Customer Reviews

Dragon Haven (Rain Wilds Chronicles, Vol. 2)

5 star:		(34)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Dragon Haven is Robin Hobb's conclusion to her Rain Wilds Chronicles, begun with Dragon Keeper. In reviewing the first book, I said it was a difficult task to judge Dragon Keeper as it was clearly mostly setup for what was to come (I believe it was originally supposed to be one novel but had to be split into two books for size). So now that it's complete, how does the whole story hold up?

I've begun to wonder over the course of Hobb's recent books if she is exploring just how much story she needs in her novels to actually have a "story." There is a lot of action in her earlier books, such as the Farseer Trilogy (and subsequent Fool's books) and her Liveship Traders group. Then, in Soldier Son Trilogy, there was almost none, with it mostly being a slow (too slow) study in character and culture (or culture clash). The Rain Wilds Chronicle seems to be a middle ground between the two. It's almost as if she's feeling her way to as quiet and minimalist a style (in terms of action, not language) as possible.

The reason, of course, that Hobb can get away with less plot than many authors is that she does character so damn well. While her earlier books, as mentioned, were full of action, their true draw lay in their characters (including characters made of wood--you think that's an easy thing to pull off?). In Soldier Son, the main character was I'd argue was sharply drawn but too unlikable over too many pages while her secondary characters suffered from a lack of depth, unusual for Hobb. That, coupled with a slow plot, made that series a difficult read and one where it's hard to say if its strengths outweigh its weaknesses.

Here, Hobb has once again given us multiple fully fleshed characters, some likable and some less so, but nearly all of them interesting and several quite compelling. Which is good, because not much actually happens action-wise. In Dragon Keeper, a group of deformed dragons and equally deformed ("marked") Rain Wilders join with a Liveship crew to travel up the Rain Wild River toward a mythical city. In Dragon Haven, the journey continues and then ends (I won't say where). That's pretty much it. They don't fight any pitched battles along the way, don't come across ancient cities or tombs to explore deeply and accidentally uncover horrifying plot points, don't save the world from some apocalyptic event or Dark Lord. They travel together and sometimes they fight among themselves and sometimes they come closer to one another. About the only major "action" is a short-lived flood wave that changes things around a bit. But even that is mostly a reason for further character development rather than a major plot event.

What keeps the reader going is the interpersonal action. Will the Rain Wild group, all of whom were supposed to be killed when born so marked, continue to accept their society's old rules and its perception of themselves or will they modify them or create their own society? Will characters cling to their old selves or move into the new selves slowly being molded by this journey (in both a literal and metaphorical sense)? Will they cling to old relationships or find new ones? Old mores or new ones? Old biases or new tolerances?

Oh, there are plot questions that create suspense and tension throughout: who is the "mole" in the group spreading dissension, will anyone give into greed and carve out pieces of dragons to sell, will they ever find the mythical city, will the dragons every become true dragons, what are these odd physical changes in the dragon keepers, and so on. But in reality, they pale beside the character issues.

Beyond character, Hobb has her usual mastery of language here, whether it be dialogue or description. She offers up her usual themes: clash of culture, prejudice, the clash between change and tradition, the clash between the individual and the group and does so smoothly and subtly and thoughtfully.

So what the reading experience comes down to is whether you're the reader who needs things "to happen" or if reading about people (even if the people are sometimes dragons or ships) is enough for you. To be honest, I did enjoy Hobb's Farseer and Liveship books more with a more traditional blend of action and character. But while I found Soldiers Son overly slow and free of action, I was quite drawn into the character world of the Rain Wild Chronicles and didn't feel the need for more things to happen, except at the very ending, which seemed a bit abrupt, a bit anti-climactic, with perhaps as well a bit of deus ex machina to it. But that was a minor complaint and in some ways, the ending, though disappointing, was quite appropriate to what had come before.
In the end, I was quite happy to drift down the river and spend some time with these characters and I suspect anyone who enjoys these sort of character-driven, "quiet" stories will as well. Happily recommended.

I know that some people were a bit disappointed in the earlier book in this series, Dragon Keeper. I wasn't among them. But even those who found Dragon Keeper a bit slow to get started should be happy to know that Hobb's storytelling is at an A+ level in this second volume. Those who liked her Mad Ship trilogy can be confident that it's time to place an Amazon order.

Even better: Although I had feared that this would be a "Trilogy in five parts" (because I couldn't bear to thinking of waiting for yet ANOTHER book), Dragon Haven does have a real ending. There's room for more, should Hobb's characters have more adventures to chase... but this time you won't be left at a cliffhanger at the end. (In reality, I suspect that Dragon Keeper and Dragon Haven were written with the intent of it being a single volume, but the manuscript got too big and unwieldy and had to be split into two. You certainly wouldn't want to start with this book.)

