Assassin's Quest

After completing the second part of this trilogy I was left unsure of my feelings about the tale; the story had turned claustrophobic and it didn't really feel like a huge amount of progression was taking place. It is fortunate then that the final book finally gets out of Buckkeep and heads out on something more resembling an adventure, with a suitably neat, if a little predictable, conclusion.

Having said that, although Robin Hobb writes well, there is an awful lot of grind to get from A to B. Dealing with the consequences of the end of the second book, before we set out on the quest, takes about 100 pages without any obvious impact on the overarching story. Of course, that is not to say that the sequence of events does not follow any logic, which illustrates what I think is the main failing of the trilogy: every action, and the actions stemming from that action, are followed though to their logical conclusion and described in great detail. As I say, the writing is good enough to carry the reader through, however this does not make for a quick, fast-moving read. If you start reading this trilogy, you need to face the fact that you are in this for the long haul.

So, where doesn't this leave the trilogy? As mentioned, you certainly get your money's worth; by the time you get the end you can be confident that you will feel like you have been on the quest yourself. The conclusion ends where it should, albeit in a little too predictable manner; there are few surprises given the foreshadowing that comes before, however there is a satisfaction in knowing that it couldn't really end any other way based on what came before.

If you measure your trilogies in terms of pages read and events encountered, you will not be disappointed. This has many of both, with the added bonus of being well written, however personally I could have done with a bit less detail and a few more twists.