Dragon Keeper (Rain Wilds Chronicles, Vol. 1) [Hardcover]

Robin Hobb (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 26, 2010

The first book in a two part series from one of the greatest writers in the fantasy genre. Dragon Keeper returns fans to Hobb's best-loved world, full of dragons, magical ships and unforgettable characters. Guided by the great blue dragon Tintaglia, they came from the sea: a Tangle of serpents fighting their way up the Rain Wilds River, the first to make the perilous journey to the cocooning grounds in generations. Many have died along the way. With its acid waters and impenetrable forest, it is a hard place for any to survive. People are changed by the Rain Wilds, subtly or otherwise. One such is Thymara. Born with black claws and other aberrations, she should have been exposed at birth. But her father saved her and her mother has never forgiven him. Like everyone else, Thymara is fascinated by the return of dragons: it is as if they symbolise the return of hope to their war-torn world. Leftrin, captain of the liveship Tarman, also has an interest in the hatching; as does Bingtown newlywed, Alise Finbok, who has made it her life's work to study all there is to know of dragons. But the creatures which emerge from the cocoons are a travesty of the powerful, shining dragons of old. Stunted and deformed, they cannot fly; some seem witless and bestial. Soon, they become a danger and a burden to the Rain Wilders: something must be done. The dragons claim an ancestral memory of a fabled Elderling city far upriver: perhaps there the dragons will find their true home. But Kelsingra appears on no maps and they cannot get there on their own: a band of dragon keepers, hunters and chroniclers must attend them. To be a dragon keeper is a dangerous job: their charges are vicious and unpredictable, and there are many unknown perils on the journey to a city which may not even exist!

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Here be dragons—but debilitated, deformed, damaged dragons, hatched too soon, sick and starving, into a world that has mostly forgotten them. The first of Hobb's Rain Wild Chronicles, an absorbing extension of her Liveship and Tawny Man trilogies, introduces 15 young dragons who struggle to survive with the grudging help of mutant Rain Wilders. Eventually driven out by the Traders Council, the hatchlings decide to seek Kelsingra, their ancient home. Caught up by the dragons' plight and longing to escape unhappy families and the stifling Rain Wild culture, self-taught dragon scholar Alise Kincannon and teenage tree-dwelling mutant Thymara volunteer to accompany them on the quest, with the help of magnetic liveship captain Leftrin and a host of colorful characters. Hobb's meticulously realized fantasy tale is a welcome addition to contemporary dragon lore. (Feb.)
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From Booklist

*Starred Review* In a novel as good as it is massive, the first of two Rain Wilds Chronicles, Hobb returns to the dragons of the Rain Wilds forests, first met in her Liveship Traders trilogy. They have survived but aren’t thriving. Weak and sick, they must be cared for by the forest’s inhabitants. The only way to save them is to send them back up the Rain Wilds river, lest they run amok and destroy the more civilized peoples who don’t want the responsibility of caring for them. On the perilous journey to do just that, a rich merchant’s wife from Bingtown and a 16-year-old girl from the Rain Wilds tribes meet. They initially have nothing whatsoever in common except wanting to help the dragons, but that is enough for a bond between them to be eventually established as they fight natural and man-made hazards. The scenes on the water will remind readers of the Liveship Traders, as will the good characterizations and the lush forest settings. Hobb continues to occupy a perch at or near the top among contemporary fantasists. This book is imaginative, literate, and compassionate from first page to last. --Roland Green

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 496 pages
• Publisher: Harper Voyager; 1 edition (January 26, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061561622
• ISBN-13: 978-0061561627
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (131 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #288,741 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Robin Hobb lives and writes in Tacoma, Washington. Robin is best known as the author of the Farseer Trilogy (Assassin's Apprentice, Royal Assassin and Assassin's Quest.) Other works include The Liveship Traders Trilogy, the Tawny Man Trilogy, and the Soldier Son trilogy. The Rain Wilds Chronicles is now complete, published as Dragon Keeper and Dragon Haven. A story collection, The Inheritance, is now with the publishers and should appear in 2011. As of July 2010 the current work in progress is a tale another Rain Wilds story, one that continued the adventures of the Tarman Expedition. This untitled work will be published in 2012.

