Assassin's Fate - Robin Hobb

The story so far:

The Farseer and Tawny Man trilogies

Fool's Assassin

Fool's Quest

As the final book, not only of the trilogy of trilogies featuring FitzChivalry Farseer, but also the related Liveship and Rain Wilds chronicles, a lot depends on Assassin's Fate. The story follows Fitz and his friend the Fool, as they embark on a long mission of rescue and revenge, to put an end to an evil regime, and be the Catalyst for an explosive change to the world. But it is a mission with only the faintest outline of a plan. How can they possibly succeed?

A huge amount of Assassin's Fate is spent on the move, whether on foot or by ship, and there's only so much brooding and plotting a reader can stand. Fitz spends much of the middle third of the book aboard the Liveship Paragon, which was first introduced in Ship of Destiny, and his role as narrator bears witness to the final story of the liveships and their crew: Althea and Brashen, Boy-O, Kennitson, and Amber. Amusingly - for reasons you'll understand if you've read the previous books - Fitz does not like Amber, and this gives an additional layer of tension to his already tumultuous relationship with the Fool. With this tying-up of multiple story threads, Hobb makes the dreaded endless travelling pass with some fascinating developments in the liveships' stories. A lot of questions you might not have realised you were asking from the very start are answered, but for me, this section of the book held more of an intellectual interest than an emotional investment. I didn't like the Liveship books as much as the Fitz ones, and skipped them on the reread, although this book and the preceding one made me want to go back and fill in the gaps.

After having only a few chapters in Fool's Quest, the secondary narrator, Bee, is back in full force for Assassin's Fate. This storyline is hard-going in places, as Bee travels as the prisoner of incredibly unpleasant villains. There have been horrific villains in the previous books, of course; Prince Regal in The Farseer Trilogy and the Pale Woman in Tawny Man, but never before have we had to spend so much time in the company of completely irredeemable villains (unless you count Kennit in the Liveship books.) Certainly seeing them in action, we can judge that they must be stopped and deserve everything Fitz has in store for them, but that doesn't take away my distaste for revenge narratives that soured Fool's Quest for me. The climactic bloodbath is inevitable.

Yet, if the trilogy's main quest didn't quite work for me, the ultimate conclusion was very satisfying, and true to Fitz's character, both with his strengths and his imperfections. Hobb does not let him off the hook. He has always been reckless, stubborn, and not a great father (although a loving one.) Fitz and the Fool's story ends as it has always been; fraught with folly, misunderstanding, miscommunication and frustration, but ultimately shaped by intense loyalty and love. The fate of the Assassin and Fool is a bittersweet one; messy, sad and painful, but beautiful nonetheless; a fitting finale to an excellent saga.

Fool's Quest - Robin Hobb

Fitz and the Fool: Book 2

Fool's Assassin was a leisurely, bittersweet and foreboding but mostly cosy exploration of Fitz's new home and life, up until the last few chapters, during which Robin Hobb struck with a two-pronged emotional attack. Fool's Quest picks up just where the previous book left off, at least from one of the plotlines. But it is a while before primary narrator Fitz is even aware of the events that have befallen the other narrator. The tension is high because of the reader's awareness of the anguish in store for Fitz. Hobb has never been kind to her characters; Fitz and the Fool have been through a ridiculous amount of suffering through the course of three trilogies, but now Fitz finds himself caught between the only two people who could come near to testing his loyalty to the other.

After nearly the entire length of a book waiting for Fitz and the Fool's reunion, Hobb reminds us of the old cliche, be careful what you wish for. For the Fool has changed. It is devastating to see this beloved character broken by his experiences in his years apart from Fitz. The Fool is alternately pitiful and aggravating, and trauma has emphasised his worst traits. He has always been stubborn, when it comes to his sense of his role in a higher purpose, but now, he comes across as hard-headed, manipulative, self-absorbed. It's forgivable, given his desperate circumstances, and a natural evolution of the character of the previous books, but still hard to read without wanting to shake some sense into him. And yet, through it all, Fitz and the Fool's relationship is what gives the book its heart. It's far from being the only important relationship; Robin Hobb's strength is that her characters have multi-faceted lives, and despite his quiet existence, Fitz has built up a lifetime's worth of close friends and family, all of whom come together to make him who he is. But there is no love like that between Fitz and the Fool, and Hobb gradually reveals just how powerful that love is.

Amid the frustration with certain characters, and the anxiety for those whose fates are unknown, there are a few moments of joy. Hobb finally presents Fitz with a moment of triumph that has been withheld from him since the beginning of his tale - just so he can be fall the furthest from his highest peak to his greatest despair. And when that happens, watch out world! FitzChivalry Farseer is on the loose, and he is furious!

Fitz has been many people over the course of the series: stable-boy, assassin in the shadows, royal page-boy, outcast, wolf's companion, soldier, husband. Respectability, however, has never come easily to him. He has always had a wild streak, and at this point in his life, when he is expected to be on his politest behaviour, his wildness breaks out like never before. And it is terrifying to behold.

Fool's Quest is relentless, the darkest book of the series so far. In a series starting with Assassin's Apprentice, you can expect dubious morality, grey areas, but really, assassinations were never the focus of any of the stories. And when they were, there was a strict code of professionalism (if that makes it any more palatable.) There was violence, there were battles, there was self-defence or defence of the realm or mercy-killings. But Fool's Quest is the start of a revenge narrative, and that doesn't sit well with me. From early on, Fitz was taught that his job was political, not personal, but now he's thrown all that to the winds. And worst of all, I can feel the narrative nudging me to cheer him on as he sets off on his murderous rampage, because they deserve it. It is an uneasy situation to find oneself in. Still, Hobb has taken us thus far, and I trust her storytelling enough to be sure that the final volume, Assassin's Fate, will be much more than an epic bloodbath. It'll be messy. It'll be morally complex. Fitz will make some terrible decisions. There will be dragons, and there will be tears.

Fool's Assassin - Robin Hobb

Fitz and the Fool: Book 1

Note: you really need to have read The Farseer and Tawny Man trilogies to get the full appreciation of this one.

Review contains minor spoilers for previous books.

