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Rain Wild Chronicles #1
Dragon Keeper
Enter the spellbinding world of dragons... and those who tend them
One of the most gifted fantasy authors writing today, New York Times bestselling author Robin Hobb has dazzled readers with brilliantly imaginative, emotionally resonant, and compulsively readable tales set in far-flung realms not unlike our own. In this enthralling new novel, she returns to the territory of her beloved Liveship Traders and Tawny Man trilogies with a story of dragons and humans, return and rebirth, and the search for meaning, belonging, and home.
For years, the Trader cities valiantly battled their enemies, the Chalcedeans. But they could not have staved off invasion without the powerful dragon Tintaglia. In return, the Traders promised to help her serpents migrate up the Rain Wild River after a long exile at sea--to find a safe haven and, Tintaglia hopes, to restore her species. But too much time has passed, and the newly hatched dragons are damaged and weak, and many die. The few who survive cannot use their wings; earthbound, they are powerless to hunt and vulnerable to human predators willing to kill them for the fabled healing powers of dragon flesh.
But Tintaglia has vanished and the Traders are weary of the labor and expense of tending useless dragons. The Trader leadership fears that if it stops providing for the young dragons, the hungry and neglected creatures will rampage--or die along the river's acidic muddy banks. To avert catastrophe, the dragons decree a move even farther up the treacherous river to Kelsingra, their ancient, mythical homeland whose mysterious location is locked deep within the dragons' uncertain ancestral memories.
To ensure their safe passage, the Traders recruit a disparate group of young people to care for the damaged creatures and escort them to their new home. Among them is Thymara, an unschooled forest girl of sixteen, and Alise, a wealthy Trader's wife trapped in a loveless marriage, who attaches herself to the expedition as a dragon expert. The two women share a deep kinship with the dragons: Thymara can instinctively communicate with them, and Alise, captivated by their beauty and majesty, has devoted her life to studying them.
Embarking on an arduous journey that holds no promise of return, the band of humans and dragons must make their way along the toxic and inhospitable Rain Wild River--an extraordinary odyssey that will teach them lessons about themselves and one another, as they experience hardships, betrayals, and joys beyond their wildest dreams.
One of the most gifted fantasy authors writing today, New York Times bestselling author Robin Hobb has dazzled readers with brilliantly imaginative, emotionally resonant, and compulsively readable tales set in far-flung realms not unlike our own. In this enthralling new novel, she returns to the territory of her beloved Liveship Traders and Tawny Man trilogies with a story of dragons and humans, return and rebirth, and the search for meaning, belonging, and home.
For years, the Trader cities valiantly battled their enemies, the Chalcedeans. But they could not have staved off invasion without the powerful dragon Tintaglia. In return, the Traders promised to help her serpents migrate up the Rain Wild River after a long exile at sea--to find a safe haven and, Tintaglia hopes, to restore her species. But too much time has passed, and the newly hatched dragons are damaged and weak, and many die. The few who survive cannot use their wings; earthbound, they are powerless to hunt and vulnerable to human predators willing to kill them for the fabled healing powers of dragon flesh.
But Tintaglia has vanished and the Traders are weary of the labor and expense of tending useless dragons. The Trader leadership fears that if it stops providing for the young dragons, the hungry and neglected creatures will rampage--or die along the river's acidic muddy banks. To avert catastrophe, the dragons decree a move even farther up the treacherous river to Kelsingra, their ancient, mythical homeland whose mysterious location is locked deep within the dragons' uncertain ancestral memories.
To ensure their safe passage, the Traders recruit a disparate group of young people to care for the damaged creatures and escort them to their new home. Among them is Thymara, an unschooled forest girl of sixteen, and Alise, a wealthy Trader's wife trapped in a loveless marriage, who attaches herself to the expedition as a dragon expert. The two women share a deep kinship with the dragons: Thymara can instinctively communicate with them, and Alise, captivated by their beauty and majesty, has devoted her life to studying them.
Embarking on an arduous journey that holds no promise of return, the band of humans and dragons must make their way along the toxic and inhospitable Rain Wild River--an extraordinary odyssey that will teach them lessons about themselves and one another, as they experience hardships, betrayals, and joys beyond their wildest dreams.
17 pages, Audiobook
First published June 25, 2009
About the author
Robin Hobb
341 books115k followers** I am shocked to find that some people think a 2 star 'I liked it' rating is a bad rating. What? I liked it. I LIKED it! That means I read the whole thing, to the last page, in spite of my life raining comets on me. It's a good book that survives the reading process with me. If a book is so-so, it ends up under the bed somewhere, or maybe under a stinky judo bag in the back of the van. So a 2 star from me means,yes, I liked the book, and I'd loan it to a friend and it went everywhere in my jacket pocket or purse until I finished it. A 3 star means that I've ignored friends to finish it and my sink is full of dirty dishes. A 4 star means I'm probably in trouble with my editor for missing a deadline because I was reading this book. But I want you to know . . . I don't finish books I don't like. There's too many good ones out there waiting to be found.
Robin Hobb is the author of three well-received fantasy trilogies: The Farseer Trilogy (Assassin’s Apprentice, Royal Assassin, and Assassin’s Quest), The Liveship Traders Trilogy (Ship of Magic, Mad Ship and Ship of Destiny) and the Tawny Man Trilogy (Fool’s Errand, Golden Fool, and Fool’s Fate) Her current work in progress is entitled Shaman’s Crossing. Robin Hobb lives and works in Tacoma, Washington, and has been a professional writer for over 30 years.
In addition to writing, her interests include gardening, mushrooming, and beachcombing. She and her husband Fred have three grown children and one teenager, and three grand-children.
She also writes as Megan Lindholm, and works under that name have been finalists for the Hugo award, the Nebula Award, and the Endeavor award. She has twice won an Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Readers’ Award.
Robin Hobb is the author of three well-received fantasy trilogies: The Farseer Trilogy (Assassin’s Apprentice, Royal Assassin, and Assassin’s Quest), The Liveship Traders Trilogy (Ship of Magic, Mad Ship and Ship of Destiny) and the Tawny Man Trilogy (Fool’s Errand, Golden Fool, and Fool’s Fate) Her current work in progress is entitled Shaman’s Crossing. Robin Hobb lives and works in Tacoma, Washington, and has been a professional writer for over 30 years.
In addition to writing, her interests include gardening, mushrooming, and beachcombing. She and her husband Fred have three grown children and one teenager, and three grand-children.
She also writes as Megan Lindholm, and works under that name have been finalists for the Hugo award, the Nebula Award, and the Endeavor award. She has twice won an Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Readers’ Award.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 3,704 reviews
March 9, 2011
I grew up on a toxic waste dump. I realize that sounds melodramatic, but technically it's accurate. My childhood home was ringed by no fewer than five Superfund sites - and, as we like to say, those are just the spots they've cleaned.
When I was a kid people weren't so concerned about the pollution. Arsenic was in the dust we kicked up on the playgrounds, on the berries we picked in the woods, in the small ponds where nothing lived and no birds ever stopped. The waterways were lined with gray heaps of slag from the copper smelter, in some spots enlivened by oil-slick rainbow stains made by unknown chemicals seeping out from the rocks. We were told not to fish or swim in the bay, which seemed to us kids to be hilarious: looking down off the docks into the still, metallic depths, we couldn't picture fish living down there at all, let alone anything you'd think of eating. And that was just the water. I still don't know what the mills were belching into the air, or what they're still churning out - sometimes, when the wind is right, you can both smell and taste the air: a sulphuric grit which stings your eyes and irritates your throat.
Now it's been spruced up. They sealed off the slag heaps and built fancy condos on top of them, planted new grass along the edges, dug up people's lawns and replaced them with new, cleaner topsoil. The smelter company offered a cash settlement to the people living closest to the plant, and they took it, even though the surveys hadn't been completed. They worked hard to restore the bay, and now when you stroll through the new grass and out along the docks you can look down to see bright colonies of starfish and sea anemones clinging to the piers, and deeper down, the quick dark shapes of fish.
