The Robin Hobb Collection discussion

Hello! it's been a bit quiet here and it probably will be for another week or so. but that's fine - we're all off reading some other books now.

Farseer trilogy
- Assassin's Apprentice - READ in december
- Royal Assassin - READ in january/february
- Assassin's Quest - READ in march

Liveship traders trilogy:
Read over the months april - july

Tawny man trilogy:
starting end August

That leaves plenty of time for other books in our huge piles!

Candace, David, Alex - i need some scheduling input (because i hate deciding on my own, i feel such a dictator doing that :))

So first book of Liveship is planned to start April 15th. But, do we read a book every 4 or every 6 weeks?

Your opinion would be welcome!

4 weeks is good for me. It will probably only take me a couple of weeks to read each book anyway unless I can hold myself back.

ok, let's see what candace says otherwise i would propose a book every 4 weeks. so we're done by the summer holidays start (here on the northern hemisphere anyway).

david - yes i won't need all 4 weeks to read it either, counts more as starting dates.

Since I sooner need 4 days per book I wont be waiting for you guys, But I'll keep reading new posts.

hi jenny, yes you go very fast! :))

I think I miscalculated this round... I planned to re-read it all ending with BoD. But I just started the RWC and it isn't in yet....

Jenny wrote: "I think I miscalculated this round... I planned to re-read it all ending with BoD. But I just started the RWC and it isn't in yet...."

I can do 4 weeks, knowing ahead of time, I won't read so many other books.

I didn't mean to reply to Jenny! I think I have a trip hangover, oh yeah there's a word for that...

oops, yes i adapted the bookshelf but i never put it down i guess. i put one every 4 weeks, starting mid april.

One quick question, would you recommend to have finished Farseer before Liveship?
I've only read Assassin's Apprentice so far and have the secon book on audio, but am listening to something else at the moment.
And as I'm more a fan of multiple pov in contrast to just one as in Farseer, I was thinking about starting Liveship and getting back to Farseer later, before Tawny Man.
Would this work or is there necessary information I should pick up from Farseer, before starting Liveship?

Liveships is pretty much standalone plot wise. There are a few little goodies and references for those who read Farseer first - but not enough to warrant reading this first if you wanted to.

There are some spoilers for farseer in liveship.

They aren't very detailed spoilers. Personally I think you should finish it first.

i agree, i don't think it's necessary to read farseer first, but it's nice. yes there are some super-minor spoilers that you will not be able to place but it won't make the book unreadable at all. you'll just go 'aaaah' when you read farseer after :)

i guess it depends on your time schedule. if you're planning to finish farseer soon, i'd do that first. but if it looks like that might take some months, you can go to liveship directly as well.

I love how you get glimpes of one world while in another. For example: I read the Farseer books last month and now I am on Liveship series (Mad Ship). I think it's great how the characters in Liveship will reference the Six Duchies sometimes, very cool.

i agree - same with the Tawny Man versus Liveship. If you skipped Liveship traders, there are some really nice references you won't notice. (And I'm only two chapters into tawny man!)

I believe we will be doing the Rain Wilds books but I'm not sure when Hanne thinks we should start. We've been reading Tawny with less of a break between books because it was so good

Well I have all four ready to go!

Yes, the plan is to continue! I know Rob has been patiently waiting for us to get there.

Concerning start dates, i'm open for suggestions!
I would like a bit of a break before starting to catch up on everything else. As of mid november would be fine for me.

Mid November is good for me too

I can do mid November as well. The only thing pending I have is Tigana on the 10th, but since that's in audio it won't be a conflict for me.

Add another 3 books to the list:

http://robinhobb.com/2013/10/the-fool...

I'm a bit apprehensive about this. I like how Fool's Fate ends and didn't feel like I needed more books, but I'll be reading them anyways.

Ooh - More Fitz and Fool?

I just read that on her blog post, I'm not sure how i feel about that either... i obviously don't know the end yet but it seemed like that relationship was tied up with a nice bow.

I like fitz enough for another trilogy, but i'm not sure what more she can do with these two characters together.

I'd love another trilogy.

Of course there's always the trepidation. But I was really worried when she wrote Tawny Man - and I viscerally despised the ending to that one when I first read it, precisely because it seems to undo a lot of the first trilogy. But when I read it again, I thought that actually a lot of the first trilogy needed to be undone. So I imagine that reading this new trilogy, I'll be hating the idea that it may upset what I liked about TM - but at the same time, probably TM does need to be re-examined. To be honest, what would disappoint me most now is if the new trilogy DOESN'T reassess the first two quite radically.