Robin Hobb also writes as Megan Lindholm.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

99 of 106 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Up the river without a paddle, November 23, 2009

By 

E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dragon Keeper (Rain Wilds Chronicles, Vol. 1) (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

Usually when there are dragons reintroduced into a fantasy world, they end up being strong, smart, beautiful, and all the rest of it.

But Robin Hobb examines a different idea: what if something hadn't gone quite right with the forming dragons? "Dragon Keeper: Volume One of the Rain Wilds" is a slow-moving, richly detailed book that builds on the past events of her last two trilogies, but introduces a rather different dilemma and radically different characters.

Five years ago, the dragon Tintaglia led a number of exhausted, half starved sea serpents to the Rain Wilds, and oversaw them going into their cocoons. But when they emerged, these new dragons were deformed and stunted in mind and body. Now Tintaglia has gone off with her new mate, leaving the hungry flightless dragons to be fed by the Rain Wilds people who are uncovering Cassarick -- and both dragons and humans are rapidly getting sick of this miserable arrangement.

So the dragons trick the humans into agreeing to take them to the ancient Elderling city of Kelsingra, along with several human keepers. Among those on the journey are the deformed locals including a girl named Thymara, and with an unhappily-married scholar named Alise. But can the strong personalities among the embittered dragons and their equally deformed keepers avoid clashes -- and who will make it up the river?

As dragoncentric books go, "Dragon Keeper" is pretty lacking in glamour. The dragons are stunted, petty, flea-bitten, muddy and fed on spoiled meat, and they live in a rainforesty region full of mud and acid rivers. Fun. The biggest problem is that "Dragon Keeper" goes SLOWLY -- it feels like somebody split one massive book in half, and that this is the first part before the plot really gets moving.

And the main plot is basically made of three big subplots that merge together about halfway through, as Thymara becomes a dragon-keeper and Alise joins the expedition. Fortunately if you can take the slowness, Hobb's imagined world is an engaging and complex one. Her writing is sumptuously detailed and full of atmosphere, whether it's the pleasant cultured Bingtown, the rough and deadly rivers, or the damp treetops of the Rain Wilds.

She also sculpts the plot around three main female characters, all mired in horrible situations. There's the haughty Sintara, reborn as a stunted wingless dragon who loathes herself and her fellows; Alise, a young woman devoted to studying ancient dragon history and lore, but unhappy in her marriage to a cruel, snotty playboy; and Thymara, who has had claws and scales since she was born and is marked as an outcast among the Rain Wilds folk (and loathed by her own mother).

And Hobb does an excellent job sketching out the supporting characters -- the dragons who seem to blossom under the keepers' care, the gaggle of outcast kids, and the rough, amiable Captain Letrin. Tats is a likable young boy determined not to let prejudice bog him down, while the whiny Sedric seems at first to be Alise's love interest (but who is more interested in her husband).

"Dragon Keeper" is a solid fantasy book that expands Robin Hobbs' longrunning fantasy world into a messier, cruder part of the world -- the only problem is that it's slow as a sleepy dragon.

58 of 62 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Solid work from a fine writer...but I have mixed feelings, December 26, 2009

By 

DF "avid reader D" (East of the Mississippi) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dragon Keeper (Rain Wilds Chronicles, Vol. 1) (Hardcover)

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I've read several other books by Robin Hobbs, and I've found her work hit and miss for me. This one has me sort of on the fence. I DID like it. Quite a bit, actually. Her world building is unique, interesting, and fraught with all sorts of problems--acid rivers, ancient volcanic eruptions, humans who are being changed into pseudo reptiles over teh generations in the Rain Wilds. Oh, and there are dragons with fertility problems and their offspring, who were born damaged. (How could you not like dragons, right?) It's compelling stuff, and her characters are also well drafted and very human in their foibles, fancies and troubles. The author displays her ability to handle complex plots and character growth issues while telling a story well. It's a solid start to a series.