Later, of course, we learned that the pollution went farther and deeper than the smelter operators had admitted to. Too late for the people who had settled, and too late for all of us who grew up splashing in that water and breathing that air. Statistics are readily available about disease rates in my hometown, telling us that you're much more likely to die of obscure cancers or get heart or lung disease there. I haven't seen anything on autoimmune disease, except that it's a hotspot for diabetes. I'm curious mostly because everyone I know, just about, has something crazy and unlikely wrong with them. Lupus, MS, celiac disease, autism, Crohn's disease, asthma - you name it. We're a sickly bunch.
We're not alone. All over the planet, people grow up in the shadow of industrial toxins, watch their kids and their friends get sick and die, watch their own bodies with wary concern. What can you do? You go on. Sometimes your pain and your poison can be transmuted into something beautiful, into art, into action, into something meaningful. Sometimes you just have to learn to accept your limitations and endure the pain.
And so this is a story for us. Here is a world where profit has trumped issues of morality and health, where generations grow up living with the legacy of pollution. It's sort of a counterpoint to the sunny ending of the Liveship books, where dragons and men are reunited and the deformed people of the Rain Wilds are transformed into something better. In this new series, we meet the people who were left behind, still deformed, without the hope that some magical intervention will save them from themselves. How they go on, and how they learn to transform themselves, is nothing short of inspirational.
This is what fantasy is best at, and this is why it's necessary.
When I was a kid people weren't so concerned about the pollution. Arsenic was in the dust we kicked up on the playgrounds, on the berries we picked in the woods, in the small ponds where nothing lived and no birds ever stopped. The waterways were lined with gray heaps of slag from the copper smelter, in some spots enlivened by oil-slick rainbow stains made by unknown chemicals seeping out from the rocks. We were told not to fish or swim in the bay, which seemed to us kids to be hilarious: looking down off the docks into the still, metallic depths, we couldn't picture fish living down there at all, let alone anything you'd think of eating. And that was just the water. I still don't know what the mills were belching into the air, or what they're still churning out - sometimes, when the wind is right, you can both smell and taste the air: a sulphuric grit which stings your eyes and irritates your throat.
Now it's been spruced up. They sealed off the slag heaps and built fancy condos on top of them, planted new grass along the edges, dug up people's lawns and replaced them with new, cleaner topsoil. The smelter company offered a cash settlement to the people living closest to the plant, and they took it, even though the surveys hadn't been completed. They worked hard to restore the bay, and now when you stroll through the new grass and out along the docks you can look down to see bright colonies of starfish and sea anemones clinging to the piers, and deeper down, the quick dark shapes of fish.
Later, of course, we learned that the pollution went farther and deeper than the smelter operators had admitted to. Too late for the people who had settled, and too late for all of us who grew up splashing in that water and breathing that air. Statistics are readily available about disease rates in my hometown, telling us that you're much more likely to die of obscure cancers or get heart or lung disease there. I haven't seen anything on autoimmune disease, except that it's a hotspot for diabetes. I'm curious mostly because everyone I know, just about, has something crazy and unlikely wrong with them. Lupus, MS, celiac disease, autism, Crohn's disease, asthma - you name it. We're a sickly bunch.
We're not alone. All over the planet, people grow up in the shadow of industrial toxins, watch their kids and their friends get sick and die, watch their own bodies with wary concern. What can you do? You go on. Sometimes your pain and your poison can be transmuted into something beautiful, into art, into action, into something meaningful. Sometimes you just have to learn to accept your limitations and endure the pain.
And so this is a story for us. Here is a world where profit has trumped issues of morality and health, where generations grow up living with the legacy of pollution. It's sort of a counterpoint to the sunny ending of the Liveship books, where dragons and men are reunited and the deformed people of the Rain Wilds are transformed into something better. In this new series, we meet the people who were left behind, still deformed, without the hope that some magical intervention will save them from themselves. How they go on, and how they learn to transform themselves, is nothing short of inspirational.
This is what fantasy is best at, and this is why it's necessary.
March 15, 2018
3.5/5 stars
A good foundational start to a quartet but it’s also the weakest start within any of Hobb's series so far.
Dragon Keeper is the first book in the Rain Wild Chronicles quartet, which also marks the beginning of the fourth out of five subseries within Hobb’s The Realm of the Elderlings series. The entire storyline in this book took place in the Rain Wild section of the world and plot-wise, the first book has a very simple premise. The Dragon Keepers have to herd the dragons to find their lost legendary city, Kelsingra. That’s it, that’s seriously the plot of this book. There’s no complexity in the story so far, it’s completely a setup for the next three books. There are no climax sequences or tense moments, completely zero actions here; even less than all Hobb’s previous books. The climax sequences—if you can call it that—revolves around the Dragon Keepers fighting over an Elk’s meat to share. Yup, you heard that right. Fighting over an Elk’s meat. Bloody intense, bruh, I’m shaking in my boots. I’m not sure but I heard this is the publisher’s fault as this was supposed to be one giant book but the publisher decided to divide it into two instead and it makes the book to not have any sense of ending.
We follow the story from the perspective of five new characters: Thymara, Alise, Sedric, Leftrin, and Sintara. As I said before, this is just a foundational book. Although it’s almost 600 pages long, almost nothing actually happened in the story, it’s all about laying the groundwork for future books by doing characterizations first. The characterizations were great but I’m still not charmed by them like how I was with Fitz or the characters in the Liveship Traders. The problem is I felt the characters felt a bit too childish or YA-ish, even the way Hobb wrote them felt different to Hobb’s usual complex characters. Plus, the dragon’s POV was boring. I’m a fan of Hobb’s Liveship Traders trilogy but even there, one of my minor complaints were the Serpent’s PO; the Dragon’s POV was practically the same thing as that. If you enjoyed the Serpent’s POV in Liveship Traders you might not face this problem.
The main highlight of this book for me was the Liveship Traders characters cameo. They didn’t appear a lot but when they do, I was overjoyed but their appearance, Hobb has written something really great about her characters in the Liveship Traders in my opinion.
Hobb’s prose here also felt a bit different. It still captivated me and the characterizations were great, but it’s simply not as great compared to how she wrote Farseer, Liveship Traders or Tawny Man trilogy. I usually end up highlighting a lot of passages/quotes in her books, there’s absolutely none here which I found memorable.
Overall, Dragon Keeper is a good foundational book but it’s certainly Hobb’s weakest start in her gigantic series. However, I’m hopeful that the foundation laid here will bring a great result for the next three books in this quartet.
You can find this and the rest of my Adult Epic/High Fantasy & Sci-Fi reviews at BookNest
A good foundational start to a quartet but it’s also the weakest start within any of Hobb's series so far.
Dragon Keeper is the first book in the Rain Wild Chronicles quartet, which also marks the beginning of the fourth out of five subseries within Hobb’s The Realm of the Elderlings series. The entire storyline in this book took place in the Rain Wild section of the world and plot-wise, the first book has a very simple premise. The Dragon Keepers have to herd the dragons to find their lost legendary city, Kelsingra. That’s it, that’s seriously the plot of this book. There’s no complexity in the story so far, it’s completely a setup for the next three books. There are no climax sequences or tense moments, completely zero actions here; even less than all Hobb’s previous books. The climax sequences—if you can call it that—revolves around the Dragon Keepers fighting over an Elk’s meat to share. Yup, you heard that right. Fighting over an Elk’s meat. Bloody intense, bruh, I’m shaking in my boots. I’m not sure but I heard this is the publisher’s fault as this was supposed to be one giant book but the publisher decided to divide it into two instead and it makes the book to not have any sense of ending.
We follow the story from the perspective of five new characters: Thymara, Alise, Sedric, Leftrin, and Sintara. As I said before, this is just a foundational book. Although it’s almost 600 pages long, almost nothing actually happened in the story, it’s all about laying the groundwork for future books by doing characterizations first. The characterizations were great but I’m still not charmed by them like how I was with Fitz or the characters in the Liveship Traders. The problem is I felt the characters felt a bit too childish or YA-ish, even the way Hobb wrote them felt different to Hobb’s usual complex characters. Plus, the dragon’s POV was boring. I’m a fan of Hobb’s Liveship Traders trilogy but even there, one of my minor complaints were the Serpent’s PO; the Dragon’s POV was practically the same thing as that. If you enjoyed the Serpent’s POV in Liveship Traders you might not face this problem.