Anyway: When Dragon Haven begins, the voyage to find the old Elderling city is underway. We have learned everybody's secrets... and now it's time for the characters to learn what their friends have been hiding. This is a love story, a Hero's Journey, and a fun "exploration to find the source of the Nile."

Oh dear. That sounds so much like a blurb. What I mean to say is this: I got the book from Amazon Vine on a Tuesday afternoon. I dropped the other books I was reading and immediately started to read this one. And I read at every opportunity (in doctor's offices, late at night, during quiet stretches of a baseball game) until I had reached the end. I simply adore this novel. Hobb is among the best authors writing today because she is a master of worldbuilding and creates characters whom I really, really love. Dragon Haven is among her best work.

This one has some actual action happening in it! I can't believe how much better this one was from the first, though perhaps I went into it with such low expectations they weren't too difficult to surpass! I read this in just a couple of days, unable to put it down for too long because I started to care about what was going to happen to the characters, something that was severely lacking in the first book. That being said, I am starting to get tired of the main players in all of Hobbs' novels having the same shortcoming, of being completely oblivious of other characters' true natures and being blind to thinly-veiled deceptions that are going on all around them. Please, get creative, stop assigning everyone this painful naivete! There are some small insights given to the creation of Elderlings and that 'world', as well as much better development of the dragons as characters in the story. It is a shame that Hobbs left this as two-part story for once the story gets going in the second book you are ready for it to keep going! If you have read the first book and found it boring and tedious I say you should give this one a chance to let the series redeem it self. I almost would say just skip the first one but as there is so much character development that goes on you can't; just know that there is light at the end of the tunnel leading to a very satisfying second book!

Robin Hobb is renowned for her weighty trilogies, all except one set within the same world. Dragon Haven is the rare exception in that it is a pair of books, "The Rain Wild Chronicles" and is more linked to her "Liveship Traders" then her other books. Do not read this without having read the first book as they run straight into each-other.

Dragon Haven is a quest/journey book as the dragon keepers and their young dragons are supported by a group of hunters and a Liveship on a journey up the rather dangerous Rain Wild River in search of the mythical city of Kelsingra. So we have a disparate group who are at odds with each-other, the lethal river and forests and who also have a traitor in their midst who is helping the bad guys who are after the dragons for their blood...

It's an odd book, I made the mistake of thinking it was about the 'quest' of Kelsingra but it is actually more about the relationships and the journey. And Hobb does tweak some of our assumptions from the first book and the characters do change and evolve as we read on. And, to be fair the author does tie up most of it at the end, although there are some characters that you will wish to know a little more about, and you may sense a little frustration at not knowing how they all ended up.

Robin Hobb does write very well and is a thoughtful and deep author, you do feel you have had a reading 'experience' rather then just ploughing through yet another fantasy. Having said that, it would be interesting to see a stand alone single novel set in a new world, I kind of want to see her talents on something fresh.

"Dragon Haven", by Robin Hobb

We pick up where we left off with Dragons and keepers alike traveling up the river towards what they all hope will eventually be Kelsingra. The live ship Tarman with Captain Leftrin at the helm follow suit. The dragons appear to be growing stronger by the day and hopes begin to rise that one day that may have all of their intended faculties if they can survive the trip and the difficulties the river presents...

"Dragon Haven" was a little slow even for a Robin Hobb Story. After completing it I felt like "Dragon Keeper" and "Dragon Haven" could have been combined into a single book. There just didn't feel like there was enough additional character or plot development to justify 2 books.

The Good: As with all Robin Hobb stories we have great characters and a great and diverse world. Her prose manages to make even the most mundane scenes and situations somewhat entertaining.

The Bad: As stated one of Hobb's strong points is her ability to draw strong characters and for the reader to watch them evolve however there just didn't seem to be enough happening in "Dragon Haven" with regards to plot or character development / evolution and this left the book feeling a little slow and tedious at times.

Another problem for me was that a lot of character development was applied to the Sedric character which would have been fine however the story telling becomes a little too graphic for me regarding his taste in partners. I have no problem with characters that aren't of the heterosexual persuasion being included within stories however I am not interested in their exploits being detailed within said story.

Overall: Dragon Haven wasn't a bad read overall however was slightly slow even for Hobb. If you enjoyed the first in the series then you will likely enjoy this one as well. If you haven't read Hobb before don't start here. Pick up "Ship of Magic (The Liveship Traders, Book 1)" or "Assassin's Apprentice (The Farseer Trilogy, Book 1)" first.

