Dragon Haven

I feel like that the English Major snobs calling this a smut need to go cluck themselves.

(I will admit I finished book 3 before I remembered reviews. woopsie.)
This book was good but also sort of frustrating. Certain reveals took too long and felt like Tarman was moving at approximately the speed of molasses. I know the point of the book is the journey, but yeesh. It's possible the journey dragged more for me in this book because of the focus on people's sex lives. I'm not a prude necessarily, it just felt kinda weird. If I was trapped in a canoe and had to hunt to feed myself, whether or sex is forbidden would not be my top priority. Also, why all the focus on how the young people don't truly understand love yet? It's repeated multiple time. The thing that really confused me, is how Hobb forshadowed the gay like crazy ( I saw it coming way before the reveal, I'm not exactly the queen of analytical reading.) but the character took forever to actually admit on the page. But then it's implied it is basically an open secret in Bingtown. I'm just very confused about this aspect of the story now. I feel like I need a top down analysis of homophobia in Bingtown now. Is it just frowned upon? Are you shunned? I NEED answers.

2/10

Hobb doubled down on the romance drama in this one. This book is mostly about horny people trying to figure out who wants to have sex with whom. And when they manage to figure that out, the sex scenes are extremely cringe-worthy. The rest of the book deals with grooming and feeding animals and breeding pigeons. The actual plot could be condensed into 100 pages or so.

I enjoyed the Story of Alice and Cedric immensely. I like to root for the underdogs and even though the twists and turns did not come out of the blue, it was in total still enjoyable. Sintara is cool too.

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

Many of Robin Hobb's books begin with a set of characters that are broken in some way (physically, emotionally, by circumstance, etc.). Throughout the course of each book or series these characters are made whole through their experiences. Dragon Keeper introduced us to several flailing entities (feeble dragons, outcast keepers, multiple characters in doomed relationships), but it is from these small beginnings that these characters come into their own in Dragon Haven.

This book is very much a continuation of Dragon Keeper — which is not surprising, since these first two books were split from one long manuscript. Where the first book provided the set-up, Dragon Haven delivered with the action, romance, and pacing of a much more enjoyable book. I've become more connected with these characters, and in classic Robin Hobb fashion, I'm sharing in their triumphs and hurting from their defeats. Although it's not quite at the level as the three preceding trilogies, this is a major improvement on the first book.

Growth. Decay. Transformation. Pretty much a continuation of the first book, with further developments for both characters and story. And especially the characters went places I didn't quite expect (but were great!). Very curious how this series further develops though, since this one did have sort of a definitive ending.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and while I loved the first, the second was even better. Dragon Keeper was fantastic, but was mostly written to set up everything needed to continue the story. I know this probably turned off a lot of readers, but they're really missing out on a fantastic story.

Dragon Haven has all the things that Dragon Keeper left out or skimmed over by necessity- the plot thickens, the characters grow and develop, and all the action missing from the first book comes into play. Even my least favorite part of the first book, the communications between the bird keepers which I had mostly skimmed to the point of skipping entirely, becomes more important and tells a side story of it's own.

Overall, the swiftly moving story kept me turning pages. I love the characters in the story, and can't wait to continue on their adventures with them. I would definitely recommend the series to any lover of dragons, or a good, solidly written and believable fantasy world.