The main highlight of this book for me was the Liveship Traders characters cameo. They didn’t appear a lot but when they do, I was overjoyed but their appearance, Hobb has written something really great about her characters in the Liveship Traders in my opinion.
Hobb’s prose here also felt a bit different. It still captivated me and the characterizations were great, but it’s simply not as great compared to how she wrote Farseer, Liveship Traders or Tawny Man trilogy. I usually end up highlighting a lot of passages/quotes in her books, there’s absolutely none here which I found memorable.
Overall, Dragon Keeper is a good foundational book but it’s certainly Hobb’s weakest start in her gigantic series. However, I’m hopeful that the foundation laid here will bring a great result for the next three books in this quartet.
You can find this and the rest of my Adult Epic/High Fantasy & Sci-Fi reviews at BookNest
February 7, 2017
I feel somewhat sorry for the dragons in this. They spent the entirety of the Liveship Trader’s trilogy trying to find a place to evolve out of their basic serpent form, and when they do find it most of them die in the process. They’re too mutated and twisted to be able to develop into dragons. Only fourteen remain by the end and even those are stunted and unusual, that much so that the dragon Tintaglia abandons them for a richer prospect, mating with the ancient dragon Icefyre in Fool's Fate. So they're on their own.
Nobody wants them
These new dragons are a nuisance. The Rain Wild folk want them gone because they are a blight on their recourses; they want them gone because they are growing increasingly dangerous and are wanting more and more food as they get even bigger. In addition, some mutated teenagers amongst their own people are a so called embarrassment to civilisation. So, ever so pragmatically, the rulers decide to pair up one of these weird kids with a dragon and send them off on their own looking for an ancient city. Sounds like a great move? They lose two problems, but don’t really consider the consequence of possible success.
Thymara has been hated all her life for her lizard features; thus, when a chance like this comes up she jumps at it, and who can blame her. Not many people get to interact with dragons albeit stunted ones. Her dragon, however, is haughty and superior; she distains all those she perceives as beneath her. So Tymara has a rather interesting task on her hands, which leads to some difficult and amusing situations. She has to deal with a dragon who thinks herself a god of the sky when in reality she is half grown and misshapen, and is struggling to accept the realities of who she is. It seems to me these two are perfectly suited to each other.
They are driven by ancient memories
I love the complexities of the dragons here. They remember all the lives of their ancestors, and they consume the bodies of dead dragons to gain more memories. This way the dragons are wise and experienced without having to do anything to get such gifts. This means that these dragons, though young, know exactly how to salvage their situation and grow into their destinies as rulers of the sky. They are instinctively driven to the ancient city of Kelsingra; their refuge and new beginning.
So this drives the novel forward, and gives the characters hope in an almost impossibly difficult situation. But, this is a Robin Hobb novel. So that means the story is paced out superbly with the journey only beginning as the book closes. She really knows how to add such depth to her world. From this point, I think this series has more potential than the LiveShip Traders. The story seems tighter and the characters more desperate. There’s going to be some exciting times ahead reading the reading the next three books; it has been far too long Robin Hobb, the queen of fantasy.
Nobody wants them
These new dragons are a nuisance. The Rain Wild folk want them gone because they are a blight on their recourses; they want them gone because they are growing increasingly dangerous and are wanting more and more food as they get even bigger. In addition, some mutated teenagers amongst their own people are a so called embarrassment to civilisation. So, ever so pragmatically, the rulers decide to pair up one of these weird kids with a dragon and send them off on their own looking for an ancient city. Sounds like a great move? They lose two problems, but don’t really consider the consequence of possible success.
Thymara has been hated all her life for her lizard features; thus, when a chance like this comes up she jumps at it, and who can blame her. Not many people get to interact with dragons albeit stunted ones. Her dragon, however, is haughty and superior; she distains all those she perceives as beneath her. So Tymara has a rather interesting task on her hands, which leads to some difficult and amusing situations. She has to deal with a dragon who thinks herself a god of the sky when in reality she is half grown and misshapen, and is struggling to accept the realities of who she is. It seems to me these two are perfectly suited to each other.
They are driven by ancient memories
I love the complexities of the dragons here. They remember all the lives of their ancestors, and they consume the bodies of dead dragons to gain more memories. This way the dragons are wise and experienced without having to do anything to get such gifts. This means that these dragons, though young, know exactly how to salvage their situation and grow into their destinies as rulers of the sky. They are instinctively driven to the ancient city of Kelsingra; their refuge and new beginning.
So this drives the novel forward, and gives the characters hope in an almost impossibly difficult situation. But, this is a Robin Hobb novel. So that means the story is paced out superbly with the journey only beginning as the book closes. She really knows how to add such depth to her world. From this point, I think this series has more potential than the LiveShip Traders. The story seems tighter and the characters more desperate. There’s going to be some exciting times ahead reading the reading the next three books; it has been far too long Robin Hobb, the queen of fantasy.
November 8, 2018
Three stars for dragons, everything else sucked.
February 2, 2024
This was not bad
Everyone keeps telling me The Rainwild Chronicles is the worst series set in The Realm of the Elderlings. I still have 3 books to go but I quite enjoyed this one.
Great characters, beautiful prose and interesting plot. I am a bit worried about the romance and can definitely imagine that will be the downfall of this series.
4/5
Everyone keeps telling me The Rainwild Chronicles is the worst series set in The Realm of the Elderlings. I still have 3 books to go but I quite enjoyed this one.
Great characters, beautiful prose and interesting plot. I am a bit worried about the romance and can definitely imagine that will be the downfall of this series.
4/5
June 1, 2011
Robin Hobb wrote a few of my FAVORITE series, Assassin's Apprentice and the Liveship Traders, so I'm always a fan of her books. This one was as well written as the others, but it felt slow to start, and as soon as the story picked up, the book ended! JUST AS I GOT INTO IT!
So, I guess I should be waiting for the next book excitedly to continue the story, but considering the subject matter of the book, I'm a bit reluctant to follow up with the series, for totally squeamish personal reasons. The whole story follows dragons, MALFORMED dragons who can't really take care of themselves. I am a person who's favorite movie is Babe. Yeah, the pig movie. While at the movies watching the Peter Jackson King Kong redo, I became so hysterical when they were capturing the ape that I had to leave the theatre and NOT GO BACK IN. Ever. Yeah, so I'm kind of irrational when reading about animals in danger, or even threatened. So basically, the set up for the next books is gonna lead to a LOT OF DRAGON TRAUMA, I JUST KNOW IT! And I dunno if I can personally hang in there. Robin Hobb is great at torturing her characters, and I'm cool with doing that to humans, but doing it to the dragons may not be something I can sign up for, ultimate happy ending or not.
I know this review doesn't help anyone, haha, but whatever. That's the deal. The book was slow to start but ok, and I'm sure it will continue wonderfully. For those who aren't a little bit crazy :)
So, I guess I should be waiting for the next book excitedly to continue the story, but considering the subject matter of the book, I'm a bit reluctant to follow up with the series, for totally squeamish personal reasons. The whole story follows dragons, MALFORMED dragons who can't really take care of themselves. I am a person who's favorite movie is Babe. Yeah, the pig movie. While at the movies watching the Peter Jackson King Kong redo, I became so hysterical when they were capturing the ape that I had to leave the theatre and NOT GO BACK IN. Ever. Yeah, so I'm kind of irrational when reading about animals in danger, or even threatened. So basically, the set up for the next books is gonna lead to a LOT OF DRAGON TRAUMA, I JUST KNOW IT! And I dunno if I can personally hang in there. Robin Hobb is great at torturing her characters, and I'm cool with doing that to humans, but doing it to the dragons may not be something I can sign up for, ultimate happy ending or not.
I know this review doesn't help anyone, haha, but whatever. That's the deal. The book was slow to start but ok, and I'm sure it will continue wonderfully. For those who aren't a little bit crazy :)
November 16, 2021
Content Warnings in spoilers at end
A very nearly solid book from Hobb!
This one absorbed me from the very first page, solidifying my preference of the Bingtown/Rain Wilds side of the world as opposed to Fitz/Six Duchies, as I find the Liveship Traders and Rain Wild chronicles have much more scope while Fitz's perspective is somewhat limited.
