The Best Fantasy Series Ever: Robin Hobb’s Realm of the Elderlings
It’s been over two years now since I made the conscious decision to start reading novels again. I was a huge reader in my younger years, but as an adult I seldom spent my free time reading anything. If I was going to read something, it was most likely going to be a graphic novel.
But I’d decided I wanted to get back into books, and that decision pretty quickly (and naturally) led to me beginning the What Jeff Read portion of this website. As someone who’d been out of the reading hobby, I had lots of books to choose from.
I enjoy the Science Fiction and Mystery/Thrillers genres when it comes to other mediums and my first few choices of novels to read and review reflects that. I soon discovered though that one genre that stands above the rest and is my favorite when it comes to reading: Fantasy.
A great sci fi or mystery story can be fun for a few hundred pages, but if you really want to become lost in an amazing world for more than just a single book, Fantasy is the genre for you. That’s what I’m really looking for when I pick up a book. I don’t simply want great characters and plot – I want to be transported to someplace fantastic. It’s a nice bonus if there’s some magic too.
There are plenty of well-received fantasy series to choose from, and I investigated (and read) those which appealed to me. I tended to look for works where the trilogy (or however many books make up the series) was already completed. I want all of the story finished. (No one’s going to pull a George R. R. Martin on me!)
This all leads me to the point of this article. Because I’ve just finished what’ll likely go down as the best, most memorable collection of fantasy novels that I’ll ever read in my lifetime: Robin Hobb’s Realm of the Elderlings series.
When I first picked up that initial book in the Farseer trilogy, Assassin’s Apprentice, I didn’t do it with the intention of necessarily reading 16 books. I intended to read the Farseer trilogy. Three books usually seems to me to be a solid amount to tell a story. I was so impressed with those initial three books though, that I decided I wanted to read more Robin Hobb.
What’s so fantastic about the novels that Robin Hobb has written is that while they all are set in the same universe (known as the Realm of the Elderlings), they are grouped in sets of separate trilogies or, in the case of the Rain Wild Chronicles, a quartet of books. When you start reading the Realm of the Elderlings by way of those initial Farseer books, you’re not making the commitment to read 16 novels (which sounds like a ton) because three novels really do tell that full first story.
Of the 16 books that comprise the Realm of the Elderlings, three of the trilogies focus on protagonist FitzChivalry Farseer. However, the Liveship Traders trilogy and Rain Wild Chronicles concentrate on entirely different characters. Though they tie into the overall story Hobb is telling, they even feel very different than the books featuring Fitz. It makes reading so many books go by extremely fast. You get a break from familiar characters you know and love and are then excited when you find yourself returning to another set of novels featuring them.
I read these 16 books in roughly a year, which for me isn’t too long to accomplish so much reading. Taken as a collective together, they are fantastic and a masterpiece. Sometimes, I’d try to get into another book between Robin Hobb novels but found myself unable to do so since other texts would be unable to hold a candle to Hobb’s work. I found myself becoming (even more) critical of movies and TV shows too while reading these books too. You just get spoiled reading something so high-quality that you’re standards go up.
Robin Hobb is an outstanding writer. She has a way with words that’s poetic, without being overly so. You can pick out a random passage in any book and it’ll just have such weight behind it. At the same time, her writing is never confusing or superfluously wordy. She has a beautiful voice that works perfectly for epic fantasy.
The entire story Hobb has crafted is excellent, but it’s her characters that I’ll always remember. There’s Fitz and the Fool. Nighteyes. Chade. Ketrichen. Althea. The list goes on and on. I don’t know if I’ve ever read a series with such a unique cast of characters that feel so interesting and diverse.
When you’ve got 16 books, you’re going to have highs and lows. The Realm of the Elderlings isn’t without its weaker points. The Rain Wild Chronicles aren’t up there with the Fitz books or Liveship Traders in terms of quality. They’re still good, but they’re not fantastic. Still, they feel well worthwhile when considered in the context of the whole series.
My favorite book of the bunch is Fool’s Errand. It’s actually the seventh book overall, and book one of The Tawny Man Trilogy. I enjoyed the calmer moments earlier in that novel, as well as the mystery aspects to the story later on, and also how it works as a great character study of an aging Fitz.
Overall, if you’re a fan of high fantasy, I can’t recommend these books enough. My only regret having finished them is that I have no more of them to read.
My Reviews of Books in the Realm of the Elderlings: