a mystery to me. I knew it was unlikely that a major publishing house would accept my request to read and review one of their books.

A few weeks later, I got my response. I was allowed to read Fool's Assassin, and it was like being in the Wizard of Oz where Dorothy sees in color for the first time. There was another side to the fantasy genre that I had forgotten about, where all the characters were unique and the author was not afraid to carve her own path. This was what fantasy was meant to be. It was like coming home after being stranded in a sea of white wonder bread.

And now it's over, and I'm not sure what to say. This book is the culmination of everything that Robin Hobb has been working on for the past thirty years or so. It weaves together all the loose ends from all the other books in the series and changes the world forever. I don't know what comes next after this. I doubt that I will find another series that will have as much of a lasting impact on my life.

All I can say is, thank you, Robin Hobb, for being a part of my life for over seventeen years, and for reminding us that with every ending comes a new beginning.

I am so sorry. But I have been working so hard to finish this series so that I can get to this final book, but I just am not going to be able to do it in 2019. But I promise to read and review this one eventually. I am so sorry again. Happy reading.

ASSASSIN’S FATE was my most anticipated book of 2017 by a huge margin. I was desperate for it, but I also knew there was a big chance it’d destroy me—and spring 2017 turned into a time when I very much needed to avoid destruction.

So I read half the book, then took a break. And I didn’t seriously pick it up again for almost two years.

Now I’ve finished. I’m heartbroken, and reeling, and also kind of... happy? Because I survived, tough as it was, and this was excellent.

Hobb excels at plots that reflect and reimagine imagery we’ve seen before, both in her earlier work and in the wider SFF canon. Her characters are complex people, believably flawed and locked into an intricate dance of action and reaction. She never goes easy on them. Everything leaves a mark.

This final book confirms my love for her work, and for her cast. Fitz and the Fool ain’t budging from my Highly Exclusive List of Favourite Literary Characters. You want to meet them, but you do NOT want to start here. Head back to ASSASSIN’S APPRENTICE and proceed in publication order.

Brace yourself, though, because this is one of those “trigger warning for everything” series. It ain’t always nice, but it’s bloody wonderful. If you love deeply personal epic fantasy, you need this in your life.

Eagerly anticipating the release of the Assassin’s Fate, the final installment of the Fitz and the Fool trilogy, I was beyond excited to receive the ARC early last week. Having left Bee and Fitz in their precarious situations in October of 2015, I had to struggle to remember key events and characters in the preceding novels for the first couple of chapters, making my initial progress proceed at a snail’s pace. Slowly, and with the assistance of Google, the fog began to clear allowing this marathon tale to take shape, thereby drawing me back into the fold. Throughout this series, Hobb weaves a story that contains such a plethora of details that is thoroughly satisfies my analytical soul. Prior to this trilogy, I had not read any of the previous series by Hobb that employs the same realm and key characters, as well as detailing the notable adventures, which are mentioned throughout these new novels. As the Fool’s Assassin was my introduction to Hobb as an author, I was initially worried that my lack preceding knowledge regarding world building and depth established by the former series (The Farseer Trilogy, Liveship Traders Trilogy, The Tawny Man Trilogy, The Rain Wild Chronicles) would hinder my overall enjoyment and comprehension of the trilogy. In contrast, despite the potential aforementioned handicap going into the Fitz and the Fool Trilogy, I became thoroughly engrossed, relishing in the level of detail and the skill at which Hobb was able to reference past events and relationships without leaving new readers behind. I’m sure I would have had greater appreciation for trilogy and key interactions had I read more of her work, however this set of work was able to easily stand on its own. it was not necessary to s. Overall, this delightful adventure containing elements of survival, rescue, and dragon, was impossible to put down, as such, I have no qualms about labeling this final installment a perfect conclusion to the Fitz and the Fool trilogy.

It's difficult to review the last book in a trilogy, let alone a trilogy with 16 other related books, broken into trilogies or quadrologies. All I can really say is that Robin Hobb did it. She was able to wrap up strings from multiple stories in the end of this particular tale, and set up multiple arches for new stories, if she so chooses.

