Fantasy Book Club discussion

I see Robin Hobb recommended all over the place in this group. I've only picked up two of her books, Shaman's Crossing and Forest Mage. I really didn't like them. I found the main character to be whiny and full of excuses. So here's my question: Are these representative of her work? Should I give her another chance? Or should I just decide that she's not an author I'm crazy about and leave it alone?

Oh no no, those books aren't supposed to be very good. I've stayed away from them myself in order not to be disappointed by her. BECAUSE the Apprentice series followed by the Fool series is superb. God I loved those books. There's also the Ships series, which aren't as good, I think because there are no characters I really really cared about, but it's still a good read. Especially because there's what happens there links into the Fool series. But in the Apprentice/Fool series (the Fool books continue the story from the former series) you just fall in love with the main character - sometimes you just want to shake him but that's from the exasperation you feel because you love someone. And I also really cared about the supporting characters too. Except the ones you're supposed to hate!

I'd say the characters in her other series also tend to be rather whiny, but as Lori says, the Soldier's Son books are generally considered to be far inferior to her other works.

I met Hobb's series via GoodReads recommendation and the first series I picked up was Farseer Triology. Farseer books are one of the best fantasy writings I have ever read since Tolkien and LeGuin, so far. So, JG, you may want to give her another chance for Farseer this time before a final opinion.

Oh, I'm a fan, but i really struggled with Soldier son, not the best thing to read first

I've had Shaman's Crossing sitting on my shelf for 2 years and haven't picked it up yet. I have a couple of friends that have read it and they enjoyed it, but I have a feeling I won't enjoy it as much as her other books. Her other trilogies, all in set in the same world, are amazing. The Fool trilogy is her best and she will remain one of my favorite fantasists.
As far as the characters, I wouldn't say they're whiny to a fault. Fitz (the main character in 2 of the trilogies) just suffers from an excessive amount of bad happenings. Hobb seems to use him a as a punching bag all throughout the series, so if a little whining comes about, it might be justified.

I agree Josh. I wouldn't even call it whiny, but depressed and withdrawn due to circumstances. It never annoyed me, like I said there were times I wanted to shake him because I admired and loved him so. And most of the other characters are pretty plucky.

I'm more luke-warm about it myself. I'm currently struggling through the second book in the Farseer trilogy and while I'll agree that she's telling a good story, it's just really slow reading for me. It's not something I can just sit down and swallow. Sometimes it seems like she's using a LOT of page space to move the plot just a little bit along because there are so many other little side-trips and stuff a lot of which doesn't seem to be particularly important. It totally want to to finish because I want to see how it all ends, but I'm sitting here with a whole lot of theories and some of them I've had for such a long time that I'm beginning to give up on there ever being an explanation.

Angrboda sums up my main problem. The author uses far too many words with the result that plots grind along way way slower than they need to do. As it turns out I do love the Farseer books as the overal plot was good enough to forgive the slowness, but the subsequent series didn't have plots that were as interesting and so the slowness really starts to grind, especially when characters are sitting around whinging (yes, they do whine) for seemingly hundreds of pages and you just want to shout at them to get on with it.

Personally, I really enjoyed the Assassin and Fool trilogies. I found them after they were all published, so I read them through pretty quickly. I found parts of the Fool trilogy a bit slow, but by that time I was in deep enough I wanted to see what was going to happen to the characters I cared about, so it was a minor thing.

The Liveship Traders is good so far as well, though I've only read the first one of those.

I haven't bothered with the Soldier's Son books, because they didn't look that good to me - and I have too many other things on my tbr list to spend time on stuff like that.

Ian, I'm glad I'm not the only one. Everybody else seems to be singing her praises to high heaven, I was beginning to wonder if I was just fundamentally strange for having such difficulties with it.

Thanks, everybody! I'll probably give her one more chance, since everyone seems to agree that I started with some "bad" books. Maybe the Fool series? Or would that be out of order somehow?

The series order goes: 1) Farseer trilogy 2) Liveship Traders trilogy 3) Fool trilogy.

The Liveship series takes place in the same world but is an entirely different storyline. It can be skipped and you can go direct from Farseer to Fool, but they're good books and I wouldn't recommend that. And in the Fool series, there are some character cameos and references to that series that you wouldn't understand.

As for the other two series, you'll very much want to read Farseer first.

The Liveship series takes place in the same world but is an entirely different storyline.

Well, not ENTIRELY different.

Shhh, don't spoil it. ;)

I'd be quite curious if anyone here has also read works by this author, under her "other name" Megan Lindholm.

She wrote another fantasy trilogy, that I just loved, including the title The Limbreth Gate.

She did a historical trilogy The Reindeer People, and two other contemporary fantasies - one urban, Wizard of the Pigeons, which takes place on Seattle, and one in Alaska, Cloven Hooves.

Given the appreciation for her Farseer books, which I also liked, some of you may enjoy the "other" voice of her career.

The Reindeer People and Wolf's brother were very endearing they were very good, very much like Auel's books but more magic in them. I've also read Alien Earth which was a bit weak. Got wizard but not read it yet.

I don't think Lindholms bokks are quite as strong as Hobb's Fitz books but The 2 Reindeer books are stronger than the Soldier son ones

I've just started the Farseer series out of curiosity.

My own stuff was compared to Hobb's by an industry columnist, him going on to say that for fans of Hobb, Fall of Ossard was not just a recommend, but an insist.

It's funny to see something like that about your own work, and while I've only just started the first Farseer book (and struggling to settle into it, as I always do with a new book), I am very much looking forward to getting further in as she is so well regarded, particularly with this and the Fool's series.

Having said that, the Liveship series has always intrigued me too. I hope I enjoy.