One of my favourite thing about Hobb is that she never fails to deliver realistically awful characters, they're not cookie-cutter "I'm a big bad villain" types, but more like the guy you have to work with who's a complete arsehole and you despise but he's not going to attempt world domination or anything drastic anytime soon.
As usual, I loved the character work in here, all of Hobb's characters feel like fully fleshed out, three-dimensional people as opposed to characters in a book. The atmosphere and writing was also, as always, outstanding.
The only reason this got 4 stars and not 5 is that the pace starts to lag in the middle and then doesn't build up to anything, with the end of this book being anticlimactic. I believe this was due to issues with the publisher that resulted in the book being split into 2 parts which kinda makes me concerned about the rest of the books in the series because these have big 5 star potential for me, so I'm hoping the publishing issues don't ruin it for me!
A very nearly solid book from Hobb!
This one absorbed me from the very first page, solidifying my preference of the Bingtown/Rain Wilds side of the world as opposed to Fitz/Six Duchies, as I find the Liveship Traders and Rain Wild chronicles have much more scope while Fitz's perspective is somewhat limited.
One of my favourite thing about Hobb is that she never fails to deliver realistically awful characters, they're not cookie-cutter "I'm a big bad villain" types, but more like the guy you have to work with who's a complete arsehole and you despise but he's not going to attempt world domination or anything drastic anytime soon.
As usual, I loved the character work in here, all of Hobb's characters feel like fully fleshed out, three-dimensional people as opposed to characters in a book. The atmosphere and writing was also, as always, outstanding.
The only reason this got 4 stars and not 5 is that the pace starts to lag in the middle and then doesn't build up to anything, with the end of this book being anticlimactic. I believe this was due to issues with the publisher that resulted in the book being split into 2 parts which kinda makes me concerned about the rest of the books in the series because these have big 5 star potential for me, so I'm hoping the publishing issues don't ruin it for me!
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October 23, 2023
A solid start to this tetralogy! To be fair, this reads like half a book – it mostly serves to set up the new characters and the ending is rather abrupt. Initially, I was a bit disappointed to meet entirely new protagonists instead of the familiar ones of the Rain Wilds (Liveship Traders trilogy), but that didn’t last long; Hobb is just so incredibly good at creating relatable, deep characters that leave me completely invested yet again.
Among those charecters is Alise, a Bingtown Trader’s daughter on the poorer side, who, at 21, narrowly escapes her fate as a spinster when she accepts handsome Trader Hest Finbok’s proposal. Little does she know that her husband’s charm is but a veneer, which he sheds right after their vows are spoken. Now trapped in a loveless and abusive marriage, self-proclaimed dragon scholar that she is, Alise decides to make the trip to the Rain Wilds – long promised to her by her husband – to study the actual dragons birthed there. Her husband’s secretary and Alise’s childhood friend, Sedric, is to accompany her. Along the way, we realize that things between those three are not as they seem.
Another main character is 16-year-old Thymara, who strongly exhibits alterations to human physiology typical of the Rain Wilds, such as scales and, in her case, claws. She only lives thanks to her loving father who broke the cruel tradition of condemning “deformed” babies to death by bringing her back home. Shunned and doomed to a solitary existence, forbidden from procreating, Thymara resolves to accompany the expedition that is to lead the remaining fifteen dragons on their search for the fabled Elderling city of Kelsingra. And in wonderful Robin Hobb fashion, our MCs converge on that journey. We even briefly get to see some familiar faces: we meet Brashen and Althea aboard the Paragon and later even Malta. (Who would have thought that I’d miss Malta; she has come a long way since her spoiled, selfish days.)
All in all, another book which I had not anticipated loving this much – especially coming off a Fitz high after finishing the amazing Tawny Man trilogy. I will say, though, that this book is mostly character-driven – not much actually happens and yet, thanks to Hobb’s exceptional writing, I was still glued to the couch, completely immersed. What’s more, Dragon Keeper wonderfully sets up what promises to become another addictive, masterful series. I can’t wait to find out where the journey leads!
Onward!
PS: This tetralogy should not be read a a standalone. Either start with the first Rain Wilds traders trilogy (Liveship Traders) or with the very first series set in the Realm of the Elderlings (Farseer Trilogy).
Among those charecters is Alise, a Bingtown Trader’s daughter on the poorer side, who, at 21, narrowly escapes her fate as a spinster when she accepts handsome Trader Hest Finbok’s proposal. Little does she know that her husband’s charm is but a veneer, which he sheds right after their vows are spoken. Now trapped in a loveless and abusive marriage, self-proclaimed dragon scholar that she is, Alise decides to make the trip to the Rain Wilds – long promised to her by her husband – to study the actual dragons birthed there. Her husband’s secretary and Alise’s childhood friend, Sedric, is to accompany her. Along the way, we realize that things between those three are not as they seem.
Another main character is 16-year-old Thymara, who strongly exhibits alterations to human physiology typical of the Rain Wilds, such as scales and, in her case, claws. She only lives thanks to her loving father who broke the cruel tradition of condemning “deformed” babies to death by bringing her back home. Shunned and doomed to a solitary existence, forbidden from procreating, Thymara resolves to accompany the expedition that is to lead the remaining fifteen dragons on their search for the fabled Elderling city of Kelsingra. And in wonderful Robin Hobb fashion, our MCs converge on that journey. We even briefly get to see some familiar faces: we meet Brashen and Althea aboard the Paragon and later even Malta. (Who would have thought that I’d miss Malta; she has come a long way since her spoiled, selfish days.)
All in all, another book which I had not anticipated loving this much – especially coming off a Fitz high after finishing the amazing Tawny Man trilogy. I will say, though, that this book is mostly character-driven – not much actually happens and yet, thanks to Hobb’s exceptional writing, I was still glued to the couch, completely immersed. What’s more, Dragon Keeper wonderfully sets up what promises to become another addictive, masterful series. I can’t wait to find out where the journey leads!
Onward!
PS: This tetralogy should not be read a a standalone. Either start with the first Rain Wilds traders trilogy (Liveship Traders) or with the very first series set in the Realm of the Elderlings (Farseer Trilogy).
November 16, 2021
So I sadly fell into the group of Hobb fans who didn't love this book. It was fine, I enjoyed it, but it definitely didn't wow me as much as the other 9 I've read so far did. Though I do think that this could have potentially been down to how these books were published - it's very clear this was intended as the beginning of a bigger book, and ultimately it means these 500 pages are all build up with no pay off.
Combined with me not being too fussed over the characters yet, and a fairly simple plot-aim so far, I just wasn't quite won over yet. I have full faith that the later books will convince me, but with this one individually I definitely noticed a lack of pull that I felt with her previous ones.
That being said, you can definitely still recognise it as a Hobb book. You can sense her building up to something, and her character creation is one that never ceases to amaze me. I've never known an author be able to create such complex characters, especially ones who you don't particularly love but still find fascinating to read about. I've also commented previously on how her depiction of really tough subjects never fail to cut to the bone - we see this again here, with her portrayal of gaslighting really hitting the mark.
I'm looking forward to reading Dragon Haven and seeing how we continue with this series - I'm hoping to be won over more as we go on!
Combined with me not being too fussed over the characters yet, and a fairly simple plot-aim so far, I just wasn't quite won over yet. I have full faith that the later books will convince me, but with this one individually I definitely noticed a lack of pull that I felt with her previous ones.
That being said, you can definitely still recognise it as a Hobb book. You can sense her building up to something, and her character creation is one that never ceases to amaze me. I've never known an author be able to create such complex characters, especially ones who you don't particularly love but still find fascinating to read about. I've also commented previously on how her depiction of really tough subjects never fail to cut to the bone - we see this again here, with her portrayal of gaslighting really hitting the mark.
I'm looking forward to reading Dragon Haven and seeing how we continue with this series - I'm hoping to be won over more as we go on!
April 17, 2017
I just cannot get bored with Robin Hobb :D Ive been away this weekend busying around in the Rainwild. No one to bother me but my dry cough and tired body. I swooshed through the book, while normally Im a slow reader. Her writing simply captivates you till the end, like a trance. Even though there is no action.
