26. Assassins's Apprentice by Robin Hobb (part 1 of the Farseer Trilogy)

I've been holding off on this popular fantasy trilogy for a few months now.  For the longest time, I avoided trilogies and series as a rule.  Then when I really got my reading pace back up a few years ago, I relaxed that rule.  I spaced out books in trilogies and ultimately found myself losing track of what happened and not feeling so satisfied.  My plan now is to read them all together or at least much closer together.  I read an article which extolled the greatness of her world-building and so picked this first one up.  She has many trilogies and I believe most of them take place in the same world, though perhaps at different times.  Various commenters suggested the Farseer trilogy, (Assassin's Apprentice, Royal Assassin and Assassin's Quest) was the place to start.  I was not disappointed, though I have some hesitations.

I am not sure if a label exists for this subgenre, though I have encountered it a few times in sci-fi and fantasy.  A young person enters a high-ranking political situation as an outsider and has to navigate unknown enemies while growing into his or her own character and skills.  The best example of this and one of my favourites, is the Goblin Emperor by Katharine Addison.  The first half of Assassin's Apprentice reminded me a lot of that book, though it definitely goes off on its own path as the story goes on.  A young boy is dropped off at a military castle by his grandfather.  He turns out to be the bastard son of the land's prince and the family could not afford to keep him.  He is rejected by his father and left to be taken care of by the stable master.  Here he learns animal husbandry, seemingly ignored by his family until one day the king taps him to be trained as a royal assassin.  He recognizes that a bastard is a potential asset that could be exploited by their enemies or used by the royal family.  It's a really cool set up and was a pleasure for me to follow the development of this naive boy in his training.

The world-building is as cool as advertised.  It is standard fantasy stuff (though mostly humanoid) but varied and original in its details.  The kingdom of the Six Duchies is on a peninsula and there is tension between the agriculture regions inland and the duchies on the coast.  The external threat, red pirate ships that have some power or method of turning the people they kidnap into soulless maniacs, is severely weakening the kingdom.  Most of the story is on the internal politics, though so much is left unclear until the end that it is more detective story than courtly intrigue.  I really enjoyed this book, but I found the good characters to be oddly unaware of the threat around them and the bad characters to be so obviously bad that I felt kind of frustrated.  I am hoping that part of it is that the hero is only 14 years old so really naive.  Like there was clearly a conspiracy going on and the various participants are all super antagonistic to him, several for no reason. He himself is befuddled at why the stable boy gives him such a hateful glare.  That could have been handled more subtly as it was clear way too early for me what was going on and yet the good guys walked right into it.  Despite that, the climax was quite satisfying and I am definitely ready to jump into the next book, which is supposed to be arriving here in a few days.