Wow, this is quite below the usual Robin Hobb quality.

The amount of time given to the character's sex lives (both homosexual and heterosexual) was horrible and made me cringe inside and want to shower off my soul. Every third page detailed people having sex, wanting to have sex, not wanting to have sex, joking about others having sex, watching people having sex, insinuating they'd like to have sex, trying to deter someone from having sex...about the only creatures exempt from the lewdness was the dragons themselves (thankfully).

The plot was painfully predictable. As an example, at one point in the book a depressed and remorseful character plans to hurt himself. I stopped reading and said to myself, "I bet so-and-so will come along at the last second and stop him". Turn the page and **surprise** so-and-so came along at the last second and stopped him...and then the scene degenerated into men kissing.

The reason the plot was predictable (and probably the biggest change from previous novels) is that there was absolutely no element of suspense or uncertainty for the reader. Nothing to puzzle out. Nothing intriguing to draw you onward. It's a book about people and dragons going up a river...to a dragon haven. The end.

Finally, the excess of nameless characters allowed Robin Hobb to orchestrate some convenient plot arrangements (too minor to call them plot twists) that will make you cringe and the Pollyanna ending was uninspiring.

All of this combined made for a book that for another author would have been mediocre to poor but for a writer of Robin Hobb's calibre is downright terrible and tasteless.

Robin Hobb, Dragon Haven (Eos, 2010)

Every time I read a Robin Hobb trilogy, it happens. Somewhere along the way, I get sucked into it, and I wind up forgoing such niceties as food and sleep in order to finish whatever book of hers I happen to be in the middle of. It took a little longer than usual with the Rain Wilds Chronicles, but about seventy-five pages into Dragon Haven, it clicked. I finished the rest of the book in a couple of marathon sessions and am now pacing my cage while I wait for the next volume to come out. (Because yes, I do think, despite promotional materials, there will be a third book here.)

When we last left our tangle of malformed dragons, outcast keepers, and taggers-along from Bingtown, they were out of Cassarick, but other than that, little had changed. Alise Finbok was still moping around after the captain and feeling there wasn't anything she could do about it, while the captain was busy worrying about who the mole in his crew was. Some of the dragons were getting along with their keepers, while others barely tolerated one another. And the keepers were little different amongst themselves. The hunters kept away from everyone else. And the keepers of the birds passed their notes in the chapter beginnings with no one the wiser. Well, all that changes. Most of it, anyway (the bird keepers keep passing notes). As the dragons get closer to Kelsingra, the humans continue to wonder whether the lost city even exists. But all that becomes secondary to survival when a flash flood tears through the party, scattering dragons, keepers, hunters, and ship's crew alike. The bulk of the latter half of the book involves everyone searching for everyone else, in fact, and it's this sort of chaos where Hobb truly excels.

It's tough to know what rating to give this book until we know for certain whether there will be a book three in this series. As a stand-alone, it's about as phenomenal as anything else Robin Hobb has written, and if you like her work, you'll like this one well enough; engaging characters, strong plot, great pacing (once she gets warmed up, which always seems to take a while). But if that's really the ending of this particular story arc, I'll end up coming back and docking the book half a star, maybe even a full star. It's a weak ending, and it doesn't really beg a sequel (in the sense that the story could reasonably end here); if the story ends up just petering out where it is rather than giving us more, then the ending drags the whole thing down. I can't believe that's the case, though; Hobb has a history of incredible series endings. I'm reserving judgment and keeping faith until we know for sure. ****

I did like this book. I want that to be known. For me it was the anticipated follow-up to "Dragon Keeper", which I quite enjoyed with its return to the magic of the Rain Wilds. I admire Hobb's desire to continue the world she created in "The Liveship Traders".

But this book wound up being about the little character dramas than much about the Rain Wilds or even the dragons. And I do like character dramas. I believe a character should drive the story--but this wound up as a case where there just wasn't a story to be driven. People and dragons and hormones and sex all on route to the legendary Elderling city (now that is something I would have liked to see more of). Character troubles took up about 90% of the story until I was left to believe every person mentioned was going to get their relationship issues mentioned.

There just wasn't much else, and even that was nothing terribly new we haven't seen from other Hobb books. Dragons creating Elderlings--seen it. Romance--seen it, but not nearly at this level. Action and disaster--always good, but in this story they served no other purpose than to shake up the relationships.

Still, it's a Hobb book, and she once again shows off some great writing and character design. I liked these people. It was not as if I wished evil things upon most of them. And I suppose the drama will appeal to many people who like that sort of thing. The Rain Wilds are a strange place, and Hobb touches upon classic themes of bigotry and love.

