Product Description

Young Fitz, the illegitimate son of the noble Prince Chivalry, is ignored by all royalty except the devious King Shrewd, who has had him tutored him in the dark arts of the assassin. He has barely survived his first, soul-shattering mission, and returns to the court where he is thrown headfirst into the tumult of royal life. With the King near death, and Fitz's only ally off on a seemingly hopeless quest, the throne itself is threatened. Meanwhile, the treacherous Red Ship Raiders have renewed their attacks on the Six Duchies, slaughtering the inhabitants of entire seaside towns. In this time of great peril, it soon becomes clear that the fate of the kingdom may rest in Fitz's hands--and his role in its salvation may require the ultimate sacrifice.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7688 in Books
• Published on: 1997-02-03
• Released on: 1997-02-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 675 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780553573411
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Continuing in the tradition of her first book (Assassin's Apprentice) Hobb propels the Farseer saga into its second installment with irresistible plotting and memorable characters. Fitz is a trained assassin in the service of King Shrewd and also the king's illegitimate grandson. He is sworn to protect heir to the throne Prince Verity and Verity's new bride, but his task is complicated by an invasion of vicious barbarians who turn helpless captives into zombie-like Forged Ones. The home front is no safer, with an ailing King and usurpers to the throne waiting in the wings. Romance, sibling rivalry, battlefield exploits, betrayal, political intrigue and telepathic magic insure that there's never a dull moment in the Kingdom of the Six Duchies. Through deft description and characterizations, Hobb manages to create a kingdom that looks like a fairy tale but feels like the real world?which makes it almost impossible not to become immersed in Hobb's fantasy epic. The ending clamors for a sequel-and hopefully sooner, than later.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
Second entry in Hobb's fantasy series about the Six Duchies and their Farseer kings (Assassin's Apprentice, 1995). At Buckkeep, King Shrewd lies dying, attended only the by the faithful, enigmatic Fool; King in Waiting Verity spends all his time Skilling to befuddle and bemuse the dreaded Red Ship Raiders, while his beautiful, neglected wife, Kettricken, wanders disconsolately. Young FitzChivalry, still ailing after his previous mission, tries to serve both Shrewd and Verity while seeking ways to frustrate the vaulting ambitions of Shrewd's youngest son, the viperous Prince Regal. Shrewd, meantime, has forbidden poor Fitz to marry his beloved Molly, a commoner. Fitz also possesses the Wit, an ability to talk to and empathize with animals, and he bonds with a young wolf he rescues from cruel captivity. Verity builds his own warships, but still can't defeat the Raiders--and the weaker Verity grows, the more the people listen to Regal's treacherous murmurings. Finally, Verity goes into the mountains seeking the Elderlings, a godlike race that helped a previous Farseer king to defeat the Raiders, leaving Fitz to protect Kettricken and Shrewd. Another spellbinding installment, built of patient detail, believable characters, and mature plotting--though, at an unwarranted 608 pages, there are ominous signs that Hobb's beginning to lose control of her narrative. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review
'Hobb is one of the great modern fantasy writers !what makes her novels as addictive as morphine is not just their imaginative brilliance but the way her characters are compromised and manipulated by politics.' The Times

Customer Reviews

Well done: how to make an assassin a sympathetic character
I read this book first, then read Assassin's Apprentice to see where it started, then finally Assassins Quest with bated breath. Glad I picked it up.

"Royal Assassin" is a lovely play on words, best understood once the story is over, as is the premise that "Chivalry ain't dead" which, while never uttered, provides the foundation for the protagonist's existence. That sense of irony is ever present throughout the series, and is beautifully complemented by Hobbs' use of adjective given names: Shrewd, Desire, Verity, Constance, Regal, etc. The measured development and revelation of each character's flaws and motivations is a beautiful example of how to write a book that startles you with plot twists, all of which ultimately make sense. The hardest character to reach is Regal, which is a shame, since he is a believable self-justified villain.

Hobb's system of magic is easy to grasp, and does not require too great a suspension of disbelief to incorporate, since so few people in the book actually practice the Skill or the Wit. Her ability to demonstrate the suspicions and superstitions of commoners is admirable. Most compelling, however, is her ability to get inside the "coming of age" problem with a stark realism that most cannot achieve. Hobb is also able to address intimate relationships, love, and marriage from a very human, and often humorous perspective, a skill that is rarely displayed in the fantasy genre. The setting is rich with vivid depictions of life in a medeival castle. You can smell the stew cooking in the kitchen, and taste the warm bread that Fitz wheedles from Cook when it is fresh out of the oven. You also appreciate the plain difficulty of getting things done, even for one endowed with the Skill. And you empathize with the archetypical ailing king, whose hold on life and his kingdom are both weakening, and who nonetheless battles to impose his will on the events shaping his kingdom.

