I'm about to finish the farseer trilogy, and am looking forward to reading the rest of Hobbs series. The only real complaint I have is that Farseer victimized the protagonist too much, and in the Soldier Son trilogy thread

"Plus, despite being a Farseer fanboy, even I have my limits when it comes to victimizing your hero."

Is all her series like that or just the 2?

 

All of it, more than likely... >_>

Hobb is a hack of an author. I lost respect for her when she started bashing her fans that wrote fanfiction.

 

You are correct sir; I've read her other two series, the Liveship Traders and the Tawny Man, and both include heavy helpings of character victimizing.

 

god damn. Are they still as good as farseer? would they still get a recommendation?

 

As the author of the quote in the first post, I stand by what I said. Don't read Soldier Son. Or at least stop after the first book.
As for Tawny Man, well I couldn't help myself, I had to know the end of Fitz's misadventures. Readable, I guess, since I actually managed to finish it without throwing the book at a wall. A bit like DH.

People keep telling me I should read Liveship Traders but I've grown wary of Hobb now.

And yeah, she's a bitch for banning fanfiction. Insecure much ?

 

The Tawny Man is good enough. And definitely worth of reading, at least if you're even half as desperate to read anything that would continue Fitz's story as I was after reading Farseer. Imagine a little less angsty version of Farseer and you got the general atmosphere of Tawny Man pinned down.

 

I read the first ans second book of the soldier son trilogy, and have to say I have mixed feelings about her.

Hobb really is excellent at creating worlds, the first soldier son trilogy was done well enough to make me read the second, no matter how maddening it was.

I havn't read her other books however, the second soldier son one really put me off them. I despised the main character in it, just couldn't read anything where I was actively hoping someone would kill him.

 

I would definitely recommend Tawny Man, if only to read more about Fitz, as well as Liveship Traders, as the writing style is much different than any of her other works and there are a few things in it that are mentioned in Farseer/Tawny Man and vice versa.

 

I really liked the Farseer trilogy. I thought the premise was cool and it isn't hard to like Fitz. That said, he and the Fool go through more shit in the 6 books the two share then any other character I've seen with maybe the exception of Rand al'Thor. Robin Hobb seems to take particular delight in fucking him over. . . repeatedly. I do wish she wasn't such a bitch about fanfiction. She's irrational to an extreme and completely wrong about it. But I guess there's nothing we can do about it.

 

I rather enjoyed the Farseer trilogy as well, though it was somewhat spoiled by the rather unoriginal and poor ending coupled with her stance on fanfiction. Oh well Farseer was still a lot better then Solider Son, the first book was great but the second one lost my interest

 

So, I really enjoyed the Farseer Trilogy, and dove right in to Liveship Traders. I started pretty interested... but with each successive book I began disliking it more and more. At the very end of LT, I can safely say I fucking hated the trilogy. It took me 4 months to finish. I had to keep taking breaks with other books.

It was basically just long and boring Master and Commander fanfiction written by an author that clearly was going through a Scalie phase. Furthermore, it ultimately went nowhere and had virtually no payoff besides that one singular bit where you find out one of the characters is actually a central Farseer character.

Honestly, fuck every single character in this story besides maybe Paragon and Vivacia. Everyone is clever and capable until it's suddenly their turn to hold the idiot ball. Kennit chapters, Wintrow chapters, and everything Bingtown/Rainwilds was just a massive chore to read.

Is there any point continuing with Realm of the Elderlings books if I hated Liveship this fucking much? Do the next 6 Fitz books make up for this shit? Can I skip Rainwild trilogy entirely?

Also, do I win biggest Necro of the Month Award?

 

Hobb is an author I desperately want to enjoy, I like the world that she builds. But her writing is just so...bad. I just cannot get into it.

 

I get annoyed at stories where it seems like the author just cannot let the main character have any sort of happiness without yanking it away.

After a while it just becomes tiresome and seems more like a device to write more books (Fitz is miserable = a story; Fitz is happy = boring) and at that point I stop caring.

 

I read all three trilogies a while back and I don't generally have a strong memory of them -- good or bad. I remember they were mostly depressing things that loved fucking the main characters, but some of the worldbuilding was pretty interesting.

 

I have a soft spot for the Elderlings series, but in retrospect none of the books were good.

 

So I got through Tawny Man trilogy, and for the most part, I enjoyed that too. Fitz and the Fool are great characters.

Now I'm into the second book of Rainwilds and we're right back into Hobb's uncomfortable Scalie fantasies. Honestly, why do so many Elderlings fans say Liveship and Rainwilds are good? These series are just painful to read.

 

I started reading Assassin's Apprentice many years ago. I liked the description of the bread and stew. I still remember it to this day. Even just thinking of it now makes me want some.

Absolutely detested all the characters though. I think I gave up half-way through the story when I caught myself hoping that the protagonist had died because they were so contemptible.

 

Magician's apprentice was a solid series, but the quality seemed to go down from there.


Edit: Derp. I always get that series mixed up with Hobb's stuff.

Yeah Hobb sucked if I remember her other stuff right. The FarSeer Trilogy was the only thing that really was quality, but even then more like a 3.75/5.

 

Fitz is a real cuntbag for the first two books. He literally has to die to go through some positive character development.