Assassin's Apprentice & Royal Assassin

Robin Hobb is kind of an obvious pen name though I didn't realize it until my sister pointed it out. I pretty much never guess when an author is using a made up name and when not. Based on the name I also assumed Hobb (Margaret Lindholm Ogden) is a man even though that's not at all clear from just Robin.

Assassin's Apprentice is the first Robin Hobb novel and first book in The Farseer Trilogy. It started a series, The Realm of the Elderlings, that now spans like 17 novels. I'm not really planning to continue reading it beyond this first trilogy though: I didn't like Assassin's Apprentice and things didn't get any better in Royal Assassin. The third book, Assassin's Quest, may still turn things around but I doubt it.

My biggest issues with the books has been the dumb and helpless pile of misery that the protagonist is. Fitz is a bastard son to a king-in-waiting, royal prince Chivalry, whom he nor the reader never get to meet as he passes his claim to the crown to his younger brother Verity -- apparently because of the shame of bastard Fitz turning up in Buckkeep Castle -- and then is said to have died falling off his horse.

Assassin's Apprentice starts with Fitz being a very young child and thus the book is yet another coming-of-age story. He doesn't even get named properly for the longest time and most just call him boy, or bastard if they want to be mean. Even his eventual name Fitz, given by Burrich the stable master, means a noble's bastard son or something.

King Shrewd eventually places Fitz as an apprentice to his royal assassin Chade to have him at least be useful. Fitz learns the use of poisons and such but the story never becomes some glorious assassin power fantasy. Fitz is unable to affect the events and people around him and the ending of the first book is just terrible. It's everyone else but Fitz actually doing something and he barely even makes out of it alive. The second book follows suit.

Red-Ship Raiders are terrorizing the kingdom's coastline, leaving behind people stripped off their humanity. The true central narrative, however, is King Shrewd's third son Regal, born to a different mother than his brothers, scheming his way to be the king. I saw where things were going to go from the very moment I saw his name -- his name in Finnish, that is. Had I read Assassin's Apprentice in English, I would have probably needed a bit more information on him first to guess what was going to happen.

The Finnish language doesn't have as many synonyms for words as English does. You can't simply translate accurately all the highborn characters who each have a noun as their name. (Nomen est omen being the hopeful purpose for that in the book's world.) Looking at the original English names of the characters, I would have never guessed the majority of them based on what they're called in Finnish.

In Finnish, Prince Regal is called Valta which means power, authority, reign etc. I thought it was a really ominous name to give to one's third son. Of course he's going to get rid of his brothers! And probably his father too. But both Shrewd or Verity refuse to see Regal's intentions and Fitz, being the king's man, can't act on his own. It would be against Shrewd's will and just get Fitz executed too anyway. It is infuriating to read such a story. Regal better get what's coming for him in Assassin's Quest.