The Open Book

Ok. So I finally finished book 3 of The Farseer trilogy and it was a lot. This time out Fitz is on a quest to find Prince Verity and aid Queen-in-waiting Kettricken in first hiding, then retaking the throne. Along the way he continues to fail at assassining (don't look at me like that, it's totally a word), meets some minstrels, whines a lot about Molly, wakes up some statue dragons (sort of, it's complicated) and continues his oblivious, one sided love affair with the Fool which is, honestly, my favourite part of the whole series. 

The world building is first rate. The Six Duchies, their history and politics, are really well conceived, which makes it easy for the reader to immerse herself into the word Hobb has created. Unfortunately, the story, over the course of the three novels, suffers a bit from repetition and a lack of character growth. Fitz finds himself in the same situation over and over again, yet he never seems to learn from his mistakes, never really develops as a character. He also seems to really fail at connecting to others emotionally. He says he loves Molly. He feels compelled to follow Verity. And yes, he really, really hates Regal. But most of the time he doesn't really seem all that moved by other people, with the exception of the Fool. And maybe part of that is an unreliable narrator (Fitz, himself, and lets face it, he's not particularly self aware) but I tend to see this more as a failure in the writing. And when the main character can't connect, well, that makes it really hard for me to.