Blood of Dragons

What a read, felt a bit rushed at the end but IDK,what a terrific read.

Now I know Ms. Hobb for sure took IMMENSE pleasure in writing some of these deaths and I had a great time reading them.

6/10

By far the best Rain Wilds book. Hobb saved most of the actual plot and action for the last installment. Unfortunately, the annoying love triangle and teenage angst romance are still present.

Hey Amazon, give me a realm of the elderlings show( with keeping up with the rainwilders pls)

Not her best work but the best of the 4

3.25 out of 5 stars – see this review and others at The Speculative Shelf.

Blood of Dragons closes the door on the Rain Wild Chronicles tetralogy. I was expecting a grand finale, but was disappointed to read a more muted story that concluded several storylines that I did not care much about. Robin Hobb's similarly structured Liveship Traders series had countless characters that all felt like important components of a densely woven tapestry, while this series felt less essential and grand, with a heavy focus on relationship drama. Gripes aside, this is not a bad book, just one I did not enjoy as much as most other Realms of Elderlings works. Four series down, one to go!

Ultimately a very good conclusion to the story. Not my favorite compared to the other trilogies in this world, but satisfying nonetheless.
This might have been the first one in which I really didn't look forward to certain POV chapters, but it still turned out pretty okay by the end. I would still recommend reading it, even if it wasn't a necessity for the following trilogy.

It became much better once the story lines starting converging.

reviews.metaphorosis.com

3.5 stars

Having finally completed the painful ordeal of Lawrence Durrell's endless Alexandria Quartet, I looked for something more predictably good. I found that I had unaccountably let a Hobb book linger, and I turned to it with enthusiasm - something reliably comfortable and good!

Unfortunately, while generally speaking I got the ease and comfort I was looking for, I continued to be disappointed by this series. It's eminently readable, fun, and easy, with likeable characters and a sound plot. But it's simply not up to Hobb's usual standards, and that's been true of the series as a whole.

It seems clear that this is intended to be the end of the Rain Wilds sequence. Key plot lines are tied off, but there are broad hints at more to be explored. I'm not sure whether that's a good thing. I love this world, but this latest series is a substantial under-achiever, and I'm not sure I'd want more of that.

We learn more here about the Elderlings, and dragons, and the source of magic. But it's all underplayed in favor of the human relationships. Frankly, I was disappointed. Since first encountering the Elderlings (was it in the second Six Duchies trilogy?), I've been excited to learn about them. Here, they turn out to be less than expected, but not in a particularly emotional and interesting way. Their magic also turns on a particular source of power which is rediscovered in a somewhat offhand way. This power is based on memory, which we know to be important to dragons, but the definition and use of ‘memory' is so contorted that it becomes clear it's simply not a strong enough foundation. I wish Hobb had simply made clear that memory was merely one application of the power.

While human relationships are the core of the story, I found them disappointing. Hobb matches up pairs too neatly, and tries to tie things off with a pretty bow. I'd have preferred something a little more realistic, and didn't find these pairings entirely credible. In addition, she fits in some set pieces on gender relations. While I agree with her point, they read as if they were written by a progressive author for an '80s audience, not for today. Of course, it's true that part of the audience may still have an '80s mindset, the pieces felt dated and a little embarrassing (“Yes, Grandma. Of course they should have equal rights. These days, they do.”) At the same time, Hobb undercuts herself by sticking with some dated views of her own - the ‘boys' are excited by war, and the ‘girls' like to dress up.

There is some subtext hinted at but not explored - principally that dragons, arrogant as they are, are substantially changed by interaction with humans. While this has been touched on throughout, I felt there was much more Hobb could do with it, and have some hope that she will in a future series. It would be a nice return to the higher level of sophistication in the Apprentice and Tawny Man trilogies.

As with some of the other books in this series, the editing was below par. While there were few typos, there were some word errors I wouldn't expect from Hobb. For example, “All the dragons seemed to know whence they were bound, whether from ancient memories or shared thoughts”. Since they've just left Kelsingra, I'll bet it's from recent memory. Hobb obviously means “where” rather than “whence”, but I was surprised to see this slip through, and there were a few similar cases.

All in all, a good read, but a bit simplistic, and below average for Hobb. Perhaps she's aimed this series at the Young Adult audience. If so, I'm afraid she's gone a bit too far. Here's hoping the next series returns to a more sophisticated style.

Executive Summary: A good but not perfect ending, to a good but not perfect series.Full ReviewI was only introduced to [a:Robin Hobb 25307 Robin Hobb https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1205023525p2/25307.jpg] in summer of 2012, but she's quickly become one of my favorite authors. While I think this is probably the weakest of her Elderling series books, I still greatly enjoyed it.Ms. Hobb once again has a way with writing characters that feel real, especially in the way they can frustrate your and make you down right furious.She has a way of making me just enjoy following her characters around as they go about their lives. I feel like not as much happened in these four books as have in her previous trilogies. Yet I don't mind.I don't need her to have epic battles, with spell slinging mages or dragons engaged in combat. This book has no mages, and the dragons do very little fighting. What it does have is complex characters dealing with the complexity that is life: love, hate, greed, courage in a fantastical setting. Somehow that's enough for me. It may not be enough for everyone.There are some complaints I could make, but not many and I won't really dwell on them. I would have liked to see some more time spent with characters from Liveship. Their cameos throughout the series, and in this book in particular were excellent though.The series ends by tying up many but not all of the loose ends I'd have liked. It leaves me wanting more, yet not upset as though the book just stopped. I would be happy to read more about these characters, especially a few years down the road to see how they made out.I think the best example of this might be the bird keepers. We only know a little of them from their correspondence in a few paragraphs between each chapter. Yet they feel just as real to me as the main characters of the book.They feel like friends. People I know and care about. Or they feel like rivals. People I would never want to meet. That's hard in writing, and Ms. Hobb always seems to do an excellent job of that for me.