Tag Archives: Robin Hobb

The Reindeer People by Megan Lindholm

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Synopsis:
An outcast healer and her shaman-bewitched son become caught up in the politics and intrigue among a group of reindeer herdsman.

Review:
The Reindeer People is only the first part of the story, and ends on a most incomplete note, so I’m glad that I’ve got Wolf’s Brother on hand to start immediately. I really hate that publishers do this–I’d much rather read one long book than wait for a second installment.

This is one of Megan Lindholm/Robin Hobb’s earliest works, and in it you can see the seeds of the greater writer she will become. The prose is confident and assured, and her characters satisfyingly flawed. While the book got off to a slow start, I was glad I stuck with it.

The world here is ancient, though not quite primitive. The characters have intellect if not sophistication, and the aforementioned politics and intrigue are complex, from a psychological perspective. Tillu is not Lindholm’s greatest heroine, but I’m warming up to her.

Dragon Haven by Robin Hobb

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Synopsis:
Outcast dragon keepers escort group of stunted dragons towards what they hope is their ancestral home, while threatened by dangerous lands without and traitors within.

Review:
Dragon Haven is actually the second half of the story begun in Dragon Keeper, and really they could’ve been just one book. (Though I do not begrudge any extra revenue to the gifted author Robin Hobb.)

I really can’t say much about the plot of this book without giving away spoilers, so you’ll just have to be satisfied with knowing that I was quite pleased with how this story turned out. Hobb has indicated that her next book might be set after the events of this one, and I hope that is the case, because while she wrapped up this story well, I have big questions about what happens next!

Dragon Keeper by Robin Hobb

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Synopsis:
The dragons who emerged from their cocoons along the Rain Wilds River were not exactly the fearsome creatures of legend hoped for by many, so a ragtag group of outcasts and misfits are hired to escort them upriver, ostensibly to find a legendary dragon city–if any of them survive.

Review:
It was SO much fun to return to the world of the Liveship Traders series, which was my favorite of Robin Hobb’s three Six Duchies trilogies. I’m aching to reread all of them again, to relive the adventure and romance and magic of what I think are the best-written epic fantasy books of all time.

Dragon Keeper is the first half of one book; the second, Dragon Haven, will be out in May. At the close of the Liveship Traders books, the last remaining dragon and some sympathetic folk aided a group of sea serpents to the hatching grounds to go into hibernation and become dragons. Now, those cocoons have opened, but only a few dragons have survived, and those who have are deformed, weak and unable to fly.

Meanwhile, a Bingtown spinster from a prominent family receives a most unromantic proposal of marriage. Alise will be given all the money and freedom she needs to pursue her scholarly study of dragons, the only price being a loveless marriage with a man who ignores her to pursue his own private interests. She longs to see the dragon hatchlings, having not heard the news that they are malformed, but her controlling husband is loath to allow her to travel.

The other main POV character is Thymara, a young Rain Wilds girl who lives near the hatching grounds and saw them emerge. Like many Rain Wilds babies, she was born too deformed to be allowed to live, but her father would not let her be exposed, so she has grown up an outcast, not allowed to marry and not expected to survive to adulthood. Working with the dragons represents a freedom she never expected to know, but the work proves to be more challenging and less rewarding than she hoped it would be.

The humans are no longer willing to tolerate the deformed dragons and their rapacious appetites, but fearful of angering the majestic queen of dragons, Tintaglia, they decide to help the dragons move upriver, where the dragons remember a grand city where their ancestors lived side by side with the Elderlings who tended and worshiped them. No one expects the dragons or their keepers to survive the trip.

I had toyed with the idea of waiting until May to read both books, but I just couldn’t hold out that long. And now May can’t come fast enough! Dragon Keeper is a splendid return to form for Hobb and a book I really, really enjoyed reading.

Favorite Author Meme

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Heather at Errant Dreams came up with a wonderful meme–enjoy & consider yourself tagged!

* Answer the questions as you see fit. Although they’re all phrased to ask about a singular author, feel free to respond with multiples, or even a list.
* Where possible & convenient (you don’t have to go as crazy as I did!), include a link here or there to an author’s website, your review of one of their books, or a review that inspired you to try the author(s), so your readers can get more information on anyone that sounds interesting.
* Tag five people and drop by their blogs to let them know you tagged them, or open-tag your readers.
* It would be nice if you included a link back to your tagger.

1. Who’s your all-time favorite author, and why?

I think I would have to say CS Lewis. I’ve read all of his books, many of them several times. I’ve read the Narnia Chronicles at least a dozen times, and books like The Great Divorce and The Screwtape Letters have meant a lot to me at certain times in my life.

