It's really barely a Fantasy novel, but more like slightly displaced 19th century novel set in the American West, and that's just something most Fantasy readers are used to. As the last of the Rain Wild Chronicles, I thought this book brought the series to a satisfactory conclusion and I didn’t feel that anything significant had been left unresolved. To be honest, I’m not sure how well I’ve succeeded: are the keepers’ bonds to their dragons primarily Wit or Skill bonds, or perhaps a mixture of the two?

Robin is damn good at drawing characters and her characters are what stay with us after we have put down her books. Rapskal believes that immersion in the past can recover Elderling culture, but others have started to note the increased blurring of lines between his past and his present: that he grows less and less like merry, irresponsible Rapskal and more and more like the belligerent Elderling leader Tellator, whose memories he has been so voraciously plundering.

The world building aspects of this series have been the most entertaining thing, as the characters explore themselves and the new world that they find themselves in. I think part of the reason why I enjoyed it so much is that I have read (and liked) quite a lot of Victorian novels in my time, and that trilogy is really closer to those than to the Lord of the Rings. Far away, in Chalced, Selden Vestrit finds himself sold into the service of the Duke, who (rather worryingly) discovers that an Elderling’s blood has an effect almost as restorative as that of dragon’s blood. Other works as Robin Hobb include The Soldier Son trilogy and short stories published in various anthologies.

As ever, Hobb’s world-building in this respect is perfectly judged: she tells us just enough to make it feel natural and familiar, but not enough to destroy the spell by making it all too explicit.All written content contained on this site belongs to the author, unless otherwise stated, and should not be appropriated for use by anyone without permission. There are also questions that are answered, questions that arose through this series, and questions that arose from the very first series in the Realm of the Elderlings. I loved the first nine books (The Farseer, Liveship Traders and Tawny Man trilogies) and intend to read the last three, so didn’t feel that I could leave out these four in case I missed out on any details or plot points that turned out to be important later. We do however get a slight revisit to some old Bingtown characters that draws the story to a nice close and yet again the story is left open to come back to.