Many years have passed since the events of the Tawny Man trilogy. FitzChivalry Farseer has left behind his former existence, and settled down to a happy family life in the country, living as Holder Tom Badgerlock of the Withywoods Estate. But Withywoods is not the sanctuary Fitz had come to believe. Strange and dangerous things are afoot in the world, even infiltrating Fitz's own home. So often, the trail seems to lead back to the Fool, who Fitz has not seen since they parted at the end of Fool's Fate, but whose absence is a constant weight on his mind. Why has the Fool kept his* distance for so long? And what can he want with Fitz now?

After the intrigue, action, might and magic of the previous books, Fool's Assassin has a much more domestic feel to it than Robin Hobb's readers may be used to. The plot is slow-burn, taking place over a decade or more, slowly building up a thorough picture of a quiet life in the country. Fitz still visits his friends and family at Buckkeep castle, but he is no longer a part of the political wrangling. His concerns are of his family and home; his ageing wife, his youngest child, the household staff and difficult guests. Most of the book is setting up events for the action to come: Hobb builds an entire new world for Fitz, with just enough hints from the outside world and his retrospective narration to fill the reader with terror for when everything comes crashing down. It's only a matter of time.

A new point-of-view character is introduced, who allows us to see the same story from different perspectives, and to show us Fitz as others see him. This was less jarring than I'd expected after six books with only one narrative voice; I wasn't instantly sold on the new character, as at first I found them a little too precocious to be true, but they soon won me over. I enjoyed the alternating chapters, and the new voice brought a freshness to the book while fitting in as though they had always been there. Despite lacking much action for the majority of the book, Fool's Assassin is every bit as engrossing as the previous titles, and has forced me to put the rest of my to-read pile on hold until I find a way to extricate myself from this series.

The book's title, Fool's Assassin, brings together the title patterns of the previous two series, and begs the question, why would the Fool require an assassin? It is so out of character for someone who despite all the chaos and devastation he's caused and endured, is at heart a gentle soul. And we don't even meet the Fool in person until about the last tenth of the book, although he has been at the heart of most of the disturbances that have come into Fitz's life. When he does show up, everything goes terribly, horribly wrong. The longed-for reunion is devastating; one reckless action has far-reaching consequences, and the volume closes on a cliffhanger that made me very grateful that I had waited until the whole trilogy had been published before losing myself in Hobb's world again.


* I use the male pronouns to describe the Fool here, as although the character's gender is ambiguous, he presents as male in the Fitz-narrated books.

The Farseer and Tawny Man trilogies - Robin Hobb (reread)

It can be a risky thing to return to a book series you loved a decade ago. Time and distance can change your perspective; sometimes it can give you an added appreciation for things you didn't spot before, but also there is the danger of disappointment, disillusionment. I was a different person ten years ago, when I first discovered Robin Hobb's fantasy epic, beginning with Assassin's Apprentice. It was my "last summer" between finishing university and taking the first steps into the wider world. I found the Farseer Trilogy in the Kingston borough libraries, and was instantly captured by the narrator's voice. From the first page, I could envision the writer, a world-weary scribe in an untidy stone room, scratching his memoirs onto parchment by flickering torch- or lamplight. That summer, I was swept away into a land of political intrigue and half-comprehended magic in a diminished world whose glory days have faded into shadowy myth. And during the weeks while I was engrossed in Hobb's universe, I discovered that by coincidence, three of my friends were at a similar point in the series. We would meet up as an informal bookclub, with cheese and wine on the seafront, and exchange thoughts, theories and hints about what we had read and what was to come. I raced through those books that summer, not only the Farseer chronicles, but the Liveship Traders and Tawny Man set in the same universe. With the publication of a new trilogy, Fitz and the Fool, I returned to the Realm of the Elderlings to refresh my memory of the story so far. It's been a while since I was really into the sword-and-sorcery genre (Terry Pratchett excepted, if he counts) and now science fiction is more my cup of tea. But I was fond of Hobb's characters, and want to see how their tale concludes.

FitzChivalry Farseer is a royal embarrassment. The illegitimate only child of the heir to the Six Duchies throne, he spends his youth hidden and despised, working variously in the castle stables, as page to his father's widow, and learning the arts of the royal apprentice, the shadowy figure Chade. In his lowly position in the royal household, Fitz sees everything, and there is a lot to see, for it is a turbulent time for the Six Duchies. The country is under siege from outside forces, and threatened by treachery from within. The only hope seems to lie in a desperate quest to dangerous territories. But what has this to do with Fitz? And what is the meaning of the cryptic prophecies by the King's Fool?

Superficially, The Farseer Trilogy, and its sequels, is cut from the same cloth as many other fantasy novels, its setting resembling a medieval society, with kings and queens, tradesmen and peasants, with taverns aplenty. Fantastical elements are quite light on the ground. Magic, called "The Skill" is a trait that runs through the bloodline of the Farseers, the ruling family, but its rules and workings are mostly forgotten, passed on by word of mouth and preserved in scraps of scrolls buried deep in the archives. The Skill is a mixed blessing, powerful but addictive to its user and potentially deadly. There are also other, earthier magics, most notably "The Wit" - the ability to bond with an animal companion, a privilege granted to few and viewed with hostility. Fitz is gifted - or cursed - with both Wit and Skill.

The series is fairly slow-paced, taking time to introduce the reader to a rounded cast of characters: Burrich, the stablemaster tasked with Fitz's upbringing and training, Chade, the cantankerous, scarred spy and assassin. The aging King Shrewd, noble Prince Verity and cruel, foppish Prince Regal. Patience and Lacey, Molly Chandler, Nighteyes the wolf, and the Fool. Oh, the Fool! That character stole my heart from his very first appearance. The Fool is an enigma, a character of many contradictory identities, each of which are completely real. Frivolous and melancholic, gender-fluid, stoic and vulnerable, brave and so afraid, all these elements come together to create one of the most exasperating but beloved characters of fantasy fiction.Whenever the Fool arrives on the scene, Fitz must prepare for his life to be turned upside-down. Their relationship grows from youthful antagonism, to friendship, to a love story - whether you call it bromance or romance - that is the heart of the entire saga.

The Farseer Trilogy is followed chronologically by The Liveship Traders, but it takes place in another part of the world, with an entirely new cast - entirely new, but for one character whose familiar identity is revealed gradually. Although I enjoyed that trilogy well enough on my first reading, I decided to skip it on the rereads, as I didn't feel a strong connection to the characters, setting or plot. However, it does give extra background to the events of The Tawny Man, which pick up Fitz's story, fifteen years later.