I guess I wanted more fantasy or adventure. While this certainly had the emotion its predecessor promised, it had little of the action of story.

If you are dying to see what happens to the Rain Wilds characters because you are focused on the characters, you'll probably like this. I did like this book for that reason. If you like Hobb's writing skills, this will give you something to appreciate. It's a story well-told--at least, where the story involves romance and relationships.

My introduction to Robin Hobb was via Dragon Keeper, which I also received from Amazon Vine. I was intrigued, and at first a little lost, unaware that there was a series set just before it (The Liveship Traders), but I loved the richness and depth of the world and the characters in in. Since then, I've read the Liveship Traders and become quite thoroughly hooked on Robin Hobb. She writes engrossing, literate novels that I have to be careful to start only when I'll have the time to really sit and read, because otherwise I'll find myself staying up all night reading "just a little bit further."

The Rain Wilds are noted for changing the humans who live there - they develop scales and sometimes even claws. Children born with too many changes are either exposed or ostracized. Thymara, one of the main characters, has claws, which makes her an outcast - even though it also makes her incredibly useful in a city high in the trees, where hunting for food involves crawling out on far branches of the canopy.

Dragon Keeper was the introduction to this series, where we met the first group of serpents to travel upriver and metamorphose into dragons in generations. To the horror of all, the dragons emerge sickly and misshapen. They are unable to feed themselves, and they are ravenous. The small rainforest towns have no arable land, and the dragons are quickly becoming an enormous problem. Keepers - mostly outcast youths - were assigned, and an expedition was mounted to take the dragons upriver, either to die or to find the lost city of Kelsingra, faintly remembered by the dragons and long forgotten by humans. Either way, the town is rid of two big problems.

Dragon Haven picks up right where we left off, far upriver in the Rain Wilds, bound for Kelsingra, with the party literally exploring uncharted waters.

The world here is deep and rich, with the river, and the lands, the dragons, and the culture quite well developed and conveyed. The people - all misfits in one way or another - are well drawn and fully formed as they come of age, even those already older, shaped by events, culture, biology, and the presence of the dragons. Even the barge is a strong character. Robin Hobb seems to really know her subjects, and writes convincingly of watercraft, rainforests, human nature, and her dragons. This has become one of my favorite fantasy worlds.

If you have read and enjoyed Dragon Keeper, you'll enjoy this one as well.

The action is fairly seamless from Dragon Keeper, and I suspect it would be hard to follow if you started with this book. So, go read Dragon Keeper, and possibly the Liveship Traders series, starting with Ship of Magic (Liveship Traders), then come back to this one. I highly recommend it.

Road movies are rarely about the destination, or really much about plot. Rather, they're about the journey, and often about how the characters unfold during the trip. Even more so than Dragon Keeper, Dragon Haven is about character arcs, and not much about what happens along the way. Yes, there are a couple of crises, but they're far less important than the personal growth of Alise, Thymara, and Sedric. If you've read Dragon Keeper, which is really required before you start this book, Dragon Haven reads much like the second half of that book.

I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, Hobb is an excellent writer, and the words flow easily off the page. On the other, I couldn't help but feel that in this book, like Dragon Keeper, nothing much happens. I appreciate interesting characters well enough, I just want to feel like there's something to care about beyond whether Alise will finally make the obvious choice about whether to abandon her grossly abusive husband and take up with her new love interest. When the book finally ends, it's very abrupt, and almost, but not quite, a deus ex machina. They not surprisingly find Kelsingra at last, but it's really not as a result of anything any of the on-stage characters do.

Nor, honestly, is any of the character development all that unexpected. Alise and Thymara grow up in pretty much the ways you'd expect from the start of the book. Sedric is only somewhat surprising, since Hobb had painted him into a corner as something of a cardboard villain by the end of the first book, and suddenly shifts him back to being the more sympathetic character he was at the start of Dragon Keeper.

The sexual messages in this book are oddly mixed. On the one hand, homosexuality is just another romantic relationship, accepted without any reservation by the visible characters, even if it's mentioned repeatedly that it's condemned and kept hidden in Bingtown. On the other, female sexuality is roundly condemned due to the risk of pregnancy, with Hobb, speaking through a very minor secondary character, very pointedly telling the young women of the expedition to "keep their legs together" unless they have a committed male protector. It's a surprising parochial view of sex, given that Hobbs has concentrated primarily on the emotional bonding in sexual relationships in her previous books, whether birth control was available or not. Almost all responsibility for sexual choice is heaped on the women in this book, though there's some minor lip service given to the part of the men.

Overall, it's worth reading, but not really memorable in the way the Farseer or Live Ship books were.

- Gus