So glad to be backin that world with every character pulling you, engrossing you with their every step.
So glad to be backin that world with every character pulling you, engrossing you with their every step.
September 11, 2022
It's so interesting to me that people seem to think this is a weak series within RotE because I thought this was pretty charming. I agree that it has a somewhat less dense tone than some of the other books, but I was interested in all the new characters we meet and I'm into the bigger picture political stuff that happening. All in all... I'm jazzed to see where the series goes!
October 10, 2020
Dragon Keeper is the first book in The Rain Wilds Chronicles and the fourth sub series in Hobb's Realm of the Elderlings series.
Though I enjoyed reading this book I have to admit that this is her weakest book. If you are familiar with Robin Hobb you will know that her books focus more on character development than plot progression, this book is different, the book aspects are extremely slow, it was fun to read that's why I still rated it high.
This book took place some years after Liveship Traders in the infamous Rain Wilds. Life there is harder than I thought when I read Liveship. The Khurprus family is rich so I didn't feel it much. The middle-class and those below struggle to make end meet.
Dragon Keeper is about the serpents that went to cacoon at the end of Ship of Destiny, instead of the dragon to be as magnificent as Tintaglia they were crippled and none could fly so that means they can not hunt, they have to be feed. The traders got tired of feeding them after five years and decided to send them off to another location with some misfits for keepers.
Thymara, Tats and Rapskal were some of those misfits. Thymara and Rapskal are both rain wilders and badly marked while Tats is a former slave. All three are teenagers. Thymara is naive and insecure, she's a good person but have a long way to go. She also have a POV which ia fun to read sometimes.
Elise is a Bingtown woman who have been obsessed with dragons, she has studied them for a ling time in old scrolls. She decided to escape her bad marriage by going after her dream of studying dragons. Her POV is fun to read, I'm loving her character development.
Sedic is a gray character, he is selfish but can be kind occasionally.
Leftrin is another character with a POV, he's POV isn't that engaging but it's okay.
Sintara is the only dragon with a POV, despite been a cripple she is arrogant, selfish and self centred, she cares for no one but herself.
The writing and world building is definitely above average, The plot is focusing too much on the romantic life of the characters that it's making this book look like a slow burn romance. The book is written in third person multiple POV of the aforementioned characters.
Though I enjoyed reading this book I have to admit that this is her weakest book. If you are familiar with Robin Hobb you will know that her books focus more on character development than plot progression, this book is different, the book aspects are extremely slow, it was fun to read that's why I still rated it high.
This book took place some years after Liveship Traders in the infamous Rain Wilds. Life there is harder than I thought when I read Liveship. The Khurprus family is rich so I didn't feel it much. The middle-class and those below struggle to make end meet.
Dragon Keeper is about the serpents that went to cacoon at the end of Ship of Destiny, instead of the dragon to be as magnificent as Tintaglia they were crippled and none could fly so that means they can not hunt, they have to be feed. The traders got tired of feeding them after five years and decided to send them off to another location with some misfits for keepers.
Thymara, Tats and Rapskal were some of those misfits. Thymara and Rapskal are both rain wilders and badly marked while Tats is a former slave. All three are teenagers. Thymara is naive and insecure, she's a good person but have a long way to go. She also have a POV which ia fun to read sometimes.
Elise is a Bingtown woman who have been obsessed with dragons, she has studied them for a ling time in old scrolls. She decided to escape her bad marriage by going after her dream of studying dragons. Her POV is fun to read, I'm loving her character development.
Sedic is a gray character, he is selfish but can be kind occasionally.
Leftrin is another character with a POV, he's POV isn't that engaging but it's okay.
Sintara is the only dragon with a POV, despite been a cripple she is arrogant, selfish and self centred, she cares for no one but herself.
The writing and world building is definitely above average, The plot is focusing too much on the romantic life of the characters that it's making this book look like a slow burn romance. The book is written in third person multiple POV of the aforementioned characters.
April 5, 2026
dragon keeper is not a bad book, and i can't say i loved it either, which you know… the most devastating thing i could say about a robin hobb novel. i think hobb's greatest strength has always been her characters and unfortunately this is exactly where this one decides to take a nap. like they are all just kind of... there. none of them have the kind of weight or interiority that makes fitz or kennit or god forbid even malta so compelling to read ab. i was not rooting for anyone here with any urgency. alise is drowning in a dreary sort of dissatisfaction with life, thymara and the keepers are doing the angsty "i dont fit in...and i dont wanna fit in..." thing that works better in YA when the protagonist is the least fun to be around, and the closest thing to actual villain is just obnoxious hest which DIE.
leftrin is genuinely one of my favourites though, an honest and simple man who appeared pretty unscrupulous at first but turned out to have quite a good heart, but even then he is still somehow not super thrilling to read about, which says a lot about the state of this cast…. sedric has a lot of parallels to malta and some interesting potential, although i do thinks he’s an asshole, but the clever thing is how hobb sets him up as this innocuous normal friendly character through alise's pov and then completely pulls the rug when we get his own chapters.
the dragons. BRUH. so we arrive at cassarick and it's immediately clear that the whining is back. the dragons have just crawled out of their serpent cocoons and are already complaining about how they turned out, which fair, some of them are a little rough but also: you just got here. now they need to be escorted to some legendary lost city of dragons that nobody has heard of, that nobody knows how to get to, and that may or may not exist. love a quest with solid logistical foundations. and then i thought okay, at least there will be familiar faces to suffer through this with me. i turned pages. fifty. a hundred. a hundred and fifty. two hundred. BRASHEN! okay hi.
two fifty. three hundred. and that's sort of it. idk man the dragons are so incredibly arrogant and self-entitled like bro one of your wings is smaller than the other and some of you don't have a fully developed brain, so maybe pump the brakes on the divine superiority thing😂. i think is intentional as a storytelling device but does not make them pleasant company for 500smth pages. sintara in particular is exhausting. i like mercor (im guessing he’s maulkin?) he is remarkably reasonable and seemingly capable of putting someone else's concerns ahead of his own, which in this particular cast basically makes him a dragon jesus.
structurally the rain wild chronicles were pretty obviously two books split into four, so what you are actually reading is one full book of slow build-up that just kind of ends after 500 smth pages like it forgot to have a conclusion. the story does pick up once the characters get moving near the end but this is definitely the weakest robin hobb book, and what i think is genuinely happening here is just an extended info dump about dragons and elderlings so we would be prepared for fitz and the fool. bro i miss fitz istg i cannot anymore
leftrin is genuinely one of my favourites though, an honest and simple man who appeared pretty unscrupulous at first but turned out to have quite a good heart, but even then he is still somehow not super thrilling to read about, which says a lot about the state of this cast…. sedric has a lot of parallels to malta and some interesting potential, although i do thinks he’s an asshole, but the clever thing is how hobb sets him up as this innocuous normal friendly character through alise's pov and then completely pulls the rug when we get his own chapters.
the dragons. BRUH. so we arrive at cassarick and it's immediately clear that the whining is back. the dragons have just crawled out of their serpent cocoons and are already complaining about how they turned out, which fair, some of them are a little rough but also: you just got here. now they need to be escorted to some legendary lost city of dragons that nobody has heard of, that nobody knows how to get to, and that may or may not exist. love a quest with solid logistical foundations. and then i thought okay, at least there will be familiar faces to suffer through this with me. i turned pages. fifty. a hundred. a hundred and fifty. two hundred. BRASHEN! okay hi.
two fifty. three hundred. and that's sort of it. idk man the dragons are so incredibly arrogant and self-entitled like bro one of your wings is smaller than the other and some of you don't have a fully developed brain, so maybe pump the brakes on the divine superiority thing😂. i think is intentional as a storytelling device but does not make them pleasant company for 500smth pages. sintara in particular is exhausting. i like mercor (im guessing he’s maulkin?) he is remarkably reasonable and seemingly capable of putting someone else's concerns ahead of his own, which in this particular cast basically makes him a dragon jesus.structurally the rain wild chronicles were pretty obviously two books split into four, so what you are actually reading is one full book of slow build-up that just kind of ends after 500 smth pages like it forgot to have a conclusion. the story does pick up once the characters get moving near the end but this is definitely the weakest robin hobb book, and what i think is genuinely happening here is just an extended info dump about dragons and elderlings so we would be prepared for fitz and the fool. bro i miss fitz istg i cannot anymore
March 26, 2024
I'm not sure why this is one of Hobb's less popular series because I loved book 1. The Dragon Keeper brings us back to Bingtown and then deeper into the Rain Wilds as the new dragons emerge stunted and not fully formed.