The Farseer Trilogy and Tawny Man series (and Liveships if you're reading them) are worth savouring and taking time over - and then, when things start to go wrong, you feel the full impact on the characters and the wider world. Robin Hobb makes you fall in love with the characters and then whack you in the emotions, because when things go wrong, putting them right comes at a great cost. Yet Hobb keeps the story from growing too bleak with a light touch of humour, characters who are good company, and a world woven of wonder. Happiness is hard-won, and tempered with sorrow and suffering, so when contentment comes, it is all the sweeter.

However, a new trilogy awaits, and even as I can't wait to reunite myself with Fitz and the Fool, I fear for what else Hobb has in store for them.

Complete saga. Titles in bold are the Fitz/Fool books, which I'm reading this time around.

The Farseer Trilogy

Assassin's Apprentice

Royal Assassin

Assassin's Quest

The Liveship Traders Trilogy

Ship of Magic

The Mad Ship

Ship of Destiny

The Tawny Man Trilogy

Fool's Errand

The Golden Fool

Fool's Fate

The Rain Wilds Chronicles

Dragon Keeper

Dragon Haven

City of Dragons

Blood of Dragons

Fitz and the Fool

Fool's Assassin

Fool's Quest

Assassin's Fate

Star Wars, Episode VII: The Force Awakens

THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS.

You can't beat a good Star Wars film for the ultimate cinema experience. When those words flash up on-screen: "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away," and the triumphant theme music blares around you in surround sound, with the narrative crawling up the screen: this is what the movies were made for. To watch a new Star Wars movie like that: it feels a little like living through a moment in history, a nostalgia for a time before I was born. And yes, I know I have experienced this before, but those were episodes I and III, and we don't talk about them.

Admittedly, I'm not a Star Wars obsessive. I love the films - the original trilogy, that is, I have no strong feelings about the prequels which I regard as an optional extra - but I wouldn't be able to tell you the names of many character not named in script, and I haven't read any of the Expanded Universe novels. A decade ago I argued in favour of the series in a Wars vs Trek debate with one of my friends; now I have turned to the Dark Side as this blog has documented. But it doesn't have to be an either-or thing. Star Wars is magnificant, magical storytelling at its finest.

In the promotional material for The Force Awakens, fans across the world were asking the same question: "Where's Luke?" We knew that Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher were all signed up to reprise their most famous roles in the new installment, so what was the big secret? Had Luke, dear, eager, pure Luke Skywalker turned to the Dark Side? What a punch in the gut that would be. Or perhaps, almost more unthinkable, he'd actually died in the time since Return of the Jedi and would only appear as a Force ghost...

All became clear from the start of the opening crawl. "Luke Skywalker has vanished." Well played, J.J. Well played. Out-of-universe, we'd inadvertantly been asking the same questions as the characters in-universe. Where's Luke?

Luke, who turns up only at the very end, stouter and bearded and oh so sad, and Leia - now General Organa - appear really only as cameos in this film (much like Leonard Nimoy as the elder Spock in the 2009 Star Trek reboot.) Han Solo has a bigger role,but the focus is solidly on the next generation of characters. There is Poe Dameron, the star fighter pilot in Leia's Resistance to the First Order, the new baddies. Then there is Finn, formerly known as stormtrooper FN 2187, who has defected from the Dark Side and just wants to get away, but keeps on being drawn back to danger on the planet of Jakku. Finn is lovely character, fearful yet brave, with some great moments when he tries to be all chivalrous and rescue Rey, who is quite capable of saving herself, thankyouverymuch. Rey is a resourceful, rather angry young woman who was abandoned on Jakku as a child and left to fend for herself as a scavenger on a junkyard. And it is she who is at the heart of The Force Awakens; she who fills the ordinary teenager-turned-hero role originally held by Luke (and isn't it great for little girls to have a hero of their own?)

And as for the villains. Out of the ashes of the evil Empire has risen the First Order, overruled by Supreme Leader Snoke (a giant hologram of a creature) but the face of the villains is unmistakeably Kylo Ren, who proved to be a far more intriguing and multi-faceted character than I could have imagined. I saw his image in the promotional material and said, "Seriously?!" J. J. Abrams had replaced the most iconic baddies of all time, Darth Vader, with another tall dude with a cloak and a bucket on his head?

But that's the point. Kylo Ren idolises Darth Vader - conveniently ignoring the fact that he'd switched back from the Dark Side in the end - and of course he's never going to be as impressive, or live up to Vader's memory. He is powerful with the Force, but unstable, unhinged, lacking in self-control. There's a wonderful moment where one of his minions (no, not a little yellow squeaky banana-man! Despicable Me has ruined that word forever) comes to Ren with a look of terror on his face, to confess a failure to recapture the adorable droid BB8, with its map of "where to find Luke Skywalker." Being used to Darth Vader, the minion - and the viewer - is prepared for a ruthless and speedy death. Instead, Ren turns his lightsaber onto his expensive and complicated machinary. Where Vader was cold, Ren is hot-headed, immature, dangerous yes, but not fully-grown into his power.

And Kylo Ren does have a lot of power. How could he not? For before he wore the mask and took on the name Kylo Ren, he was simply Ben. Ben Solo, son of Han and Leia, nephew to Luke, grandson of Darth Vader himself. As a trainee Jedi, he turned on the rest of his class and slaughtered them all, it seems, causing a devastated Luke to disappear to an unknown planet. But what could have happened to turn the son of our heroes to the Dark Side? What kind of parents were Han and Leia? Could they have done anything to prevent his fall? Ren's commitment to the Dark is not absolute; we see him wrestle with the temptation to turn back to good, and his mother believes there is hope yet. And Han, the cynic, though he suspects Ben is lost forever, reaches out to him nonetheless. They meet on a bridge (it is always a bridge) and Han urges his son to come back with them. That would be interesting, wouldn't it? To have the bad guy in the midst of the Resistance, with his parents, striving to come back to the light. That would have been an interesting Episode Eight plot. And it looks, for a moment, as though Ren is tempted. He falters. He expresses his inner turmoil and anguish over "what must be done." And then I had another horrible dawning realisation, as Ren handed over his lightsaber. It looked awfully like he was begging Han, his own father, to kill him, to put him out of his misery. There would be a painful struggle, but I didn't believe Han could do it. He's not as hardened as he wants you to believe...