Without giving anything away, Bee still remains in the custody of the Whites, and Fitz, the Fool, and their group remain on their trail, even without evidence of Bee's survival. I cried through the last third of the novel, but Hobbs walked me through the sadness in the resolution of the tale. My advice is to start at the beginning and binge all the novels, in the order she recommends!

oh the emotional payoff of watching characters grow over 50+ years...

I loved this book so, so much! Robin Hobb is a master character writer. After all, she made me go from hating Malta's guts (reading about her made me cringe more than nails scraping on chalkboard) to respecting and even loving her by the end of the Liveship trilogy. If that's the sort of character development Robin Hobb can create in 3 books, imagine how much her characters can evolve over multiple trilogies! Full disclosure, I haven't read all of the Elderling trilogies/quartets, but I have read 3 of the 5, including the original trilogy about Fitz as a child.

I am going to be very brief with this review, because I do not want to spoil a single thing. I will just say that this book is very rich and ties together the events of nearly all the series before it. Many beloved characters make appearances (no pun intended), and it's so interesting to see how they interact with one another. I especially loved the interactions between Fitz and a certain ship. I have to admit that for the first half of the book, I found Bee's chapters kind of tiresome and difficult to get through. That all changed in the second half of the book; true to form, the final few hundred pages of the trilogy were action-packed and the characters had to make devastating choices.

Bee grew up quite a bit in this book, and looking back at the first book of this trilogy it's amazing to see how far she has come and how she has endured so much. The same can be said of Fitz, and the Fool. Their relationship is the focal point of this series, and I sobbed at the end of this book. It was an absolutely perfect ending, and as much as I would love to read more books about their relationship, I think this book's perfect ending would be ruined if there were any more. That isn't to say I don't want more Elderling books. I would love to see how things are coming along for Bee as she grows up, or to see what the kingdoms are like after a generation or two.

No one makes me feel as wide a range of emotions while reading as Robin Hobb. This book had me all over the place, from laughter and fond nostalgia to disgust and rage. This is a series I will probably come back to over the next few years, if not the next decades. No one else writes quite like Robin Hobb, and I am so glad there are so many of her books to enjoy!

A fitting conclusion. And an emotional read for any whom have followed Fitz on his journey from boy to man. Heart breaking at times, but with appropriate (occasional) levels of lightness to cease it from becoming overwhelming. Hobb can be brutal to her characters.

<i>Assassin’s Fate</i> is nothing short of a gift. While not slamming the door shut to future stories, Hobb had thoughtfully covered her bases in this wrap up. The comprehensiveness is staggering and the execution is delightful and heart rending. <i>Assassin’s Fate</i> is bittersweet and beautiful and everything I hoped it would be.

What an awesome ending to an excellent trilogy. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me a copy to read. I have enjoyed all of the books about Fitz but I think this trilogy is my favorite. Fitz is older and while he makes some more reasonable decisions, he is still the Fitz and goes with his emotions. Bee is a lovely balance to his impetuous nature as she is very rational and thinks things through. In this book Fitz and friends travel to rescue Bee and Bee struggles to escape her captors. There was a lot going on and I was engaged from the first page to the end. Poor Bee has it rough in this book and you can't help but cheer her on. I liked seeing how Fitz and the Fool's relationships relationship grows and changes in this book. I liked how the Rain Wilder's were involved in this book and thought it was a nice way of threading those books into this series. The ending was bittersweet but it worked and I thought it was a good way to end the story. I would love to see more of Bee in future books.
I would recommend starting at the beginning of Fitz's story before reading this trilogy but if you have already read those books and were not sure about this new trilogy then you should run out and by the whole trilogy now. It's fantastic.

Assassin’s Fate is the third and final book in author Robin Hobb’s The Fitz and the Fool series. But it is not just an ending to this series but an end to many of the different stories in Hobbs’ Realm of the Elderlings epic fantasy told over 16 books in 5 series. I’m not sure how long it’s been since I read Assassin’s Apprentice, the very first book in the Realm written in 1995, on the recommendation of a friend but, from the first page, I was hooked.

It is hard to write a review of Assassin’s Fate without giving anything away but I really want to avoid spoilers here. Was it perfect – no, at times it dragged just a little, at times, it felt just a bit repetitive, and it could have been a tad shorter. And it is definitely not a standalone – to really appreciate the story, it is necessary to have read at least some of the other books and not just the other two in this series.