2. Who was your first favorite author, and why? Do you still consider him or her among your favorites?

The first author I remember being obsessed with–as in, I’ve got to read everything by this person–was John Bellairs. He wrote gothic stories for kids illustrated by Edward Gorey that were imaginative and just scary enough, and the first one I read was The House with a Clock in its Walls. I’m saving a few for Superfast Baby when she’s old enough. I had read multiple books by other authors, but I was more into the series, than the author, as with the All of a Kind Family books.

3. Who’s the most recent addition to your list of favorite authors, and why?

Robin Hobb, without question. She’s a superlative storyteller and I just lost myself in love starting with Assassin’s Apprentice. I’d also add Leo Tolstoy and Jhumpa Lahiri to the list, having read both of them for the first time in 2007.

4. If someone asked you who your favorite authors were right now, which authors would first pop out of your mouth? Are there any you’d add on a moment of further reflection?

Margaret Atwood, Jane Austen, Leo Tolstoy, Stephen King, Madeleine L’Engle, CS Lewis, Robin Hobb, George RR Martin, Shirley Jackson, Patricia Highsmith, Charles Dickens, Kathleen Norris, Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine, Dan Allender, Edith Wharton, Jhumpa Lahiri.

Nothing really to add on further reflection. I spend a lot of time thinking about my favorite authors!

The Alphabet Meme

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Picked this meme up from Melanie, in honor of two YA books I read for work this weekend.

The goal of this is to list favourite authors according to last name (with a representative fave book as well).

Atwood, Margaret — Cat’s Eye
Bronte, Charlotte — Jane Eyre
Card, Orson Scott — Ender’s Game
Dragonwagon, Crescent — The Year It Rained (with Paul Zindel)
Eager, Edward — Half Magic
Forster, EM — Howard’s End
Gibson, William — Neuromancer
Hobb, Robin — Ship of Magic
Ishiguro, Kazuo — And Never Let Me Go
Jackson, Shirley — Hangsaman
King, Stephen — The Gunslinger
Lewis, CS — Till We Have Faces
Martin, George RR — Game of Thrones
Novik, Naomi — His Majesty’s Dragon
Oates, Joyce Carol — Blonde
Percy, Walker — The Last Gentleman
Queenan, Joe — If You’re Talking to Me, Your Career Must Be in Trouble
Rendell, Ruth — Judgment in Stone
Smith, Wesley — Culture of Death
Tolkien, JRR — The Return of the King
Undset, Sigrid — Kristin Lavransdatter
Vine, Barbara — A Dark-Adapted Eye
Wharton, Edith — Twilight Sleep
X — I’ll read the next book someone recommends by an author whose last name starts with X.
Yancey, Phillip — Where is God When It Hurts?
Zarr, Sara — Story of a Girl

Top 20 Meme

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Picked this up from Becky:

The rules: Top twenty favourite books in no particular order. Don’t think about it for too long. Take twenty minutes only to compile your list. Bold the ones you’ve read, or reread, since you’ve started blogging. Include novels, non fiction and plays.

1. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
2. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
3. Peyton Place by Grace Metalious
4. Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King
5. Ship of Magic by Robin Hobb
6. Till We Have Faces by CS Lewis
7. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
8. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
9. Arcadia by Tom Stoppard
10. Asylum by Patrick McGrath
11. Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier
12. Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy
13. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
14. Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson
15. Private Demons by Judy Oppenheimer
16. Bird by Bird by Anne LaMott
17. The Cloister Walk by Kathleen Norris
18. Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
19. The Long Emergency by James Howard Kunstler
20. Birth at Home by Sheila Kitzinger

Renegade’s Magic by Robin Hobb

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Synopsis:
Soldier Son Nevare’s adventures culminate in a battle within his divided self for mastery of his body in defiance of the magic.

Review:
When last we saw Nevare, he was grossly fat and resigned to a life on the outside. A Soldier Son of modest ambition, Nevare’s soul was cleft in two during a battle with the tree goddess Lisana. Now, in Renegade’s Magic, the trilogy’s conclusion, Nevare finds himself trapped, with his Speck alter-ego having taken control of his body in order to wield the magic against Nevare’s own people.

For most of the book, Nevare is a disembodied self, helplessly observing as “Soldier’s Boy” grows fat on magic and rises in power as a Great One. He rues the choices he made to alienate himself from his family and from the woman he loves. Soldier’s Boy loves Lisana, the woman whom Nevare holds responsible for his destruction. And so he finds himself torn between his passion for Lisana and his hatred of Soldier’s Boy, and fears for the day when he will be unable to resist merging with Soldier’s Boy.

