BOOK BLURB:
Return to the world of the Liveships Traders and journey along the Rain Wild River in this standalone adventure from the author of the internationally acclaimed Farseer trilogy. Guided by the great blue dragon Tintaglia, they came from the sea: a Tangle of serpents fighting their way up the Rain Wilds River, the first to make the perilous journey to the cocooning grounds in generations. Many have died along the way. With its acid waters and impenetrable forest, it is a hard place for any to survive. People are changed by the Rain Wilds, subtly or otherwise. One such is Thymara. Born with black claws and other aberrations, she should have been exposed at birth. But her father saved her and her mother has never forgiven him. Like everyone else, Thymara is fascinated by the return of dragons: it is as if they symbolise the return of hope to their war-torn world. Leftrin, captain of the liveship Tarman, also has an interest in the hatching; as does Bingtown newlywed, Alise Finbok, who has made it her life's work to study all there is to know of dragons. But the creatures which emerge from the cocoons are a travesty of the powerful, shining dragons of old. Stunted and deformed, they cannot fly; some seem witless and bestial. Soon, they become a danger and a burden to the Rain Wilders: something must be done. The dragons claim an ancestral memory of a fabled Elderling city far upriver: perhaps there the dragons will find their true home. But Kelsingra appears on no maps and they cannot get there on their own: a band of dragon keepers, hunters and chroniclers must attend them. To be a dragon keeper is a dangerous job: their charges are vicious and unpredictable, and there are many unknown perils on the journey to a city which may not even exist...
REVIEW:
As a long time Robin Hobb fan, I’ve always looked forward to her latest release but recent releases have had one major flaw in my opinion, that of their predictability. That said however, what you really get with Robin’s books are tales that are well told, have characters that you feel you’ve known for a while and allow you to escape to a world of her imagination for a number of hours. One of the bright sides of this being a new series is that you don’t have to have read any other of her novels to jump right in.
For an initiate of Fantasy looking for someone to try, that consistently releases a book that is in the upper eschelon of that year’s releases, then she’s a pretty good name to start with and whilst, as I’ve mentioned above, I did have problems with the predictability it is a pleasant way to spend a few hours.
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