Customer Reviews

Dragon Keeper (Rain Wilds)

5 star:		(41)
4 star:		(43)
3 star:		(26)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

What happened?

Robin Hobb is held by many as a fantastic author of the fantasy genre. Her first three trilogies are constantly given high marks in most circles, and are easily recommended to newer readers of the genre. I recommend starting with ASSASSIN'S APPRENTICE, it's a great read. However, her fourth trilogy--The Soldier Son Trilogy--was met with much poorer reviews (and rightfully so). So, when I saw that Hobb was releasing another novel, I got my expectations up hoping she would return to form, and imported it from the UK

Disappointment just doesn't seem to cover how I felt.

THE DRAGON KEEPER marks a return to the Liveship/Tawny Man universes Hobb created, and the result is terrible. The novel doesn't really build on any of the cool aspects of the prior series. It is, in fact, one of the worst novels I've read in a year. There is no climax. At all (more on this later). The story is mainly about fifteen or so young and crippled dragons struggling to survive.

The book is absurdly repetitive. However, what bothered me more than anything was the predictability. I hate reading a conversation that spans twenty pages, and have the culmination be obvious from the very first sentence we read. Now imagine this happening ten or fifteen times over the course of a novel. What? You can forgive that? OK, well how about every character being a predictable cliché? You know, the outcast girl, Thymara, whose mom is embarrassed by her, but whose father loves her even though (and because) she is physically "different" (in other words, a mutant of sorts). Oh yeah, and she finds herself drawn to the crippled dragons. Surprised? I was--that is, I was surprised Hobb would stoop to such a terrible character cliché. Not enough? How about the apparent "homely" woman, Alise, who marries for convenience...and then is still shocked that her husband doesn't value her. Don't worry, she meets a coarse, sailor-type man who is instantly infatuated with her. Shockingly, she becomes infatuated with him as well. Will they? Won't they? I'm fanning myself in anticipation. Yeah, sarcasm...it's the only way I made it through the novel. It is cliché on a Terry Goodkind/Dan Brown level.

There came a moment when I was reading and thought, "This is horrid. What's next? A random scene of homosexuality?" Guess what? The next chapter included a random scene of homosexuality. Is this a bad thing in itself? Not necessarily. If there was a motive for it, or if it had been used to explain certain characters more fully, then I could see it being important to include (gay characters don't bother me in the least in novels). However in this case it felt like it was thrown in for shock-value, and for the express purpose of creating some sort of false stir in an otherwise coma-inducing novel.

What's that? You want to know about the pacing? OK, there is one pace in THE DRAGON KEEPER. Snail's-pace slow. There is no action. None. There is no real political intrigue. There is no real character development--they are the same from page one until the end. In an effort to understand why Hobb would write something so terrible, I scoured (didn't take much effort) the internets and found that this is just the first half of a novel. It was so long, it was decided to cut it in half--and this is why we get no climax. Reviewers all over are cutting her slack for this, and giving her amazing reviews. Why! Why would they do that? If the novel is terrible, it is terrible. It doesn't matter if it is really only the first half of a bigger novel. All that means is the first half of the novel was absolutely pointless...just skip to the section of the novel worth writing and publish that. Don't waste our time and money by publishing an incomplete novel. A poor industry standard is being set here. Hobb tried to follow Patrick Rothfuss' example from NAME OF THE WIND (an excellent novel), and she failed on an epic scale.

One last thing. Chapter leads can be very entertaining. They can be used to cause misdirection, give additional info/history, or they can even further the plot of the novel. The leads in THE DRAGON KEEPER were beyond idiotic. They lent NOTHING to the novel. In all honesty, they were the worst leads I have EVER read, and they should never have been allowed to be published. They had no humor, plotting, historic, world-building, or story purpose. Completely. Pointless.

Don't read this novel...yet. As it stands right now, the novel is awful. Wait until the second half of the novel is released in May--yeah, thankfully both halves of the novel are being released close together. If it actually has a good ending, then perhaps the first book is worth reading just to get to the end. If the second half of her novel is close to perfect, then most of my plot and character issues could be erased (this is the only reason I'm giving this novel 2 Stars). My main worry now is that the second volume will incorrectly seem amazing when compared to this one. I think I will library it rather than import.