But as it happens, he was saved from having to make that agonising decision, once Ren activates his lightsaber just as it's directed at Han's heart.

I did not see that coming. I should have seen that coming, but I did not. I fell for it. I fell for that manipulative piece of work and gaped in disbelief as Han reached out to his son, forgiving him even for his own murder, and tumbled off the bridge into the darkness. Well. That made things much more interesting! And we see that there is more to Kylo Ren than the wannabe villain emo kid with a bad temper. Can there be any coming back from this?

I'm pleased to be able to conclude that Star Wars has recovered from the disappointment that was the prequel trilogy, and is back up to a high standard. My only criticism, bringing it down to four stars instead of five, is the amount of repetition, visual and plot, from the original movie. Instead of the Empire there is the First Order. Instead of the Death Star which can destroy a planet, there is the Starkiller Base, which looks an awful lot like a planet-sized Death Star which can destroy an entire solar system in one go. And, once more, it is taken out by a fleet of ace pilots. You get the Big Bad murdering the mentor figure in front of the fledgeling Jedi. All this seems very familiar. But Han Solo highlights some of these similarities with disdain: "So, it's bigger." It's very safe ground to return Star Wars to its former glory, and if the plot takes the shape, it is a classic shape of storytelling: the hero's quest. Already it fits into the canon as if it were always part of the story (a feat the prequels never managed) and, as my friend Paul said the other day, it's good to watch a Star Wars film without knowing what was going to happen next. Roll on Episode VIII!

The Lies of Locke Lamora - Scott Lynch

I fell in love with fantasy as a genre at sixteen, after watching the first film and then racing through the book of The Lord of the Rings. For several years after that, epic fantasy was pretty much all that I read -  David Eddings, Cecelia Dart-Thornton, Julia Gray and Robin Hobb standing out as my favourites (although I tried to reread my beloved Elenium a couple of years ago and had real difficulty with it. I fear I have become too critical a reader.) More recently, although the fantastical remains my literary comfort zone, I've preferred the skewed realities of Neil Gaiman and Erin Morgenstern, the magical realism of Cecelia Ahern, and just lately, hard science fiction. With the exception of George R. R. Martin, "Fantasyworld" has given way to our world viewed through a different lens. The Lies of Locke Lamora took me back to the Fantasyworld of my teenage days, and I read about Locke Lamora's city of Camorr with warm feelings of nostalgia.

If Locke Lamora takes place in the generic fantasyworld - which is not meant as a criticism - Camorr itself is a very specific country within that world. Camorr has a medieval Venetian feel to it, with its canals and gondolas, ruled by Dukes, but it is a city built upon the indestructible "Elderglass" remains of a pre-human civilisation. We don't spend that much time among the nobility, but among an underclass of thieves and cutthroats, characters who would not be out of place in a Dickensian novel. Locke Lamora and his band of reprobates use precious little magic, but they have talents of their own: they are masters of trickery and disguise, the most prosperous thieves in Camorr. The titular Locke Lamora was sold by one Fagin-esque criminal (for not knowing the limits of respectable thievery) to a confidence trickster who appears in the guise of a blind priest. And it suits him well. Locke and his cronies revel in disguises and seem to complicate their confidence tricks for themselves for the sheer fun of it, just to show off. Locke Lamora has used his wits to gain himself his position in Camorr's underworld, but the time comes when his wits are all he has left.

I found the pacing of Locke Lamora quite slow to begin with. The narrative alternates between past and present, and it feels like a large portion of the book is there to set the stage for the real story. It was enjoyable getting to know the characters and their histories, and I found that the chapters about Locke's childhood flew a lot quicker than the present scenes, which contained a lot of underworld politics. I'd watch Locke's exploits enjoying the gradual revelation of what his end game would turn out to be, but I found myself wondering when the real plot was going to get started.

But around halfway, the plot hooked me in, keeping me gripping the pages and shouting at the book as I wondered how is he going to get out of this one? What happens next? I came to enjoy spending time with the characters, and their light-hearted banter makes the sometimes heavy prose easier to read. But there are shocking twists, devastating revelations, and one particular betrayal was comparable to a certain wedding in the Song of Ice and Fire series.

A Dance with Dragons, part two: After the Feast, George R. R. Martin

contains spoilers

This afternoon, a lady came into the shop where I work and asked for the sixth book of A Song of Ice and Fire. I had to break to her that The Winds of Winter is, in all probability, still on George R R Martin’s personal computer, and that having finished the series so far only an hour previously, I shared her pain. The only consolation I had to offer was that at least we had a year and a half less of a wait than those who had read Dance With Dragons when it was first published in hardcover, and that we had been spared the six-year wait before that.

Quite what Martin had been doing between 2005 and 2011 is his own business – writing Dance With Dragons was certainly no mean feat, and even authors with rabid fanbases need time for holidays, spring-cleaning and walking the goldfish. I suspect that Martin did a little bit of exploring in the forgotten depths of the dictionary, and excavated a new word – “leal” (adj. – loyal, true, faithful) which was proudly displayed on every other page - along with the misuse of “wroth” – angry, in place of “wrath” – anger, which towards the end made me wroth indeed.

Vocabulary aside, let’s get onto the story. I found that part two dragged somewhat, confirming my suspicion that books 4 and 5 were more about moving characters to where they were needed, than advancing the plot. Many characters seem to be taking a long time with many circumlocutions to go nowhere. Less attention was paid to the characters I cared for or was interested in, with the focus moving to one-chapter points of view, newer characters who are more vague acquaintances than friends or fierce enemies. Arya and Bran Stark seem to have found their final destinations far away from the action of the plot, and I can’t see how they might get back into the main story now. Tyrion,who is always entertaining, got himself sold into slavery in Daenerys’ part of the world, then weasled his way out of it to join with a gang of mercenaries – but the whole thing came off as rather a shaggy-dog story. But he’s still alive, for now. (Direwolf Shaggydog and his master Rickon Stark haven’t been seen and barely heard of since Clash of Kings.)