Thymara was born with claws and normally would have been left to die as a baby, but her father kept her anyway. Still, she is ostracized and not allowed to marry so she accepts a job taking care of a dragon as they travel upriver to look for a better place to settle.
Alise is a Trader in a marriage of convenience to a man who is harsh with her and gay, but trying to get an heir for financial reasons. Her passion is studying dragons and all she wants is to travel to the Rain Wilds to see the young ones.
There are other significant characters as well and this is a very character driven story, which is something I love from Hobb. She makes me care so much about these people and then breaks my heart. Plus we're getting more interesting lore about the dragons and seeing how the Rain Wilds functions. No complaints.
Thymara was born with claws and normally would have been left to die as a baby, but her father kept her anyway. Still, she is ostracized and not allowed to marry so she accepts a job taking care of a dragon as they travel upriver to look for a better place to settle.
Alise is a Trader in a marriage of convenience to a man who is harsh with her and gay, but trying to get an heir for financial reasons. Her passion is studying dragons and all she wants is to travel to the Rain Wilds to see the young ones.
There are other significant characters as well and this is a very character driven story, which is something I love from Hobb. She makes me care so much about these people and then breaks my heart. Plus we're getting more interesting lore about the dragons and seeing how the Rain Wilds functions. No complaints.
August 29, 2016
It took me a little bit to get into this one, which isn't unheard of for a Robin Hobb book since she is so thorough with her characterization. However, I still didn't enjoy this one nearly as much as her other series' so I reduced it a star.
Her characters are still decent, but I found that I have not connected with any yet, which was disappointing. The story is interesting enough to keep me turning those pages, but not much was accomplished in this one. Hopefully that will not be the case with the next.
I am still a HUGE fan of hers and am excited to check out the rest of this series.
Her characters are still decent, but I found that I have not connected with any yet, which was disappointing. The story is interesting enough to keep me turning those pages, but not much was accomplished in this one. Hopefully that will not be the case with the next.
I am still a HUGE fan of hers and am excited to check out the rest of this series.
October 6, 2022
Not Hobb’s greatest work in comparison to everything prior in the Elderlings world, but that just means that instead of being magically delicious, it is merely very quite good. I wonder if there was a different editing team involved, or some particular pressures at play. It simply lacks the other books’ extremely refined, utterly natural worldbuilding. Instead you can uncharacteristically see the mechanics of exposition as it happens, and there are several instances of repetition that are just so unlike Hobb. It improves once the book gets past the time jumps of several years starting shortly after the events of Ship of Destiny, but even then some relatively weaker passages persist.
Still, it’s excellent by any other standards. We get a terrific new set of characters to love and to loathe, to hope the best for and fear what we will actually see in this quartet of books. There’s a cat that I expect cool things from. Add a quiet liveship and dragons, plenty of dragons, stuffy huffy Traders, and the mutant outcasts of the Rain Wilds and you’ve got a recipe for drama.
There is a lovely tangential epistolary thread woven between each chapter that becomes an engrossing soap opera in its own right, while rooting the story in broader events.
This book ends undramatically, again making me wonder about the story behind the book. Was it always meant as a quartet? The answers may be out there in interviews but I defer seeking them out until a later date. I expect that Hobb would never publicly say anything negative about her publisher or editorial process in any case. She’s classy like that.
EDIT: I since learned that Hobb's editor demanded that her manuscript be split into two books. She delivered books 1 and 2 as a single volume. Having now read book 2, I can see the full story and character arcs as intended, and they are glorious. Do yourself a favour and read the first two books back to back for the proper effect, and the same again with the last two.
Still, it’s excellent by any other standards. We get a terrific new set of characters to love and to loathe, to hope the best for and fear what we will actually see in this quartet of books. There’s a cat that I expect cool things from. Add a quiet liveship and dragons, plenty of dragons, stuffy huffy Traders, and the mutant outcasts of the Rain Wilds and you’ve got a recipe for drama.
There is a lovely tangential epistolary thread woven between each chapter that becomes an engrossing soap opera in its own right, while rooting the story in broader events.
This book ends undramatically, again making me wonder about the story behind the book. Was it always meant as a quartet? The answers may be out there in interviews but I defer seeking them out until a later date. I expect that Hobb would never publicly say anything negative about her publisher or editorial process in any case. She’s classy like that.
EDIT: I since learned that Hobb's editor demanded that her manuscript be split into two books. She delivered books 1 and 2 as a single volume. Having now read book 2, I can see the full story and character arcs as intended, and they are glorious. Do yourself a favour and read the first two books back to back for the proper effect, and the same again with the last two.
June 28, 2023
3,5 stars
September 10, 2015
I read this book once again as a buddy read with my loyal group of Robin Hobb readers. We're all a bit obsessed with her work by this point honestly and we'd all been missing this world and these characters so being able to dive back into a story of Elderlings, Magic, Monsters and Myths was just wonderful and although this isn't my favourite of her books I still really enjoyed this. It is a shorter book than many of the Hobb ones I've recently read, and the story does have a few skips in time and a little bit of recapping which I didn't love, but honestly it's Robin Hobb and her excellent world and characters and we do see some truly wonderful developments in this book.
This book in particular is set in the Rain Wilds, a section which we have already explored a little in the Liveship Traders books and it's a place which I instantly fell in love with. The people of the Rain Wilds have to live in vast, enormous canopies of trees because the river that they live near is toxic and erodes boats and skin alike. The only boats that can travel the river are the Liveships which have magical properties, and the people who live in the area suffer greatly for their proximity to the river and harsh land. However, there are many secrets and adventures to be found here too and we follow a couple of new characters in this book who promise to discover to some pretty big events and secrets.
The characters who are new in this book include Captain Leftrin, Thymara and Alise. Each of these characters lives either within Bingtown, the Rain Wilds or is a trader with the two and has a lot of ties to both these places and the people we've met in previous books who live here too. I found myself quickly being intrigued by each of them, although I think that Thymara and Alise were easily the two whom I connected with quickest. I enjoyed Leftrin's story too, it just took me a little while to warm up to him.
Leftrin is a trader who uses his ship, the oldest one which can travel the Rain Wild River, to trade up and down it. He's a middle aged fellow with few prospects ahead other than his day to day life which he enjoys immensely...until he meets someone and his whole perspective is changed and challenged and his view of day to day life gets manipulated too. I liked Leftrin as a character the more I got to know him but he does still feel like the character we know the least about. He's a likeable person with some unlucky situations, I will certainly look out for more of him in the upcoming books!
Thymara is a young girl who was never meant to be alive. She's a disgrace, a monster and even her own family (except her father) wanted to dispose of her. I instantly liked her spark of life and her adventurous and intelligent nature. Being constantly known as an outsider she's someone I found interesting to read about and her story quickly takes some very exciting turns which I have no doubt will lead to more and more adventure!
Finally Alise, she's probably the one we most focus on in this book and she's certainly someone who I liked and then didn't like and then liked. I liked her because she's an expert on Dragons and Elderlings which is something I too have a fascination with. She's calm and clever and full of ideas of what she wants to do, she's also a little weak and doesn't quite have that spark that we know some of Hobbs other characters have found or developed. Over the course of the book we do see the beginnings of her finding herself, and I found that by the ending I was really loving who she was becoming :)
We do have some other characters too such as Tats, Sedric and Hest, all of whom are also new and very different. Some of them are sweet and kind, others mean and horrible. I love that Hobb can really make me feel strong emotions of all kinds towards her characters and for each of these three my feelings were ever tested.
As for the pacing of this book it was a little bit rushed at times. I've become used to seeing a slow build up with Robin Hobb towards an eventual epic conclusion and parts of this book did skip forwards through large chunks in order to tell a story more completely. Whilst I liked that we got to the present day storyline, I felt it could maybe have been done a little smoother, and so I hope this is something we won't encounter again any time soon. With that said I do think that because this is a shorter book than many of her others and because she wants each series to be a potential entry point I understood the need for it and it wasn't a major detraction at all for me.