Language: A few words. I'm surprised Hobb didn't resort to more just to get more shock-value to keep people reading.
Violence/Excitement: None. Not even a hint.
Sex: Two scenes that weren't needed. If you are going to include this in your novel, give it some semblance of importance.

There are a few fiction authors whose writing is so unrelentingly wonderful that all I have to see is his or her name on a book I don't own... and I walk it right to the checkout counter, without even looking at the description. Robin Hobb long ago earned a place on that list, for me (along with Lois McMaster Bujold, Elizabeth Peters, Barbara Hambly, Laurie R. King, and Steven Brust -- in case your tastes jibes with mine and you want to expand your reading list). If you want to know just how excited I was to see a new Hobb novel... I was offered a free copy through Amazon Vine and decided instead to pay for the hardback with my own money because I wanted "the real thing." Yeah. She's that good.

This new series is set in the same world as Hobb's Assassin series and in the same part of the world as her Rainwild Chronicles/Liveship Traders. If you haven't read either of those, please don't start with this book. There's way too much "what has gone before" for you to figure things out. Instead, start with Ship of Magic (which won't be any hardship, I assure you).

Dragon Keeper starts a few years after we last saw the characters from the Rain Wilds Chronicles, and some of them have bit parts. The central part of the action in this first volume is the dragons who Tintaglia so earnestly insisted that Our Previous Heros had to protect and nurture... except that, unlike the dragons you might envision from Pern, these don't all emerge as perfect specimens. In fact, *none* of the new batch of dragons are quite-right, and all are incapable of flight. As a result, they need humans to take care of them... until the dragons decide to take fate into their own hands. Sort of.

The book starts out in a herky-jerky manner because Hobb has so many characters to introduce. It's as though she has to set up the chessboard with all the pieces before she can get the tale truly underway. But I don't mind, really, because -- as usual -- she creates characters whom I care about, even when they may be at odds to one another. She has invented a world that is consistent within its own physics and is, I suspect, infinitely discoverable. I also really enjoyed Hobb's underlying premise, that things don't always work out quite right, such as dragons who can't fly but have all the arrogance of those who do. And I was charmed by the conversation between the people who send messenger-birds back-and-forth; there's quite a bit of humor here, as well.

The book ends without any major resolution; you will want the next book in the series in your hands NOW (at least I did) and it won't be out for a few more months.

But oh! This is the sort of Fantasy novel I love. If you like either of the earlier series, I think you'll devour this book with the same enthusiasm I did.

A continuation of the Liveship Trader's series of books, this story continues the adventure from a different point of view. A new set of characters become the focus and are dragged into the spotlight.

All of the characters are introduced with fully developed back stories and you get to experience glimpses of different portions of the different characters lives with the space between chapters sometimes spanning years. This does a delightful job of allowing you to grow in familiarity with what will surely be the main characters as the series progresses. There are cameo appearances by Althea and Paragon from the Liveship Trader's. The lives of Bingtowners with the new relationships of the Three Ships folks and the Tattooed are explored. All of which allows you to return with comfort to the world that has been created in the previous series.

The difficulty that is to be had with this book is not in the story, though there are some discontinuities, like another dragon that is freed from the ice because some far off noble wished it which does not explain how the dragon survived or was even found after however many hundreds of years. Instead the problem that drops this book from an outstanding 5 star review is the ending, or rather the glaring demand to buy the next book in the series of an ending. If the remaining books in the series were out this would easily be a 4.5-5-star book.
The ending of this book makes it apparent that it is part of a series that was cut up into separate books, and cut up at rather poor times in the story. It seems that the series will be all about the characters who have gathered overcoming untold obstacles breaking free of chains of society, making a fantastic journey defeating impossible odds and creating a new society, and arrive to uncover and create world changing unknowns both in society and actual knowledge. However, instead of cutting the book off at the beginning of the journey after the characters have already succeeded at breaking free from societal constraints and have started to enjoy their new companions and are looking forward to the coming journey, what could have been a natural pause, Robin Hobb has deemed it necessary to continue an additional 150 pages. Pages that are full of action and do nothing other than speed up the pace of an otherwise slow book, creating new relationships and new problems. All of these are welcome events as these extra pages will pull you into the story and get things moving with the real adventure coming into focus. The only problem is that the adventure builds and just as it seems that everything will come to a successful partial conclusion the book ends. It is like if someone who starts telling you about the shootout at the OK corral tells you about everyone involved how they got there and then says `he drew his gun and. The end.` and says no more.

