The Tawny Man

The Tawny Man, Robin Hobb

I devoured this third trilogy of Robin Hobb’s. Back to the world of the Bingtown and the Six Duchies, the timing is about 15 years after the end of the Farseer Trilogy. Fitz has been living the life of a hermit, with his wolf companion Nighteyes. A few friends know of his survival, but most have assumed him dead many years previously. His heroic acts of self-sacrifice have never been openly acknowledged by the Farseer Realm, but Queen Kettricken, Chade and the Fool know the truth of what Fitz once did. Slowly Fitz (who goes by the name of Tom Badgerlock) is drawn back into court life, under the guise of being servant to Lord Golden (the Fool’s alter ego). Because I grew to love these characters in the first series, I enjoyed seeing what happened to them all. 

Verity and Kettricken’s son, Prince Dutiful is coming into manhood and there are those who would both threaten him and use him for their own political gain. The main story revolves around the Fool and Fitz, and the depth of their friendship is fully tested. 

There is one moment when a key character is revealed to be something different than what you thought, linking them to The Liveship Traders. I never saw it coming and sat in disbelief for some time, realising, that now I will have to re-read them all sometime to reanalyse it now with the new information. So, definitely a series I will end up reading more than once!

You really need to read these books in order to get the full benefit of these types of revelations, and there are allusions to the second series in both the first and the third, even though at a surface level they don’t appear to be related. 

Next on to the fourth series The Rain Wild Traders – with four books not three!  I’m hoping all the books will merge together even more.  Hobb is fast becoming my favourite author, on a par with Diana Gabaldon, though with a very different style.