But, you know what, none of that really mattered. The characters, the adventure, the surprises, the absolute roller coaster ride both in the plot and the emotions it created made these flaws, which would have been huge in a lesser series, just seem like kindness on Hobbs’ part, a chance for the reader to catch their breath and get their emotions in check. And trust me, if it is true that Assassin’s Fate can’t be read as a standalone, if you haven’t read the other books but you would like a chance to immerse yourself in some of the best fantasy around, I can’t recommend the entire Realm of the Elderlings highly enough.

Hobbs has the ability to make even the most violent of characters sympathetic and to make readers care about them. Fitz and the Fool and many of the other characters have become like friends, people whose fate mattered to me. I have read several other reviews in which the writers talked of how they were crying by the end. I swore that I would not let this happen but Hobbs made a liar out of me. By the end, I had shed more than a few of my own tears. The story was compelling, heartbreaking, and satisfying throughout. The ending may not have been the one that I had hoped for but it was absolutely the right one.

I must say though that although I was satisfied with the way that this series and several of the others were completed and I have to thank Ms Hobbs for giving me so much pleasure over the last couple of decades, I really hope that there will be more entries in the Realm of the Elderlings because I miss the characters and the world already.

<i>Thanks to Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review</i>

A thrilling conclusion to an epic series. The ending was very strong and I am sorry to see it end.
Robin Hobb is a master at world building and I am hoping that there will be most stories to come.

I have to disclaim my disclaimer. It is virtually impossible for me to be un-biased about this book. Unabashed admiration for the author, and genuine fondness for the world she has created doesn’t make what I have to say about it irrelevant though.

I know my blog entries have been missing in action for a while. This book was announced a year ago. I couldn’t wait until the release! In March, I got the ARC from Netgalley. I have to admit I fan-girled my way into oblivion. I immediately said to myself, to do this justice I have to read the whole series over from the beginning. It’s dense, there’s a lot of prophesy, magic creatures, and roughly a zillion characters who directly influence the plot, so I need a refresher! Let’s do this … all 15 books. Yeah, you heard me. FIFTEEN! I started my journey in March, and finally arrived at book 16, Assassin’s Fate on June 15th.

I love this book.

I know we throw the phrase “I love this book” around sometimes, but I really mean it. Ms. Hobb has created something special with this series. It is a highly developed world with truly fascinating multi-faceted characters. I love that by the end, in the culmination of all the separate storylines, the series resolves finally into being about love and acceptance. She also has a way of making the reader feel that you truly know these people. For instance, I was surprised when someone mentioned an observation on a Robin Hobb fan board about a very important character, named Nighteyes. He is one who you become intensely attached to, and whose presence is felt throughout the 16 books but actually only appeared in books 2, 3 & 7. Astonishing! In another authors hand, a character appearing so infrequently could tend to melt away into the ether. Instead, Nighteyes is an integral part of the story and a favorite among so many fans.

(**extremely vague spoilers in this next paragraph**)

But it is the two main characters, Fitz and the Fool who truly capture your heart. I approached this book with trepidation. I felt in my heart I knew what was coming by the end of the book. It wasn’t that it was predicable, more like this is a road we are traveling on and we all know the final destination. It was hard for me to get there. I was thinking about it on my drive home one night and found myself feeling choked up just thinking about an eventuality that hadn’t even happened yet! When I finally reached that point of the book, well let’s just say that it’s 4 days later and I still feel very emotional about it.

I can’t recommend this book enough. I have a bad habit of forgetting plots of books after a while. I remember having read a book, and whether I enjoyed it, but they get fuzzy after a while. That’s part and parcel of reading so many books I guess. Robin Hobb’s Elderling series is not something I’m ever going to forget. These characters are a part of my life. You all know what I mean right? Because I try to tell normal non-book blogging people how I feel about this and they look at me like I’m crazy. How do you help them understand how books can affect you? That a well written book can make you feel as though you’ve made friends, their happiness brings you joy and you mourn their passing. I don’t know how to communicate that to people who don’t already know this truth. What I do know is that this is a good book, it is a great series, and she is a remarkable writer.