My problem with it is perhaps only my personal preference, but I didn't like any of the characters except for Captain Leftrin and Alise...and she began to grate on me, too, near the end. The portrayal of the characters whose eyes we see through is realistically done, and they are extremely believable, even though I didn't like them. We have Hest, Alise's jerk of a husband; the arrogant-to-extreme dragon Sintara; Alise the abused wife finally out from under her husband's thumb; Captain Leftrin, who isn't a saint but is a real guy's guy and nice to boot; Thymara the Rain Wilds girl; and Sedric, the 'friend' accompanying Alise who is so shallow, selfish and two-faced I barely could stand reading his viewpoint. But I had a difficult time reading much of them, they were mostly so unlikeable to me, no matter how well written the story was.

And my final difficulty had to do with the pace. This book is SLOW MOVING. I like me some slow world building, where the world unfolds and is revealed like a flower opening its petals to show even more glorious colors as it does. But...sometimes it can be too slow. The first hundred pages were perhaps great for adding depth and understanding, but I could have done without all of Alise's backstory and the worm migration that led to the dragon problem. Perhaps the book needed them; the author no doubt had her reasons and I won't argue her ability to determine what a story needs. But for me, it was just too much and too slow, as nothing much happened.

The one thing I really actively did not like was the stuff about pigeons. There are some really dumb interludes that consist of messages sent from one pigeon tender to another, and the notes are used to transition between sections when time has passed, and allow the reader to see how much time has passed. I hated those and quit reading them except for a cursory scan to see if something critical were there. (Never found anything that I had to have there.)

So, I found myself liking the book yet not liking it. I thought it was well written but had to force myself to keep reading it instead of putting it aside. And, now that it's done, all I can feel is relief and some disappointment...but a lingering sense that I'd like to know how the story finishes.

It's mixed feelings for me. And I might read the sequel. On the fence on that.

73 of 83 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not what I was hoping for, November 29, 2009

By 

M. Jacobs (Salida, CO) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dragon Keeper (Rain Wilds Chronicles, Vol. 1) (Hardcover)

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Ms. Hobb is a very talented fantasy writer. I would never dispute that, nor would I really disagree with anyone who wanted to give this book a four- or five-star review. The plot is solid, as are the characters, and the setting is well-imagined and beautifully described. It just happens that I found most of the novel intensely exasperating and couldn't wait for it to be over. So I'm rating it at the same level I gave her Soldier Son trilogy, rather than her vastly superior Assassin/Tawny Man trilogies. (Minor spoilers follow.)

The best way I can describe what aggravated me so badly about this book is to say that if they turned it into a film, they'd have to show it on the Lifetime channel, as one of its endless parade of "women gamely holding up under the stress of sexism/chauvinism/male violence" movies. One of the reasons I love fantasy is its ability to take me out of this world; this topic does exactly the opposite, and reading almost 500 pages of this stuff was torture. The two protagonists, Alise and Thymara, do of course run into guys who aren't creeps, but most of the tension and suspense in the book is generated through their conflicts with the various male control freaks in their lives. Alise's husband is a horrible human being, and her male chaperone on her journey up the river is a duplicitous worm who deserves to be stepped on by a dragon. Thymara, the Rain Wilds girl, has similar problems with a controlling jerk who makes her feel like sexual prey (for good reason, from what I can tell) every time she turns around. Yuck yuck yuck.

I suppose I'd recommend this book, but in a qualified way. As fantasy, I don't think it succeeds all that well; as a depiction of women struggling to make their way in a man's world, it works fine. If that's really what you're looking for.