The focus of Dance With Dragons has moved away from Westeros to the former slave city of Meereen, where Daenerys has announced herself queen. Her Queenship, though made of good intentions, has not been going so well, and in an attempt to keep the peace, she has married a shifty character with whom she now shares the crown. Only he may or may not have tried to kill her, and now Dany has disappeared on the back of a dragon to who-knows-where, believed by many to be dead. I found the chapters centred around Dany, or her absence, quite disappointing, but the final one is eerie and dreamlike. In it we are reminded of what seemed to be a poetic piece of rhetoric, a long-winded way of saying that Daenerys would never see her first husband again. But details in this chapter hint that perhaps the improbable is not impossible. “When seas go dry” – Daenerys is at this point located on “the Dothraki sea,” an endless plain of grass “and mountains blow in the wind like leaves.” – we are treated to vivid descriptions of the grass blowing on the hills. Daenerys appears ready to start another grand chapter in her queenly career.

Elsewhere, Martin strikes one of his trademark blows. Jon Snow has been Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, up at the Wall to the north of Westeros. And he’s taken his role very seriously indeed, reminding his unwilling men that they have vowed to stay out of politics and defend “the world of men” – not just the Westerosi men. The men of the watch didn’t like that, though, preferring to think of the “wildlings” as their enemies, and ignoring the real, supernatural threat to mankind.

Then, once, Jon gets a letter that prompts him to do one selfish act, and for this he is - apparently - stabbed to death.

TREACHERY!

Though perhaps a bit of a goody-goody, I've always had a vague sense that Jon Snow is the real central figure of Song of Ice and Fire. (Then again, we thought that of Ned Stark before he suffered Sean Bean Syndrome in Game of Thrones.) The whole Stark family seems to be becoming more and more peripheral to the plot, and I'm not entirely sure who is to take their place. Daenerys? The surviving Lannisters? Little Tommen?

No, Martin, you can’t do that.

And I’m not entirely convinced he did do that. Jon’s last conscious thoughts are the last we see of this development, and without producing a body – especially with a detached head – I’m not going to be fooled. Martin has “killed off” so many characters, just to produce them alive and sometimes well, that I just don’t trust him any more.
Politics have been quiet at capital city King’s Landing. Queen Regent Cersei is imprisoned and disgraced, and with Jaime and Tyrion absent, and Joffrey and Tywin dead, the Lannisters are no longer the power in those parts. Who’s running the place now? Cersei’s uncle Kevan seems to have a measure of control, but it looks like the mad scheming is over.

Then came the epilogue. Oops! My mistake.

Now what’s going to happen? 

MARTIN!!!! 

You can’t leave me like that.

Write, George, write like the wind.

A Dance With Dragons, part one: Dreams and Dust - George R R Martin

Contains spoilers

After the change in pace and characters in A Feast For Crows, the first half of Dance with Dragons feels a lot more like the series I'd grown used to, with its characters spread out across the continent of Westeros and beyond. I had missed a lot of characters in the previous volume, so was pleased to see Tyrion, Daenerys, Jon and Bran return to the centre stage, although I was stricken by the horrible realisation that I had grown attached to Tyrion, despite all the warnings not to get too emotionall yinvolved, because Martin kills off so many favourite characters. So far, although I've been  a bit shocked or saddened by some of the characters' deaths, I haven't lost anyone I've really cared for. I thought I was keeping a safe emotional distance. My realisation that there is someone I would be really upset to see die, whose absence would be a real hole in the series, made me feel apprehensive of Tyrion's future.

All through the series, Daenerys' story has been taking place apart from the others, with her stranded on another continent, with only the occasional rumour of her dragons. Now the plotlines are beginning to come together, and not in the obvious way. From the start of the series, I, and probably everyone else, expected her to invade Westeros with her dragons and reclaim the Iron Throne - but in Storm of Swords she made the decision to stay where she was. Now Westeros is coming to her - various factions across the continent are pledging their support of the exiled Queen.

But Daenerys' rule of her current kingdom is not going to plan. Firstly, she is beginning to realise the truth of what I warned her back in my review of Clash of Kings, that baby dragons may be cool and mark you out as something different, but untrained fully-grown dragons are death on scaly wings. Her kingdom is threatened with rebellion, war, starvation and now disease. Although she is a compassionate Queen, perhaps her compassion is her undoing. She's taken too many people under her wing, but hasn't the resources to keep them alive. I have no idea how this situation can be resolved without Dany ruthlessly abandoning her principles and her people.

After a two-book absence, we are reunited with Theon Greyjoy, the foster son of the Stark family who betrayed the closest thing he had to family - closer than his own family - and was betrayed in his turn. There had been a few hints that Theon was alive and not having a happy time of it, and now the full extent of his misery is revealed. All this time he has been the captive of the sadistic Ramsay Bolton and horrifically tortured. The most pitiful thing was the way Theon has suffered so much at the hands of Ramsay and yet he is so pathetically grateful for all the things that Ramsay could have done to him and didn't. I hated Theon by the end of Clash of Kings, the last time we saw him, but perhaps the two-book break cooled my anger with him. Was that a deliberate decision on Martin's part? After reading his chapters I can feel only horror and pity for him - and hope that he'll be put out of his misery soon. These chapters are the most harrowing of all, and worse is to come as Ramsay prepares for his marriage to "Arya Stark." The real Arya is far away now, but I read in dread thinking of the innocent girl, Jeyne, who has been chosen to take her place.

In this book we rejoin Arya's brother Bran, whose story hasn't really interested me that much since he was believed dead in Clash of Kings. His chapters have been full of wolf dreams in which he sees through the eyes of his direwolf Summer, which I've fouind rather abstract, and he seems to be losing part of his humanity each time he "borrows" (to use Granny Weatherwax of Discworld's phrase) the body of another. He and his two guardians have been travelling to meet someone who can train him to use his psychic abilities, and finally they meet. Here, the story took an eerie and unusual twist - instead of the wolf-dreams, Bran now has tree-dreams, or visions, where he can see the past from the point of view of the oldest trees. Possibly there is even a bit of time travel involved, as the people he watches sometimes seem to hear his voice, faintly, on the wind. But what sort of toll is this taking on Bran?

This volume is only really the first half of a book, so although a lot has happened, I'm not entirely sure what the plot is doing - it still feels that Martin is setting the pieces into place for a big climax. Still, we've had a couple of massive game-changing plot twists, including the introduction of a character who has long been presumed dead, and the final chapter of the volume going from bad, to a brief moment of hope, before ending on a sudden note of OH NO! And look out for an audacious Monty Python reference on page 378.