As to what can be in it: well, we had one trilogy when Fitz was a teenager, and one trilogy when he was a man in his prime in his thirties. I'm hoping we'll next get to see Fitz in his fifties (presumably anxiously Not Being Chade, Honestly), maybe with grandkids.

Mostly, though, I'm just hoping there's plenty of Nettle in it. Nettle is the one thing there really should have been more of in Tawny Man.

[It's a terrible title. But then most Robin Hobb titles are terrible.]

Wastrel wrote: "Mostly, though, I'm just hoping there's plenty of Nettle in it. Nettle is the one thing there really should have been more of in Tawny Man."

Couldn't agree more. Also, I'd like to see Fitz bonded again.

I'll be up for The Willful Princess. When were you planning on reading it?

David Sven wrote: "Wastrel wrote: "Mostly, though, I'm just hoping there's plenty of Nettle in it. Nettle is the one thing there really should have been more of in Tawny Man."

Couldn't agree more. Also, I'd like to ..."


Fully agree on that one!

Does anyone think the group should read The Inheritance & Other Stories? It has the best stories written by Robin Hobb and Megan Lindholm. If yes, then when?

I have Inheritance still sitting in the shopping bag from when it was on sale so I do intend to read it sometime and I'm open to suggested dates if anyone else wants to read it. I've just started another book but I could drop that to read now or else in two weeks time or some other time.

I'm too busy to read either right now. Especially given the current price for Willful princess. I'll wait for it to come down.

I mean if the group read a book a month, then the group would be on pace, with The Inheritance in July, and just in time to read the new Fitz novel when it comes out.in August.

kevin, i want to read the inheritance but it will be after rain wilds i think.

having said that if there are folks who want to read it before, there is space enough and i can give you all the threads you like :)

My only plan will be to finish Rainwild before the next Fitz & Fool book in August. Otherwise, I'm not planning on reading any more Hobb between now and then.

Too much other stuff to to get to.

So when are we going to read Dragon Haven?

Also as a minor detail the group still shows we're reading Fool's Fate instead of The Dragon Keeper

Oh and this thread mentions liveship in the title ^_^

I have a question: How tied into the story is Liveship to the other three series? Does it take place only in the same world, has it's own characters and side plots and whatever, with almost no impact on whatever happens in the other series? Or do events that happen in it play a part in Tawny Man and Rain Wilds Chronicles?

Events in liveship impact Tawney Man. This takes place elsewhere in the world between the two series with a different set of characters

And it's the prequel to rainwild, which occurs at the same time as Tawney man.

I highly recommend reading all books in publication order.

Events that take place in Liveship, on the big scale, have a big impact on later books. However, characters from Liveship only have a minimal impact on Tawny Man, and the exact details of what happens in Liveships has no effect whatsoever. So you can if you really want skip Liveships (and a character does provide most of the necessary info in quick recap form early on in Tawny Man). But I would really suggest reading them all in order.

If you try Liveships and hate it and it comes down to skipping Liveships or abandoning Hobb altogether, skip Liveships. But if you can, read it - you may even enjoy it (I think it's better than Farseer).

Crap. Well, guess I'll be sticking to plan, then!

Wastrel wrote: "Events that take place in Liveship, on the big scale, have a big impact on later books. However, characters from Liveship only have a minimal impact on Tawny Man, and the exact details of what happ..."

I'll just go ahead and read them in order. I was wondering if I can skip Liveships for now and return to it at a later date, when I have more reading time [I'm juggling because I have an ARC of Fool's Assassin], but based on what's being said about Rain Wilds, it sounds like I COULD read it after, yes, but it would detract from how much I enjoyed the stories overall. And I intend to get the most bang for my buck, lol.

you could skip, a lot of people do it. but if you want to get "the most bang for your buck" you definitely shouldn't! you'd be missing too much. :)

Hanne wrote: "you could skip, a lot of people do it. but if you want to get "the most bang for your buck" you definitely shouldn't! you'd be missing too much. :)"

That's the plan! I only considered it this morning when I read the blurb for the first Liveship book and thought it didn't sound like it ties in much.

I would definitely say to read them in order if you intend to read them all - since while Tawny Man doesn't really need Liveships, it does tell you an awful lot about how Liveships turns out. And I suspect the Rain Wild Chronicles may be significant for the new trilogy, although I don't know, obviously.

Lol, actually, I've never been very fond of fastasy nautical novels. After reading so many military novels with submarine tactics and destroyers blowing the shit out of each other, medieval-esque sailing stuff just never captured me, lol.

Did those books have Magic Ships?

Rob wrote: "Did those books have Magic Ships?"

Nope, but they had lasers sometimes.

Then these are better.

Rob wrote: "Then these are better."

Seems legit.

Ha Ha! These ships are sentient as well :)