Best of all, Fitz is an imperfect protagonist, who must rely on tenacity and his various friends to achieve his goals and survive in the deadly environment of court intrigue. The only problem with reading this book is that most contemporary fantasy pales in comparison. Robin Hobb has raised the bar.

Disappointing Book 2
I rather enjoyed the first book in this series and was excited to get book two. But the second book was a disappoinment overall.

Conflict and problems are vital for the development of a book's plot. However, a good book will effectively mask the usage of conflicts to keep the reader's interest and this is where Royal Assassin fails. The conflicts created are nonstop, take up too many words and feel overtly manipulative. The protaganist revels in his insecurities for far too long and passes up far too many opportunities to just Do Something. To many oversights defy belief and exist only to further suspend resolution of the plot. Conflict upon conflict piles up in a manner that does not support a sympathetic and heroic character and Fitz is compromised as a protaganist that the reader can get invested in. The huge insecurities and depression indicated by the Fitz are simply incompatible with the expectation that he will, actually, do something heroic at some point and are jarring when compared to the few scenes where he actually does act heroically. Early on in the book he goes about several difficult tasks with aplomb and complete confidence only to later dwell in doubt and despair for pages upon pages, over seemingly much simpler tasks. We are given a few hints that each resolution might lead him to future confidence or a break-through in his abilities only to find him even more useless for the next task he must undertake.

Part of the problem is that the set of powers chosen for this world, the Skill in particular, is simply far too powerful and could easily solve massive plot problems in a very quick and easy manner -- if allowed to do so. Obviously such a Deus Ex Machina plot would not satisfy. Thus excuse after excuse is thrown at us to describe how, yet again, the protaganists fail to do much of use with the all-powerful Skill. Similarly the first book ended with a fairly decent resolution that was immediately contradicted in the beginning of the second book. It's easy to see how this might have happened (after getting published on the first book there was a need to drum up new drama to start the second) but the result is a let-down and seemed to ruin the feeling of fulfillment from the first book.

Heroic fiction is a genre about wish-fulfillment. We love to see our favorite characters relish in their hard-earned victories and we love to see them develop and gain in confidence and strength. This book however kills the satisfaction at prior accomplishments and has a protaganist that fails to develop much more satisfaction in terms of development or further accomplishments. At the end I was left annoyed and unfulfilled and liking the characters far less than I had after the first book, thus missing what I see as the necessity of Heroic Fantasy Fiction. As Fantasy readers, we don't just want conflict/resolution we also want a relatively monotonic growth of the characters towards being heros.

I also agree that the series, thus far, lacks any exploration of grayer morality and fails to break the mold of idealized, Good/Bad characterization. That is a bit of a disappointment but is something I tend to expect from the genre. So I won't hark too much on that point.

Because of my enjoyment of the first book I will read reviews and maybe scan through book 3. I still have some lingering interest in seeing how things end up for Fitz and so maybe I'll stick it out. I think Hobb has it in her to write very good stories but I think this one, ultimately, failed.

Remarkable Second Installment
With the second volume of the Farseer trilogy, Robin Hobb has certainly written a compelling saga strong on characterization. The first volume saw young Fitz growing as a boy and learning the ways around the court of Buckkeep, the capital of the Six Duchies. It seems to me that once Fitz was able to grow into his teens, the author finally has more freedom in making him the center of the happenings. Whereas Fitz was mostly a spectator in Assassin's Apprentice, he now tries to direct the action in the court; whether he is cleverly manipulated by others or truly acts on his own is an interesting question. This novel is less a novel of action or of epic proportions. It is obvious that Robin Hobb has no interest in becoming another Tolkien or Jordan. This is a novel of court intrigue, machinations, moves and countermoves. And Fitz finds himself with far more to deal with than he can chew. The characters are even livelier and interesting than in the first novel. I found it remarkable how Fitz seems to grow from page to page as he becomes more observant and active with the daily activities around him. From a boy, he becomes a man, with the unfortunate resulting consequences. The only drawback I found is that the underlying moral seems to be that the more resposibilities you shoulder upon yourself, regardless of your intentions, the more ruthless your enemies will act toward you. And, goodness, are they ruthless. Perhaps i was hoping for a traditional hero, and Fitz tries his best to be one, but Hobb yanks him back again and again.