This is an excellent start of a series, but unless you love to live in suspense for a year or more the advice is to wait on getting this book until the next in the series is out, or the entire series has been published. That way you are guaranteed to have a complete story in your hands. This book has a rough ending if you are not expecting it.

Despite the character Tats' communist/socialist rant toward the end of this statement for (or against?) women's rights, I enjoyed the world development of Robin Hobb's Dragon Keeper. What's disturbing about the entire book is its lack of hope--its darkness.

The serpents who have made the arduous journey upriver to their nesting sands have produced handicapped, malformed, and, in some cases, mentally challenged dragons. What's surprising about this is few of them are sympathetic because they're mean, self-interested beasts looking out for themselves. The main character dragon, Sintara (who I couldn't stop reading as "Sinatra" and thinking of as a drunken lounge act), treats everyone as beneath herself and unworthy of her notice. She's not likeable, and yet the reader is supposed to root for her to make it up the river(s) to an Elderling City to regain her regal heritage as a queen of dragons? I can't quite root for her. I found these dragons who are supposed to be "grown up" when they come out of their cocoons to be quite immature of mind and action. I look forward to seeing them mature as they journey in subsequent books.

One of the female lead characters is Thymara, a young Rain Wilds "girl" who was born with enough markings of the Rain Wilds to give her parents the right (in fact, the duty) to leave her out in the elements to die from exposure like a Chinese newborn girl. Instead, her father loved her and rescued her, letting her grow into a useful gatherer of food. Now she joins the party of dragon keepers who will lead the malformed dragons up the river to the mythical Elderling City. One is to assume she'll grow out of her chauvinist-society rules that she adheres to so assiduously as she journeys, if she can just stay out of the clutches of the lusty, pedophile-like, new rule-maker among the keepers.

The other female lead character is Alise, who had settled comfortably into spinsterhood until the Trader Hest Finbok convinces her she should marry him and produce an heir. A few years later, there's still no heir from this loveless, cruel marriage, but Hest holds up his end of the bargain to allow Alise to go off to see the dragons. Once she gets there, she finds herself smitten with a barge captain and swept into an adventure thanks to her knowledge of dragons and the Elderling City the dragons wish to find. The chaperone that Hest sends with Alise is a sniveling little "entitled" jerk who used to be Alise's friend. Now the man is just another tool of oppression.

From one long, drawn-out scene to the next, Hobb gives the reader the impression that no woman in this world can keep a decision she makes. Just as you think the plot is going to move forward, someone calls one of Alise's decisions into question. It's very unsettling. Even as the dragon keepers make their choices and prepare for each day, it seems their alliances shift and their decisions are changed. From the extra duties they've taken on (in the form of helping dragons who don't have keepers, etc.) to who they consider friends, they change their minds as quickly as their dragons get up and take off toward a meal.

It's just dark and dismal and dreary and murky and sad and such a shame that the only hope in the novel seems to be the story of an uneducated captain--who we think is being blackmailed by the not-to-be-trusted Chalcedeans--leading a woman into adultery. Despite this, I do hope Alise's husband meets a cruel, horrid end so she can be freed from the bonds of marriage. Maybe that will let her grow a spine and stick to some decisions without rethinking them 20 times over. AND I hope the next book focuses some more on those clever little pigeon keepers that interject humor between chapters!

