Ok. So I finally finished book 3 of The Farseer trilogy and it was a lot. This time out Fitz is on a quest to find Prince Verity and aid Queen-in-waiting Kettricken in first hiding, then retaking the throne. Along the way he continues to fail at assassining (don't look at me like that, it's totally a word), meets some minstrels, whines a lot about Molly, wakes up some statue dragons (sort of, it's complicated) and continues his oblivious, one sided love affair with the Fool which is, honestly, my favourite part of the whole series. 

The world building is first rate. The Six Duchies, their history and politics, are really well conceived, which makes it easy for the reader to immerse herself into the word Hobb has created. Unfortunately, the story, over the course of the three novels, suffers a bit from repetition and a lack of character growth. Fitz finds himself in the same situation over and over again, yet he never seems to learn from his mistakes, never really develops as a character. He also seems to really fail at connecting to others emotionally. He says he loves Molly. He feels compelled to follow Verity. And yes, he really, really hates Regal. But most of the time he doesn't really seem all that moved by other people, with the exception of the Fool. And maybe part of that is an unreliable narrator (Fitz, himself, and lets face it, he's not particularly self aware) but I tend to see this more as a failure in the writing. And when the main character can't connect, well, that makes it really hard for me to. 

I have decided that Fitz is really quite bad at this assassin gig. He should probably take up shepherding or something. 

How many times  Burrich going to disown Fitz though? 

So I think everyone and their sister has read this book, but basically, Fitz, the bastard son of a beloved Prince, is taken to court and raised to be an assassin. Fifteen year old me would have LOVED this book. Forty year old me is both pickier and lazier. Fitz is a very appealing character, all tragic backstory and quiet and brooding. And he's magic! Fifteen year old me is all over that! Forty year old me is bummed that Hobb chose to frame the narrative as a memoir, with adult Fitz looking back on his youth. I'm not fond of this particular convention, particularly in action/suspense stories where I'm supposed to be worried about the survival of the main character. Additionally, each chapter begins with a paragraph from the memoir, and the writing style of these paragraphs tends towards the florid and grandiose, which Is really not my thing. They continually drew me out of the story, so I stopped reading them around chapter 8, which, coincidentally (?) was about the point where the pacing picked up and the story finally hooked me. The world building in the story is great, and I suspect this novel is really all about setting up the next two. I'm looking forward to them and to more of Fitz.