The ending of this book is not what I was expecting at all. I think it's rather abrupt and very 'stop you in your tracks'. I just didn't see it heading that way, and I didn't think that it would be so sudden and wild. I think it worked as a shock factor and it was pretty bold and daring to end a book that way, it certainly makes me want to know what will happen next and I can't wait to move on with the story. A solid 4* read overall, and of course one I really enjoyed!
(I read this as part of the #BookBuddyAThon with Mercedes)
This book in particular is set in the Rain Wilds, a section which we have already explored a little in the Liveship Traders books and it's a place which I instantly fell in love with. The people of the Rain Wilds have to live in vast, enormous canopies of trees because the river that they live near is toxic and erodes boats and skin alike. The only boats that can travel the river are the Liveships which have magical properties, and the people who live in the area suffer greatly for their proximity to the river and harsh land. However, there are many secrets and adventures to be found here too and we follow a couple of new characters in this book who promise to discover to some pretty big events and secrets.
The characters who are new in this book include Captain Leftrin, Thymara and Alise. Each of these characters lives either within Bingtown, the Rain Wilds or is a trader with the two and has a lot of ties to both these places and the people we've met in previous books who live here too. I found myself quickly being intrigued by each of them, although I think that Thymara and Alise were easily the two whom I connected with quickest. I enjoyed Leftrin's story too, it just took me a little while to warm up to him.
Leftrin is a trader who uses his ship, the oldest one which can travel the Rain Wild River, to trade up and down it. He's a middle aged fellow with few prospects ahead other than his day to day life which he enjoys immensely...until he meets someone and his whole perspective is changed and challenged and his view of day to day life gets manipulated too. I liked Leftrin as a character the more I got to know him but he does still feel like the character we know the least about. He's a likeable person with some unlucky situations, I will certainly look out for more of him in the upcoming books!
Thymara is a young girl who was never meant to be alive. She's a disgrace, a monster and even her own family (except her father) wanted to dispose of her. I instantly liked her spark of life and her adventurous and intelligent nature. Being constantly known as an outsider she's someone I found interesting to read about and her story quickly takes some very exciting turns which I have no doubt will lead to more and more adventure!
Finally Alise, she's probably the one we most focus on in this book and she's certainly someone who I liked and then didn't like and then liked. I liked her because she's an expert on Dragons and Elderlings which is something I too have a fascination with. She's calm and clever and full of ideas of what she wants to do, she's also a little weak and doesn't quite have that spark that we know some of Hobbs other characters have found or developed. Over the course of the book we do see the beginnings of her finding herself, and I found that by the ending I was really loving who she was becoming :)
We do have some other characters too such as Tats, Sedric and Hest, all of whom are also new and very different. Some of them are sweet and kind, others mean and horrible. I love that Hobb can really make me feel strong emotions of all kinds towards her characters and for each of these three my feelings were ever tested.
As for the pacing of this book it was a little bit rushed at times. I've become used to seeing a slow build up with Robin Hobb towards an eventual epic conclusion and parts of this book did skip forwards through large chunks in order to tell a story more completely. Whilst I liked that we got to the present day storyline, I felt it could maybe have been done a little smoother, and so I hope this is something we won't encounter again any time soon. With that said I do think that because this is a shorter book than many of her others and because she wants each series to be a potential entry point I understood the need for it and it wasn't a major detraction at all for me.
The ending of this book is not what I was expecting at all. I think it's rather abrupt and very 'stop you in your tracks'. I just didn't see it heading that way, and I didn't think that it would be so sudden and wild. I think it worked as a shock factor and it was pretty bold and daring to end a book that way, it certainly makes me want to know what will happen next and I can't wait to move on with the story. A solid 4* read overall, and of course one I really enjoyed!
(I read this as part of the #BookBuddyAThon with Mercedes)
March 29, 2025
I see how this could be people’s least favorite series but I actually enjoyed it a lot more than I expected. I liked all of the characters and I’m very interested in their character arcs. The Rain Wilds were the most interesting part of the Liveship trilogy setting for me so I really enjoyed getting to explore it in more detail. I remain kind of indifferent towards the dragons but I did start to enjoy Sintara’s perspective.
Not a lot happens in this book but the audiobook really helped me move through the slower parts. It also feels like Dragon Keeper was the first half of a much longer book (something I’ve seen many people say about this series)
Not a lot happens in this book but the audiobook really helped me move through the slower parts. It also feels like Dragon Keeper was the first half of a much longer book (something I’ve seen many people say about this series)
December 5, 2022
While Dragon Keeper is probably my least favorite "Realm of the Elderlings" installment so far, I still enjoyed this book quite a bit and found it to be a solid start to a promising story that introduced some intriguing characters and continued to build upon the lore of the world in a satisfying way.
3.5/5
3.5/5
March 27, 2025
A lot of Robin Hobb fans don’t like this series but I love it. Just as good on a re read too,
October 24, 2021
Sehr slow paced, viel Worldbuilding- und das kann nur bedeuten, dass Hobb mal wieder die Basis für ein komplexes, facettenreiches und umwerfendes Abenteuer geschaffen hat. Ein toller Reihenauftakt!
February 25, 2012
The Dragon Keeper is not epic. It doesn't wow me. It doesn't overwhelm me the way Hobb's books usually do (*cough* with the exception of her Soldier Son trilogy, I awkwardly bit the dust halfway through it *cough*). This book should be read as an introduction to the books to come. Toward the end, things do heat up when all those newly introduced characters are thrown on a boat together (which results in the first sneaky power games) and head for a vaguely remembered magical city somewhere out there in the Rainwilds.
I'm super confident that the books to come will be amazing. And I'm excited to find out what Hobb has in store. However, several of what I consider those special, superb Hobb-ingredients are missing in The Dragon Keeper. Compelling characters for instance. For a big chunk of the book only Alise seems nicely fleshed out. And even she lacks the spunk of Althea and Malta, the two incredible heroines from The Liveship Traders. Greft (a Draco Malfoy including servants) and Sedric have potential. But captain Leftrin isn't exactly Brashen Trell material. His ability to impress me in the books to come will probably co-depend on whether he's capable of successfully corrupting Alise.
My main concern however..I miss that charming, evil bastard of a pirate Kennit!
Or ANY Kennit-ish character. Darn it!
More importantly, Hobb always made a point of cleverly weaving multiple layers through her stories, some so hidden and secret, that as a reader I often sensed there was a delicious magical undercurrent to the story that was just.. beyond.. my.. reach. In The Dragon Keeper, what you see is mostly what you get: dragon as well as human misfits heading on a desperate dragon dung and mud filled quest. Those intriguing Rainwild people are no longer a mystery, as they were when a veiled Reyn Khuprus offered Malta the most magical gifts. The dreamlike Elderlings with their buried cities lost a little of their appeal as well, now that it has become clear that humans can become them, when touched by dragons.
Last but not least, is it crucial to read The Liveship Traders and The Farseer books before picking up this one? Yes and no. The latter will definitely provide you with the complete picture (and Hobb masterly connects her works, which often results in "oh my god, Amber is actually.... and wait a minute..Paragon looks exactly like... eureka moments, that I know I wouldn't have wanted to miss). But the Farseer books are skippable.
However, The Dragon Keeper picks up where The Liveship Traders trilogy left of. without having read those, I doubt this one will be a satisfying read.
I'm super confident that the books to come will be amazing. And I'm excited to find out what Hobb has in store. However, several of what I consider those special, superb Hobb-ingredients are missing in The Dragon Keeper. Compelling characters for instance. For a big chunk of the book only Alise seems nicely fleshed out. And even she lacks the spunk of Althea and Malta, the two incredible heroines from The Liveship Traders. Greft (a Draco Malfoy including servants) and Sedric have potential. But captain Leftrin isn't exactly Brashen Trell material. His ability to impress me in the books to come will probably co-depend on whether he's capable of successfully corrupting Alise.
My main concern however..I miss that charming, evil bastard of a pirate Kennit!