Song for this book: Welcome to the Black Parade – My Chemical Romance

It starts a bit slow, then ramps up to adventure. At times you just want to smack Fitz for stupidity and being stubborn. Chade is now absolutely unlikable. Despite that, the book is more than carried by the delightful, young Bee.

Bee, a late in life child born to Fitz and Molly is slow to grow and mature. Servants of the Four from Clerres, school for the White Prophets, kidnap her because of the prophesy of the Unexpected Son. Enduring harsh treatment, violence and trauma, Bee learns to survive. Her thread is emotional, heart breaking at times and finally trumphent as she overcomes great odds to win her freedom.

Thinking Bee dead, Fits and Fool seek revenge against Clerres for the destruction of Bee and the torture of Beloved. Embarking on the long journey, they are accompanied by Chade's son FitzVigilant, Chade's apprentice Spark/Ash and Bee's stableboy friend, Perseverance.

We get to visit Kelsingra, dragons and elderlings from the Rainwild books to see how things have progressed in the past 18 or so years. Also, revisited are Bingtown, Paragon, Vivacia, Kendry and crews.

In their travels, Amber bribes Paragon to sail them to Clerres against Captains Althea Vestrit and Brashen Trell's wishes, by telling the ship she may know how to bring a dragon out of the ship's wizardwood. Amber was right.

Finding that Bee is actually alive, our heros plan to breach Clerres. In the idiocy that is often shown when Fits and Fool are together, the Fool goes off alone and is captured, making it a rescue for two. Bee, in the meantime, works on rescuing herself.

A novel of strength, weakness, survival, redemption, transformation and vengeance, this is a fitting end to the trilogy.

Robin Hobb does it again with a wonderful book

I've been a fan of this series for a long time, and checking back it looks like the first book was published in 1995- 22 years! And now it all comes to an end. Many authors seem unable to wind up series, so kudos to Robin Hobb for bringing this to a graceful close.

This book, like the previous two in this last trilogy, are split POVs between Fitz and his daughter, Bee. Bee has been kidnapped by the servants of the White Prophets and Fitz finally figures out that she is still alive.

This was a looooong book, and I feel like there were some pacing issues. Bee and Fitz were three months apart timeline-wise in the last book, and Hobb had to somehow get them concurrent. This worked out to lots of travel time for both characters. The book was mostly a long series of voyages. Fitz is brought into the Liveship milieu and meets Paragon, the ship who Amber (the Fool) carved with Fitz's face. I feel like Hobb really wanted her different series to come together in this book, but it felt a bit overstuffed to me. I haven't read the RainWild books because the Liveship books didn't speak to me the same way that the Assassin series has. Therefore, I had no idea who a lot of these characters were or how I was meant to feel about them. Rapskal the Elderling seemed somewhat obnoxious and somewhat damaged, and I felt like I was missing a lot of backstory between him and his dragon, Heeby. I didn't know Tarman or his crew, Boy-o or the folk from the Pirate Isles. So a lot of what happened to these characters was missing an emotional resonance for me. And they detracted from further character development of Lant, Spark, and other characters who could have used it.

Meanwhile, Bee is undergoing horrors at the hands of her kidnappers. There are many scenes of her being abused. I get the feeling that Hobb was trying to set her up to fill a particular prophetic role, but the repetitive descriptions of beatings, escape attempts, etc, weren't pleasant to read in the least. You are warned.

In the end, a daring escape takes place, destruction is visited upon the bad guys, dragons get their revenge. Lots of action!

I started to try to write this as a spoiler-free review, but I don't think I can do that and still discuss how I feel about the ending to this series.