From Fantasy Author Sandy Lender

This isn't much of a review, as it is a clarification on something I have read in many of the other comments here. I basically agree with most of what has already been said. "Dragon Keeper" does indeed feel like half of a story. The reason for this is that it IS half of the story. The other half, "Dragon Haven", is due out in hardcover in the US on May 11, 2010 - or roughly three months after the release date for "Dragon Keeper". Most authors release their titles roughly a year apart: with only three months between volumes, I think it's fair to assume that the author and the publishers intend for "Dragon Keeper" and "Dragon Haven" to be read basically together. Thus, I feel that many of the negative reviews here on Amazon are somewhat unfair. If the volumes were scheduled a year apart I would feel differently.

Having said that, I really enjoyed this book. Many of the characters are flawed and weak, and Hobb takes the time to develop them slowly. In many fantasy novels, an untrained farmboy takes a two-week crash course in swordplay and then heads off to slay a monster. Hobb's characters are a refreshing change of pace; they seem more like real people with real obstacles to overcome.

Lastly, other reviewers have challenged Hobb's portrayal of homosexuality in this novel. Two of the characters in this book are gay, and could be considered "villains". It's hard to say what we'll see in the next novel, but personally I don't think either of these characters are the real villains in this story. One of the two, who plays a large part at the beginning of the novel, behaves reprehensibly. The other becomes one of the main characters in the story, and I'm very interested in seeing how he develops over the rest of the story. Many of Hobb's stories revolve around "outsiders" - characters whose gender identity, size, or race put them at odds with their society. Personally, I think Hobb has been a little TOO nice on outsiders in the past - I was actually relieved to see those lines blurred somewhat in this book. I fully expect some of he straight "heroes" to reveal a darker side, and at least one of the gay "villains" to end up as a good guy.

I also really liked the dragons in this book- their personalities are as varied and interesting as their human counterparts. I think this volume is a great follow-up to the previous trilogies, and I'm looking forward to reading "Dragon Haven" in May.

I still have not finished the book, but I am bravely slogging through it. I was very excited to pick up another dragon book, especially one that touted itself as being different. The blurb sounded fascinating.

However, I am at 69% read, and it is just now getting to the point where people are interacting with dragons. This has got to be one of the slowest books I have ever read, apart from assigned reading in a literature class. The book is very rich in detail, and the world the author creates is very rich. But I feel that this books moves WAAAAAAAYYYYY too slow.

If I had been the editor, this book would have been cut by about 40%. My understanding is that the book was too large, and broken into two books. Which means that even if I slog through the remainder of this book, I still won't be satisfied, and will have to wade through the second book for a conclusion. I'm just not sure that it is worth it.

There are people who must be willing to wade through books this slow - after all, some have actually read War and Peace. I am just not sure that I want to waste this much of my life to just reach the halfway point. I am giving it 3 stars because it is a rich and interesting world that the author creates. But I am taking 2 stars away because watching paint dry, and snail races are not my ideas of thrilling excitement, and this book just seems to be going no where, and not very fast!

Firstly and for those that don't know, this book is set in Robin Hobbs's long standing universe and therefore has whole host of books preceding it. As an absolute minimum you should read The Liveships Traders trilogy first, and ideally each of the following.

The Farseer Trilogy (3 books) >> The Liveship Traders Trilogy (3 books) >> The Tawny Man Trilogy (3 books).

So on to the review, is the Dragon Keeper a good book? Well, at the risk of being harsh (something I loathe in a review) it's.....ok, but much less so than any of the above. It's hard to tell if the author overachieved earlier in her career or is underachieving now, but either way this return to her classic universe does not deliver the hoped for return to form.

Let's be clear, Dragon Keeper is not a bad book per say, but a sluggish pace, characters it's hard to identify with and a somewhat meandering story seriously undermine its positive aspects (the irritating, somewhat loathsome nature of the Dragons doesn't help much either).

The bottom line? If you enjoyed her earlier work then this will make for a few hours of reasonably entertaining reading, but unfortunately (and as much as I admire and respect the author) that's about all.