The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien

Despite my well-known adoration of The Lord of the Rings, I had only read its prequel The Hobbit once, in my teens. In the run-up to the Fellowship of the Ring, I tried to read it, but couldn't get past the first few pages. It wasn't until afterwards, when I was obsessed with all things Middle-Earth, that I got around to reading it. Although I enjoyed it well enough, it didn't make as much of an impression as LotR, or even The Silmarillion. I'd grown attached to all the characters and the majesty of LotR, and The Hobbit, with all its interchangeable dwarves, and its there-and-back-again narrative just didn't impress me in the same way.

That was about ten years ago. Now, watching the trailer and some of Peter Jackson's behind-the-scenes vlogs, I'm getting as excited for the Hobbit films as I was for LotR. And I realise I'd forgotten a lot of the Hobbit's plot; whole characters and settings I barely remembered. Time to reread it, I decided, and once decided it was just a few steps to my bookcase.

The Hobbit certainly is very different in tone and style to The Lord of the Rings, and I think it has to be accepted as its own entity rather than viewed as LotR: The Prequel. Though there is plenty of danger throughout, it is a far more fun and whimsical adventure story, narrated in a manner that is at times reminiscent of the Chronicles of Narnia, with Tolkien himself interjecting and commenting on the story he is telling. There are even talking birds and dragons, singing goblins, and elves who sing about "tra-la-la-lally, down in the valley," rather than endless ballads about their ancestors.

It was recently announced that The Hobbit will be adapted not into one, not two but three films. Considering that it is less than 300 pages in my edition, and 19 chapters long, I wondered just how that could possibly work. Even with material taken from Tolkien's other writings to connect the events with Lord of the Rings, wouldn't the story feel "like butter scraped over too much bread?" But despite its brevity, a lot actually happens in this slender volume. Bilbo and the Dwarves run into trolls, goblins, Gollum, giant spiders, Elves, men, a were-bear and, of course, the dragon Smaug, before fighting in an epic battle. Compared with the chapters of getting from one place to the next in LotR, Tolkien writes concisely and sparingly, passing weeks of walking in a sentence and covering each incident in a single chapter. I could quite easily see how a few sentences from the book could be expanded into, say, twenty minutes of screen time, and I'm excited to see how they do this. Instead of being afraid that Jackson will add things in that "didn't really happen," I'm rather intrigued by what material they can get out of Tolkien's original text due to the sheer amount of story and character Tolkien packs into each line.

Bilbo and the dwarves meet characters along the way, who are introduced and then bidden farewell at the end of their chapter. Even all of the dwarves are not given full personalities: Thorin is proud and haughty, Balin gentler and kinder to Bilbo, Fili and Kili young and cheerful - but what can you tell me about Dori, Nori and Ori? Beorn, Bard, the Elvenking - none of these have a lot of page time, and yet their characters are firmly established.

The Hobbit starts of reading like a fairytale, beginning with Bilbo Baggins being chosen right out of the blue by a wizard he hasn't seen since his childhood, to "go on an adventure" - handpicked to do the dirty work on a quest for some dwarves he's never met in his life, and probably end up as a dragon's Sunday roast for his efforts. Oh, and he has to provide cake and breakfast all round. Any self-respecting hobbit would tell  Gandalf exactly where he could put his quest, but unfortunately for Bilbo (and fortunately to us the readers) he is descended on his mother's side from the Tooks, a family of hobbits with the most disgraceful habit of having adventures, and somehow he agrees to be the party's "burglar." Or perhaps he just doesn't isn't given a chance to refuse. One rather wonders what led Gandalf, in all of Middle-Earth, to the home of this rather pompous, comfortable little hobbit, and whether the wizard saw great qualities in Bilbo, or whether it was Gandalf's confidence in Mr Baggins that caused him to grow as a character. He starts off as a scared, homesick little chap, and gradually grows in courage, cunning and confidence with each brush with death, ceasing to rely on the dwarves to look after him, and instead saving their lives on more than one occasion. He even defies them to attempt to make peace with the men of Laketown when Thorin's pride and greed would make them enemies.

For an apparently simple, black-and-white fairytale with good guys and bad guys, I was impressed with how  morally dubious Tolkien makes the otherwise good guys. We have a king with more wealth between him and thirteen friends than most countries own, called upon to help a neighbouring town that has been utterly devastated by a natural disaster (namely a dragon) - and he refuses. No! he says, This is my treasure and what claim do you have on it? Er, Thorin, what about simple decency? No? (He repents in the end, and it is implied that Smaug has left some sort of curse on the treasure that possesses the unwary with an overpowering greed - some version of the malevolent power that the One Ring holds over its bearers, perhaps?)

As I type this, I'm watching my Fellowship of the Ring DVD, and I was struck by how the two stories in the Ring saga show contrasting views of the people of Middle-Earth. Where the Elves in Lord of the Rings are depicted as wise, beautiful, too-good-to-be-true people, The Hobbit, follows a group of dwarves, who are the rivals. In this book, the Elves are more like the wild tricksy fair folk of ancient legend. Meanwhile, while before I was disappointed that The Hobbit didn't show the same characters or peoples as LotR, today I found myself missing the dwarf history in the film. Yes, this time around I have been won over by The Hobbit, and am really impatient for the first installment of the movie.  Why can't it be December already? Yes, it's a controversial move to split the story into three parts - I wasn't entirely convinced at first that even two was a good idea, but if anyone can do it, I trust Mr Jackson. After all, I'm convinced he is part hobbit himself.

A Storm of Swords, part 1: Steel and Snow–George R. R. Martin

Warning: contains spoilers. Also is long.


A Storm of Swords is the third part of George R. R. Martin’s epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire, and is in itself enough of an epic that the paperback has been split into two volumes, no doubt to save the book from ripping its spine in half on the first read. A Storm of Swords gets going more quickly than the last volume, whose first half, though still interesting from a world-building and character point of view, read more like the set-up for a big climax rather than actual plot development.

In the north, young king Robb Stark continues to fight his battles largely offscreen, and it’s not going well. Though winning his battles, for now, a few foolish moves from Robb and his advisors lose him allies left, right and centre. The Starks seem to be barely staying afloat, and surely their good fortunes can’t last much longer against the might of the Lannisters, as well as all other pretenders to the throne.