Or ANY Kennit-ish character. Darn it!
More importantly, Hobb always made a point of cleverly weaving multiple layers through her stories, some so hidden and secret, that as a reader I often sensed there was a delicious magical undercurrent to the story that was just.. beyond.. my.. reach. In The Dragon Keeper, what you see is mostly what you get: dragon as well as human misfits heading on a desperate dragon dung and mud filled quest. Those intriguing Rainwild people are no longer a mystery, as they were when a veiled Reyn Khuprus offered Malta the most magical gifts. The dreamlike Elderlings with their buried cities lost a little of their appeal as well, now that it has become clear that humans can become them, when touched by dragons.
Last but not least, is it crucial to read The Liveship Traders and The Farseer books before picking up this one? Yes and no. The latter will definitely provide you with the complete picture (and Hobb masterly connects her works, which often results in "oh my god, Amber is actually.... and wait a minute..Paragon looks exactly like... eureka moments, that I know I wouldn't have wanted to miss). But the Farseer books are skippable.
However, The Dragon Keeper picks up where The Liveship Traders trilogy left of. without having read those, I doubt this one will be a satisfying read.
May 26, 2019
Three years ago, after reading the book one of the Fitz and the Fool series (Hobb's finale that somehow left me both content and wanting more – Will there be more beyond that end? I continue to hope.), I had decided to fill in the gaps left open by reading The Liveship Traders Trilogy and this quartet of books called The Rain Wilds Chronicles. Well, I succeeded in only part of that goal by finishing the Liveship books, before being drawn back to Fitz's final plight. I'm not alone in doing so. I've seen many online ask the question (even to Hobb herself) of whether reading all of the trilogies are necessary. A lot of people say yes, some say no. By the way, Hobb's answer is “yes, do read them all”. I don't think she's the kind of author just saying that to get people to read all of her works either. The further I delve into this fantasy world she has created, the more I understand the richness of one very large story broken apart only by location and character. I knew when the Fitz and the Fool arrived in Kelsingra in book 3 of the last trilogy, that I'd missed something there. I also knew the answer to it lay in this series.
This is hardly a review of Dragon Haven, but let me tell you, I am liking the start to this series. Turns out going back to fill in the gaps has some good benefits to it. In a way, I'm seeing the past and the future of this world at the same time. That's cool. By the way, this first book has no resolution. It was certainly not meant to be a stand-alone. I know the story of these dragons and their keepers continues in book #2, and I'll be heading there, happily so.
This is hardly a review of Dragon Haven, but let me tell you, I am liking the start to this series. Turns out going back to fill in the gaps has some good benefits to it. In a way, I'm seeing the past and the future of this world at the same time. That's cool. By the way, this first book has no resolution. It was certainly not meant to be a stand-alone. I know the story of these dragons and their keepers continues in book #2, and I'll be heading there, happily so.
July 3, 2019
Trigger warnings: Sexual assault, cheating
This story is intriguing! I was a little nervous because the Rain Wild Chronicles has mixed reviews. I LOVED seeing the dragons, and so enjoyed being back in the Rain Wilds.
This story is intriguing! I was a little nervous because the Rain Wild Chronicles has mixed reviews. I LOVED seeing the dragons, and so enjoyed being back in the Rain Wilds.
August 19, 2025
My new favorite book 1 in Realm of the Elderlings! Wow this one had me HOOKED from page 1 with that incredible prologue, and Hobb got me instantly invested in the human POV characters and the plot.
Leftrin was a bit of an intriguing mystery at first, but man alive did I start rooting for Alise and Thymara immediately and with all my heart. Hobb just connects to me in her 3rd-person perspective books in a way that the first-person style doesn't exactly do for whatever reason -- except unlike in Liveship which took its sweet sweet time to build the character arcs and main plot lines, Dragon Keeper is absurdly efficient in establishing the cast and character conflicts (many of them internal) before going off to the races with a perfectly executed time skip of a few years. Some of the scenes from the first half where This book was damn inspiring.
Over the past few months I knew I missed the settings and storylines from Liveship and was excited to return, but coming back to them after 4 months made it clear to what extreme extent I had become invested in this side of the series. I LOVE the Rain Wilds setting, and Hobb does a brilliant job of bringing it to life on the page and in my imagination -- it's so immersive for me and I can sink into the story and be right there with the characters. I also enjoy Bingtown, where the cultural worldbuilding just feels so real to me and where the social/political lives of its inhabitants cut right to the bone.
This book featured one of my single favorite moments from the entire series, where ...it melted my heart.
I couldn't possibly be more invested in the travails of
Also kudos must be given to Hobb for the mini-drama playing out among the keepers of the pigeons in all of the chapter epigraphs -- I so looked forward to every chapter change to get the next piece of their story!
This was the kind of easy 5-star read that was nigh impossible for me to put down, and I wanted to be with the story in every waking moment. It's kind of hard for me to fathom that this part of the series is considered the lower quality slog of RotE, but I guess I can maybe understand that for people who connect more to the Fitz and Six Duchies side of things. I'll gladly though take more servings of the Rain Wild Chronicles!
Leftrin was a bit of an intriguing mystery at first, but man alive did I start rooting for Alise and Thymara immediately and with all my heart. Hobb just connects to me in her 3rd-person perspective books in a way that the first-person style doesn't exactly do for whatever reason -- except unlike in Liveship which took its sweet sweet time to build the character arcs and main plot lines, Dragon Keeper is absurdly efficient in establishing the cast and character conflicts (many of them internal) before going off to the races with a perfectly executed time skip of a few years. Some of the scenes from the first half where This book was damn inspiring.
Over the past few months I knew I missed the settings and storylines from Liveship and was excited to return, but coming back to them after 4 months made it clear to what extreme extent I had become invested in this side of the series. I LOVE the Rain Wilds setting, and Hobb does a brilliant job of bringing it to life on the page and in my imagination -- it's so immersive for me and I can sink into the story and be right there with the characters. I also enjoy Bingtown, where the cultural worldbuilding just feels so real to me and where the social/political lives of its inhabitants cut right to the bone.
This book featured one of my single favorite moments from the entire series, where ...it melted my heart.
I couldn't possibly be more invested in the travails of
Also kudos must be given to Hobb for the mini-drama playing out among the keepers of the pigeons in all of the chapter epigraphs -- I so looked forward to every chapter change to get the next piece of their story!
This was the kind of easy 5-star read that was nigh impossible for me to put down, and I wanted to be with the story in every waking moment. It's kind of hard for me to fathom that this part of the series is considered the lower quality slog of RotE, but I guess I can maybe understand that for people who connect more to the Fitz and Six Duchies side of things. I'll gladly though take more servings of the Rain Wild Chronicles!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 16, 2025
The number of times I started and put this book on hold should have made me dnf it. But, as it seems most people agree this is somewhat needed to read the final trilogy, I pushed through. I really did not like this.
March 29, 2026
4.25 stars.
I put off reading this for a few months because I was sad at the idea of being separated from Fitz and his friends for a few books. I needn't have worried. Robin Hobb is such a safe pair of hands, and I almost immediately came to love the new characters we're introduced to in this first Rain Wilds book.
Some of the Liveship Traders characters show up too, but they're in the background. It's clear Hobb is setting the scene for new favourites to take centre stage. Even the not so likeable characters here have layers of complexity and you can see how they've come to be these people.
I won't go too much into the plot, but for me this story moved on seamlessly from the Liveship Traders books and opened up the world in a satisfying way.
This was not quite top tier Realm of the Elderlings in my opinion, but it was very good.
I put off reading this for a few months because I was sad at the idea of being separated from Fitz and his friends for a few books. I needn't have worried. Robin Hobb is such a safe pair of hands, and I almost immediately came to love the new characters we're introduced to in this first Rain Wilds book.
Some of the Liveship Traders characters show up too, but they're in the background. It's clear Hobb is setting the scene for new favourites to take centre stage. Even the not so likeable characters here have layers of complexity and you can see how they've come to be these people.
I won't go too much into the plot, but for me this story moved on seamlessly from the Liveship Traders books and opened up the world in a satisfying way.
This was not quite top tier Realm of the Elderlings in my opinion, but it was very good.
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