The internal nature of the narrative kept me from fully engaging with the story, oddly enough. I never saw Nevare as an agent in the story; rather, he was an observer to someone else’s story. The technique itself was well executed, but despite Hobb’s considerable skills I don’t think she transcended the gimmick’s inherent limitations. Ultimately I felt that the trilogy didn’t end with the level of majesty I’ve come to expect from her work.

Even so, Robin Hobb on a bad day beats the pants off of many other writers at their best. I’m already itching to reread her Six Duchies trilogies, and hope to get my hands on more of the out of print Megan Lindholm works.

123 Meme

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The kind and well-read Walrus tagged me for the 123 meme. Thank you!

I’m currently reading Renegade’s Magic by Robin Hobb, which is sitting at the top of the stack next to my nursing glider. Also in the stack: The Axe by Sigrid Undset, the New King James Bible (not that I have bothered to read it lately), and Lose Your Mummy Tummy.

“Let me be forgotten by them. And what did I hope for myself? Hope. It seemed a bitter word now.”

Here are the rules:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

I’m tagging:

Bybee
Dewey
Eva
Sensawunda
Sheila

May I Introduce… (Booking Through Thursday)

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  • btt button
    1. How did you come across your favorite author(s)? Recommended by a friend? Stumbled across at a bookstore? A book given to you as a gift?
    2. Was it love at first sight? Or did the love affair evolve over a long acquaintance?

    You can find my favorite authors listed in the first sidebar column. Here’s a rundown of how I met them all:

    • CS Lewis–My father read the Chronicles of Narnia to me when was a little girl. For my 6th birthday, I had a cake featuring the old cover art from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. In college, I attended a two-week symposium in Cambridge, England, sponsored by the CS Lewis Institute, and that’s where I fell in love with his non-fiction.
    • Edith Wharton–I hated Ethan Frome, but fell in lover with Age of Innocence in college. I tore through the rest of her books. Still don’t like Ethan Frome, though.
    • Flannery O’Connor love came from reading Wise Blood in high school.
    • Jane Austen–now that’s an interesting case. I had to read Pride and Prejudice in ninth grade and hated it. Just a few years ago, I decided to give her another chance, and read Sense and Sensibility. I adored it, and adored all the rest of her books… including Pride and Prejudice.
    • JRR Tolkien love grew from a lifelong adoration of Middle Earth from reading The Hobbit and watching the animated movies. On that same trip to Cambridge, I read The Lord of the Rings for the first time and my passion was sealed.
    • Patricia Highsmith, Ruth Rendell, and Barbara Vine were library reads. I had heard good things about them, and decided to take a chance.
    • Shirley Jackson I picked up while working in development for a film producer. We were looking for material and somebody suggested I check out her work. Ah, me! One taste and I was lost. I found a book scout in Canada who tracked down all her out of print books for me.
    • Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising was assigned reading in sixth grade. I immediately got my hands on the rest of the series, and have since reread it several times. I can’t wait to introduce them to Bean.
    • Walker Percy was yet another author I discovered in Cambridge. I read Lost in the Cosmos, then his fiction, then the rest of his non-fiction essays on semiotics. He played a big part in forming my identity in my early 20s.

    You may also notice I have a list of Author Sites I Love. Here’s how I met those folks:

    • Dan Allender was thanks to counseling with a former pastor.
    • David Bordwell from a grad school course on film narrative.
    • George RR Martin was a recommendation from my best friend from college.
    • Jeffrey Overstreet is a great blogger.
    • Laurie Halse Anderson wrote Speak, and there’s a whole story about me and that book that I’ll save for another day.
    • Libba Bray was recommended to me by an eighth grader at my old high school. I did a speaking engagement, and this girl was my mini-me–frizzy hair, socially awkward, and a huge bookworm.
    • Madeleine L’Engle I’ve blogged about before, in a post on books that evoked a strong emotional reaction in me.
    • Robin Hobb was a recommendation from the girlfriend of a college friend of my husband’s. This guy teases Melissa for reading what he calls “vampires in space” books. My husband likes to say, “How can you write a book about a dragon?” She and I hit it off immediately.
    • Save the Cat! is the site of a recent book on screenwriting that my manager made me read. I wish I had read it ages ago… it really does live up to its own hype.
    • Scott Westerfeld was discovered by me during a search to find young adult books that would make great movies. The Uglies series is being made into a movie, though not with me.
    • Stephen King saved my life freshman year in college, before I made friends and a life. I whiled away many a long boring night with one of his gazillions of books, checked out of the library.
    • T. Greenwood’s book Nearer than the Sky is quite special to me. A friend and I have an option on it and hope to turn it into a movie.

    And there you have it–wow, it’s amazing what I can do while the baby takes a nap!