Executive Summary: An improvement over [b:The Dragon Keeper 4703450 The Dragon Keeper (Rain Wild Chronicles, #1) Robin Hobb https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1330079386s/4703450.jpg 4767778]. With everything set the story is just able to move forward at a brisker pace. This is really Dragon Keeper part 2 from what I understand and it feels like it. If you enjoyed the first one, you'll likely enjoy this at least as much if not more. If you found the first book a let down, you may find you gave up on the story too soon.Full ReviewAfter completing [b:The Dragon Keeper 4703450 The Dragon Keeper (Rain Wild Chronicles, #1) Robin Hobb https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1330079386s/4703450.jpg 4767778], I really wanted to jump right into this one. However with other obligations and coordinating reading schedules it had to wait a little bit.I enjoyed the first book, but this one was a step up for me. The characters and the main plot are set. The journey is on. Now we can just sit back and see what happens. Ms. Hobb has always had a slow plot development to me. For some reason it just works with me in a way other authors don't. This is really the second half of [b:The Dragon Keeper 4703450 The Dragon Keeper (Rain Wild Chronicles, #1) Robin Hobb https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1330079386s/4703450.jpg 4767778].The way Ms. Hobb writes animals has always impressed me. Nighteyes felt like a real wolf to me. Her cats were especially good too. She's done it again here with Dragons.Of course no one knows what a dragon would be like, but she still seems to paint a picture that just feels right to me. Intelligent and arrogant. Only these aren't full dragons. Their development was stunted. Their memories aren't complete. They can't fly and have to rely on humans to help care for them.There is a lot of development of both the dragons and their keepers in this book, as well as the supporting barge and crew. They face the first real adversity of their journey to find an ancient lost city of the Elderlings where the dragons may be able to thrive.At its heart, this is a story about relationships. Sure there are dragons, but as intelligent creatures that are able to communicate with their keepers, their relationships play as large of a role (if not a larger one) than the interpersonal relationships of the humans.Her characters are once again superb. I don't think I despise fictional characters quite so much as some of the ones Ms. Hobb has written. While none of these are quite as despicable as Regal or as frustrating as Malta, they are memorable.The way Ms. Hobb writes, I feel like I could just fall right into her books and stay there. Not that I'd really want to see the acid Rain Wild River. But I'm all for checking out ancient cities with magical wonders and remnants of dragons.I can't wait to jump into [b:City of Dragons 11801463 City of Dragons (Rain Wild Chronicles, #3) Robin Hobb https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1322613975s/11801463.jpg 16754534]!

reviews.metaphorosis.com

4 stars

My mother made sure we always had some kind of dessert or sweets to snack on. At the same time, with two teenage boys in the house, she got a little upset if an afternoon of baking disappeared in under an hour.

I finished Dragon Keeper, the prequel to this book, yesterday morning. While it wasn't as good as Hobb's best, I liked it. And when I found two sequels on sale for a few dollars apiece, I picked them up immediately. Now, less than 24 hours later, I've finished Dragon Haven. My mother would be appalled, but it tells you something about the book. I did some other reading yesterday (as well as actually rising from the sofa for a good part of the day), but it's fair to say that reading this book was a major focus; the story is not perfect, but it's very readable.

Unlike most of Hobb's trilogies, not a lot has actually happened in the two books. Mostly, it's dragons and their keepers sloshing up the Rain Wilds rivers. The story is about personal interactions, and the development of both the humans and the dragons. It may that latter area that makes this second book read a bit like a young adult novel - most of the characters are relatively immature, and the emotional turbulence they face is largely of the coming of age sort. With dragons.

It may also be the reason that Dragon Haven succeeds better than Dragon Keeper. My complaint about that book was that it was disheartening to see fictional struggles about sexuality that we've resolved (to some extent, in some places) in real life. The struggles in this book are also familiar, but some are a type that will never go away so long as young people keep growing into older people. Other issues (e.g., efforts at male dominance over females) disappointed the idealist in me, but that didn't trouble me as much narratively, perhaps because the story is also about an isolated group establishing new rules. Mostly, this is an engaging adventure story with lots of personal interaction to absorb, and quite a few moral dilemmas to consider.

The weakest part of the story is in some ways the dragons themselves. I give Hobb credit for making the dragons individuals, and not always very pleasant ones. But she comes very close at times to the stereotypical ‘dragon as wise, ancient creature who knows all'. Or rather, since the dragons clearly aren't, to a situation where humans treat them as if they were - willing to live only to serve these beautiful creatures. It's not quite that clear-cut, and some humans do stand up to the dragons, but not as much as I wanted them to. It's an ongoing frustration in the series, and Hobb's narrative explanations aren't very satisfying.

The book also wraps a few things up a little too neatly. There's conflict and drama, but also a bit of ex machina that I think could have been handled better. Still, I did read the book in one day, and I'm going on to the next later today.

All in all, a solid fantasy book with an intriguing, enjoyable story, and well worth reading.