Meanwhile, in King’s Landing, the main event is King Joffrey’s upcoming wedding. Twelve-year-old Sansa has been reprieved, for now, and instead the King is to wed with would-be King Renly’s widow, Margaery Tyrell. I enjoyed meeting Margaery, and particularly her formidable grandmother, who befriend Sansa, who needs as many people on her side as possible. But I don’t quite trust them. Although they know what sort of a person Joffrey is, they act too confident about the wedding. Their attitude seems to be, “It’s all under control, don’t worry your pretty little head about a thing.” They’re plotting something – but I’m not convinced that it will benefit Sansa.

Still, she’s safe from marrying our dear Joffers – instead she’s been married off to his uncle Tyrion, a sore blow to the former romantic dreamer. Tyrion is hardly the dashing groom she had hoped for – at least twenty years her senior, malformed and an eyesore. Still, in my opinion Sansa could do much worse: Tyrion may be the one man in Westeros who would actually respect her.

And I have a strong sense of foreboding about the marriage ceremony. The Lannisters have not made themselves universally popular, ruling rather by fear than by love. One of the wedding guests, the representative from Dorne, has not shown up, instead sending his brother who wants revenge for wrongs done his family by the Lannister-Baratheon regime.

This volume shows another side to the scheming Lannisters. So far, Cersei Lannister has been shown rather as the wicked queen, but this volume depicts her as having no more control of her own fate than Sansa, with her father arranging to marry her off to some nobleman or other for political reasons. Similarly, her twin brother Jaime, for the first time given his own point-of-view chapters, is not the big tough knight that he has formerly seemed. Instead, Martin turns our expectations on their heads, showing this golden knight and kingslayer bested at swordfighting by a young woman, and breaking his resolve not to cry out at injury.

Up north of the wall and away from “civilisation,” Jon Snow continues as a spy among the Wildlings. He has been urged to “Do as they bid you… but in your heart remember who you are. Ride with them, eat with them, fight with them, for as long as it takes.” But with his every action aiding the Wildlings to convince them of his loyalty, and with no opportunity presenting itself to rejoin his post at the Night’s Watch, I find myself wondering how far can one act a part before “remembering who you are” becomes meaningless. And now he’s fallen in love, that “remembering” must surely become more and more tricky.

Now the Wildlings have breached the Wall and invaded Westeros, unbeknown to the feuding kings, who would be better off uniting to save their kingdom. Or would they? First portrayed as lawless savages, the ways of the wildlings, or “free folk” as they name themselves, seem more sympathetic now, and quite persuasive.

“In the northern wastes a horde of hungry, savage people steeped in the dark magic of the wilderness is poised to invade the Kingdom of the North […] if the Wall is breached, no king will live to claim [the throne]”,

reads the back blurb, but all in all, imposing as they are, the Wildlings are just another army of men. Even the giants, the monsters of old wives’ tales, when actually seen are not so terrifying. It’s what else lives behind the wall that poses the real threat to mankind: the walking dead, terrifying creatures with ice-blue eyes known only as the Others (or zombies, to the genre-savvy reader.)

Part one of A Storm of Swords ends with reader frustration as two sets of characters who have been parted from early on in the series, come this close to being reunited – but have no idea that who else is near, and pass each other by.

With so much going on, clearly more happens in some plotlines than others, and I can’t write of every character with a point-of-view chapter. Arya has the most chapters, yet they are taken up mostly with travelling, falling in with different people for a little while. But she does overhear an old woman talking of her dreams, which are almost certainly prophetic in nature.

“I dreamt I saw a shadow with a burning heart butchering a golden stag, aye.

I dreamt of a man without a face, waiting on a bridge that swayed and swung. On his shoulder perched a drowned crow with seaweed hanging from his wings.

I dreamt of a roaring river and a woman that was a fish. Dead she drifted, with red tears on her cheeks, but when her eyes did open, oh, I woke with terror.”

Now, as it stands, I can’t make any sense of the middle dream, except that the crows are often used as a symbol for the men of the Night’s Watch, where Jon is based. (They are also symbols of death, and of Bran’s psychic dreams, so that doesn’t narrow it down much.) But I’d like to hazard a guess at what they other two may foretell.

The first dream is fairly straightforward: the burning heart is the symbol of the new religion taken up by King Stannis and his advisor the red priestess – who conjured a shadow assassin – probably – to slay Renly. The stag is the badge of the House of Baratheon. I realise I misremembered it as Lannister and thought that it predicted Jaime’s death, being the golden knight, but the Lannisters are Lions (of course.) – Instead I think it either reveals the truth of Renly’s death, or foretells that Stannis will suffer a similar fate.

The “woman that was a fish” is a more tricky prophecy – but the fish is the sigil of the House of Tully, of which Catelyn Stark, mother of Robb, Sansa, Arya, Bran and Rickon, is a daughter. And she has reason to weep tears of blood, believing her sons Bran and Rickon to have been violently murdered. But the fish was dead – and yet opened its eyes with terrifying effect. I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that a fate worse than death awaits Catelyn – the Others will get her and she will become a zombie.

Crazy suggestion, I know, with nothing else in the text to support it, but after all, the Wall has been breached, and the north of the kingdom will be the first to fall. Where the Wildlings go first, the Others could follow in their path. I’m not entirely sure where Catelyn, Robb et al are based right now, but surely they will try to reclaim and rebuild their northern home, Winterfell at some point?

Perhaps part two will hold the answers – or, more likely, pose twice as many questions.

A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin–part 2 (pages 410-805)

Contains spoilers

Eddard Stark has been trying his hand at a bit of detective work. He suspects that his brother-in-law Jon Arryn was murdered by the evil Queen Cersei – but why. What dangerous knowledge did he discover? One might think that Ned might use a bit of caution when reveals that he too is in possession of the knowledge that got Arryn killed, but no. Honour is what Ned Stark lives by, and to keep the truth concealed would be dishonour. Of course, as soon as he threatens to tell the king his wife’s secret, the King is conveniently killed in a hunting accident. In discussion with sneaky Petyr “Littlefinger” on the subject of the next king, for the first time I sided with Littlefinger’s prudence against Ned’s honour. He lived by his honour, and when it leads to him being accused of treason, he dies by it. This did not surprise me, because, as I’d mentioned before, I’d seen a clip of this scene in a “Life and deaths of Sean Bean” montage on Youtube. The aftermath of Eddard’s execution was painful to read – first, the chapter back at Winterfell, where Bran Stark and his youngest brother Rickon are ignorant of their father’s fate but troubled by the same vivid dreams about him. Meanwhile, eleven-year-old Sansa Stark, who has been besotted with her fiance Prince – now King – Joffrey, has seen too late what he is really like, and now there is no escaping marriage to her father’s killer. And what's worse, she has to like it.