I have read series-ending books in which the author seemed to have lost heart or interest in the series. Hobb doesn't fall into that trap- she seems just as invested in the emotional arcs of her characters as ever and tried to communicate that passion to the reader. In fact, it feels a bit like the book devolves into melodrama by the end. Fitz is transformed by the magical Silver, but is also infected with the same worm parasites that killed the mysterious messenger at the very beginning of the series. I was interested to see how the Silver would affect him, but it ended up just keeping him alive long enough to return to where Verity carved his dragon so that Fitz could carve his own stone soul repository. The end of the book was Fitz trying to live long enough to complete his carving, eaten from within by worms, while surrounded by his loved ones. Meanwhile, he's putting all his memories into the carving so that he is losing his emotional connection to all those who have gathered to mourn him. It's beyond tragic, it's almost cruel (I know it's odd to say that about fictional characters). But poor Fitz! He's tormented himself with self-doubt all his life, has never truly let himself be happy, and now he's denied the chance to rebuild his relationship with his (very traumatized) daughter. He doesn't get his golden years after all. He doesn't really get to learn from his mistakes and grow emotionally. It's a tragic character arc, and it's somewhat unsatisfying for those of us who have rooted for Fitz for 9 books now.

I also feel like I still don't entirely understand the prophecies from the Fool. Was Fitz the Destroyer or was Bee? Who was the Unexpected Son in the end? Was Bee's Catalyst Dwalia, the Fool, or both? Or neither? How does the Silver relate to the Skill? Or the Wit? How can dragons both come from stone and from sea serpents? What happened to the original Elderlings? I guess I had hoped for a bit more concreteness for some of these questions.

However, I was engrossed for all 847 pages, which is quite a feat. If you are a fan of Fitz, you will want to read the end of his story.

I cannot stress how important it is that all readers read the previous books that the author has written about this world; there are so many things you will miss out on if you don’t and it adds so much enjoyment to all the series. This is my recommended reading order: FARSEER TRILOGY, TAWNY MAN TRILOGY, LIVESHIP TRILOGY, RAIN WILDS tetralogy and then THE FITZ and FOOL trilogy. At one point I thought reading the LIVESHIP TRILOGY before TAWNY MAN was preferable, the stories are so closely related that I think it is more of a personal preference; if you want to stay in Buckkeep and the characters there you can and it you want to broaden the world read LIVESHIP first then TAWNY MAN.

Here is my spoiler review for this final book in this trilogy. The story picks up where she left us in the second book and Bee is still a prisoner of the White Prophets who are trying to return her to their home in Clarres; it’s been a long, hard journey and the journey is far from over but Bee will grow stronger both physically and emotionally before the story ends.

This final book in this trilogy (but hopefully not the world) answers so many questions that I’ve had throughout my reading experience in this amazing world; what happened to the Elderlings and why, why did Icefyre bury himself in ice all those years ago and why Dwalia hates Fitz and the Fool so much and the child she believes to be theirs. You finally get to experience the horrors of Clarres and the ones who rule it with an iron hand no matter what they must to do anyone who they feel may threaten how they want the world to be. Robin Hobb has answered so many of the questions I've had while reading these books. ( I owe her a huge personal thanks for these books; I’ve always loved to read but after I lost my daughter in 2005 I lost all interest in everything for over four years and it wasn’t until someone insisted I read the FARSEER trilogy that I began to snap out of my long depression and discover consolation in other worlds).

This series is a grim one, the abuse of Bee in almost never ending and the suffering of all, even those who should is almost too much as is the relentless self pity of too many characters and while I loved that Nighteyes was a part of this story, I wondered why he couldn’t connect with Fitz long before he did. Yes, it was important that he help Bee, but it seemed that he should have helped them both. The story could have lost some of the darkness if Nighteyes could have conveyed to Bee that her father was on the way and that he did love her. How and why did he transfer to her and ignore everything that he and Fitz had been through until almost the end? Yes, Fitz would have wanted him to protect his child, but I think he would also have wanted her to know that he was coming after her and that he loved her. (Will he and others be a part of future books in there are to be more)?

Yes, Bee becomes stronger; she’s the new White Prophet, she has the skill and if there are future books I think she will also have the witt (this is the only way that Nigheyes could have been with her for so long) and she will be trained by the best person possible, Kettricken, Verity's queen with her protector Per by her side. The dragons and Elderlings have returned and the evil of Clarres has been destroyed, but I am sure a new evil will pop up. The ending of this story will make everyone who loved this series cry and while I understand why she wrote it this way, I could almost wish that it could have been different.

4.75/5 STARS: **I want to thank the author and/or publisher for providing me with a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review; all opinions are mine.**