I Totally Agree With This

I totally agree with this blog post. It's worth a read I think.

http://meandmybigmouth.typepad.com/scottpack/2012/03/for-fs-sake.html

The Dragon Keeper by Robin Hobb

The first book I'll be reviewing on this blog is the one in the picture above "The Dragon Keeper" by Robin Hobb.

 Guided by the great blue dragon Tintaglia, they came from the sea: a Tangle of serpents fighting their way up the Rain Wilds River, the first to make the perilous journey to the cocooning grounds in generations. Many have died along the way. With its acid waters and impenetrable forest, it is a hard place for any to survive. People are changed by the Rain Wilds, subtly or otherwise. One such is Thymara. Born with black claws and other aberrations, she should have been exposed at birth. But her father saved her and her mother has never forgiven him. Like everyone else, Thymara is fascinated by the return of dragons: it is as if they symbolise the return of hope to their war-torn world. Leftrin, captain of the liveship Tarman, also has an interest in the hatching; as does Bingtown newlywed, Alise Finbok, who has made it her life's work to study all there is to know of dragons. But the creatures which emerge from the cocoons are a travesty of the powerful, shining dragons of old. Stunted and deformed, they cannot fly; some seem witless and bestial. Soon, they become a danger and a burden to the Rain Wilders: something must be done. The dragons claim an ancestral memory of a fabled Elderling city far upriver: perhaps there the dragons will find their true home. But Kelsingra appears on no maps and they cannot get there on their own: a band of dragon keepers, hunters and chroniclers must attend them. To be a dragon keeper is a dangerous job: their charges are vicious and unpredictable, and there are many unknown perils on the journey to a city which may not even exist. (Blurb taken from the Waterstones website).

I have never read a book by Robin Hobb before - this particular book was given to me for my birthday last year, and I have only just gotten round to reading it. After reading this book, I have mixed reactions to it, and I am well aware of the positive reviews on the Waterstones website.

Hobb is a wonderfully descriptive author. She gives enough description so you can build a detailed image in your mind, but not overly descriptive that the momentum of the story is lost. Her characters were almost imaginative, such as Thymara and other Rain Wilders who have aspects of dragon-ness (yes that is a word now) for all to see. I also liked that the dragons were not friendly almost human-esque creatures, but manipulative, believing that they were of higher status despite their disabilities. These flaws extended to the human characters as well, and I found that I liked the minor characters more than the main one. Not only that, I found that I did have an emotional response towards them, and found myself questioning their actions as if they were real.

Onto the bits I didn't like so much. I found that the book was hard to get into. It took me a week to get into it, when I would normally finish a book of this size (560 pages) within a week. I also found the main characters frustrating at times. I guessed the truth about Hest, Alise's husband, pretty much straight away, and wanted to yell at Alise for being so stupid. I also found Thymara to be annoying. When I got to the end of the book, I felt disappointed because not much actually happened! With a few extra sentences whacked into the blurb, you pretty much have the whole story there in one paragraph. I do wonder if there will be more action in the next book, but I am in two minds over whether to read it or not, but I will read another of Hobb's books.

In all, I would give this book 3/5. I would not recommend new readers to Hobb to read this book, and suggest to try another first - a friend of mine has recommended the Farseer trilogy.