I wrote in my last post that A Game of Thrones was bringing out a rather vicious side to me, when I expressed a wish for Viserys “still not king” Targaryen to come to “an ignominious, snivelling end.” This came a lot sooner than I had expected, before he’d even crossed the seas to the Seven Kingdoms – a really horrible, shocking death. But it was very satisfying. At first we had seen Viserys through his sister’s eyes – a bullying brute with a terrible temper, who ruled her by fear. But Daenerys was a fourteen-year-old girl. When she is wedded to a chieftain of the Dothraki, a culture of horse-lord warriors, while they see Viserys as I did: a bratty, spoilt would-be king of a foreign land. Daenerys, on the other hand, just grows in authority to become a stern queen. A Game of Thrones is rife with sexism, especially in the Dothraki culture, but Daenerys won’t have any of it. I’m not talking about “sexism” as is often an accusation in fantasy: a mostly-male cast with women only as wives and maidens, or a conservative view that men should be men, women should be women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri ought to be small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri. This book is full of out-and-out misogyny, women are treated as men’s property to do with what they will. There were several instances of me wanting to lob A Game of Thrones across the room, and I would have done if I owned the copy. So the fact that Dany says NO. This is Not Okay comes as a relief, and perhaps makes me like her more than someone else with similar levels of character development, due to my anger at what had come before.

One of the few things I thought I knew about this book before reading it was that “someone gives birth to dragons,” but I was sure I’d grabbed the wrong end of the stick there and embarrassed myself by announcing it. But I was much closer than I’d realised. It took me longer to really get attached to Daenerys’ story, because she was more or less unconnected with the other stories told in this volume, being the other side of the ocean. But the last couple of chapters were wonderful storytelling: twisty and devastating and brilliant. Martin broke the rules of storytelling by setting up a great prophecy about a future character – and then killing off the character at birth. So what was the point of that whole subplot? Why didn’t the crones predict that? I found that frustrating and amazing at the same time - I love stories that defy conventions of what may or may not happen. With Martin, it seems there is no may not. I was more impressed by the whole subplot about exchanging a death for a life, with its twists and betrayals, than the final image of Daenerys emerging from her husband’s funeral pyre carrying three baby dragons, as a red comet streaked across the sky. Which is a pretty impressive image.

Next up: A Clash of Kings. The Seven Kingdoms are certainly at war now, with about six contenders for the Iron Throne, some of whom are sympathetic, some decidedly not, and the one currently seated upon in it a nasty piece of work indeed. I expect this war will rage on throughout the entire series – the five books so far and however many are still inside George Martin’s head. Battle scenes don’t interest me much, and another six volumes (books 3 and 5 are split in two in their paperback format) of battle scenes fill me with trepidation – but I can tell that there is enough story to fill the pages alongside the “swording and politics.” I’ve reached the end of everything I’d been spoiled about, except for one phrase that makes no sense out of context anyway. I have absolutely no idea what to expect, except that it’s going to be awesome.

In which I embark on a new adventure: A Game of Thrones

For the last year, since Sky Atlantic started showing HBO's adaptation of the epic fantasy series, I've been unable to escape reading and hearing about A Game of Thrones. A lot. All the time. From every direction. I've lost count of how many of my friends have told me I should read this series, or have been surprised that I haven't, or threatened to disown me and/or hit me over the head with the Dance With Dragons hardback if I didn't at least give the series a try. But I wasn't sure this was for me. I like my fantasy epics, although I've read less high fantasy in the last few years, but all I knew about A Song of Ice and Fire was that it was about fantasy world politics. And swording. Lots of swording. Lots of death.
But people are dropping references to this series everywhere, and I'm seeing people reading it on public transport, or people are buying it, and I'm starting to think this is a thing I want to be part of. I want to join  see it at work and can't help taking a peek - and read a page or two. This series is calling to me and now I am answering the call. My colleague Maria has lent me the first book, A Game of Thrones, which I will start reading and reviewing shortly. (As it's such a whopper of a book, I may review it a bit at a time, if I have enough to say about it. But not a chapter at a time as I gather there are many, many, short chapters, and that would just be silly.)

I still don't know a lot about this series, am not sure whether I will love it or not. I'm giving it a few days after Lord of the Rings because how can it compare? And I'm well aware that, apart from being epic fantasy doorstops, killing off Sean Bean in the adaptation and being written by slightly curmudgeonly old chaps with two Rs for middle names, these are completely different stories. It's like when people try to lump together Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, or Harry Potter and Twilight, or Twilight and The Hunger Games - all completely different genres within the wider genre of fantasy. Do not show your ignorance in such matters! Just don't do it. 


All I know, or think I know about A Game of Thrones is:

• there are swording and politics
• Pages and pages of family trees at the back of the books.
• Sean Bean is in it, and therefore dies. (I think I know how he dies, because I may have seen a spoiler clip in one of those The Many Deaths of Sean Bean videos on Youtube, but I don't know who he plays.)
• George R. R. Martin has no problem with killing off anyone - never mind if you think their survival is necessary for the story, or common decency, or because you like them. Don't trust him with anyone you like.
• A few character names: Ned Stark, Daenerys, Jon Snow, Joffrey.
• Everybody hates Joffrey.
• Someone gives birth to dragons. Is this right? Is this literal or metaphorical, and does it make any more sense in context or have I got completely the wrong end of the stick? Please don't actually answer this. 
• That is about it.

Right now I'm only committing to reading the first book in the series, A Game of Thrones, because there are a lot of pages to get through, in one book alone, if I don't like it. Two of the books have been split in half for the paperback publication, presumably so that there is a hope of getting to the end of a volume without the book falling to bits. My challenge to George R. R. Martin is this: Make me care.