If the Golden Age of science fiction is twelve, it’s quite possible that the golden age of epic fantasy is fifteen. That’s the age when nobody understand you, the world is deeply unfair, and romantic angst proliferates.
Dragon Keeper (Eos, January 26, 2010 in the USA; the UK version has a definite article and a better cover, and came out last year) fits neatly into that sweet spot.
This book, the first in a new trilogy, marks a return to the setting of Hobb’s Liveship Traders books: the Rain Wilds, a vast swampy forest where anything that lives must live in the trees, because a caustic river runs through it. Dragons had all but died out in this world, as a result of a particularly nasty/clever worldbuilding twist that I won’t spoil, for those who have not yet read that first trilogy. But now they have returned to the world—and the first group to undergo metamorphosis into their adult forms are crippled due to privation and neglect.
Because of this, they constitute an economic drain on local humans, who have contracted with the lone surviving adult dragon to care for her kin. When that dragon vanishes amid rumors that disaster or love have befallen her, the young dragons gradually slip further and further down the ladder of civic commitments, until certain elements of the human establishment are strongly considering selling them off for parts.
But a new bargain is struck, and the dragons require Keepers for an arduous journey upriver, where they believe the fabled city of their ancestors—and salvation—lies. Thriftily, the local government decides to send along their misfits and genetic sports, because in the Rain Wilds, people have a tendency to be born scaled, frilled, or with claws—and to grow ever more so “marked” as time goes by.
Among those slated to accompany the dragons are Thymara, a heavily “marked” Forest girl raised among the lofty walkways and treehouses of the Rain Wilds; Alise, a bluestocking scholar of dragons who has slipped the lead of her predictably brutal marriage to go adventuring; and Leftrin, the captain of the wizardwood barge Tarman, who can go where no other such boat can travel.
(I admit to a readerly suspicion that the Rain Wilders’ deformities, the source of the flesh-eating river, and the history of the dragons and the fabled city will all turn out to be inextricably linked. And if the Rain Wild people aren’t somehow linked to dragons, I’ll eat my laptop—especially as there are strong hints that the dragons too are capable of Lamarckian evolution.)
I had a few disappointments with this book. I have to admit, in a rain forest, I would have expected it to be raining more often, just as a matter of setting—but that’s a minor quibble, as were my problems with the names of some of the minor characters (Alum, Lecter, and so on).
More seriously, the prose felt rougher than I expect of Hobb, who is generally in very good control of her writing, and a fine stylist. But in this book, bits of exposition phrased as if we had just met a character were repeated when that person showed up for the second or third time, and it felt as if the book could have used one more fiddly editing pass. Alas, this contributes to a general feel of paddedness. There’s a great deal to like here, in the setting and worldbuilding, but the characters often felt self-absorbed and static to me, and the story didn’t really feel like it got rolling until the book was two-thirds done. Admittedly, it is the first volume of a series, but I could have done with a little less elaborate depiction of how the world was unfair to our heroes and a little more peril.
The leisurely pace can be forgiven, however, in light of a certain amount of companion-animal-fantasy snark, which (predictably) delighted me. I was even willing to forgive the book a level of coyness about same-sex relationships that left me uncomfortable in light of how much I liked the crabby, whiny, self-centered, vain, and generally unprepossessing dragons.
Additionally, a deeply entertaining political gloss provided by the notes slipped into dispatches by two pigeon-keepers who never appear in their own persons was my favorite element of the story. It’s a great expositional trick, and it’s helped by the fact that I found myself caring deeply about the mundane soap opera of the pigeon-keepers’ negotiations over squabs, apprentices, and bags of feed.
In general, I think this is a promising start to a new series.
Elizabeth Bear is the Hugo and Sturgeon Award winning author of many books and short stories.
I agree. I wrote a review on my book blog (shameless plug because it’s a tiny blog: http://booksforfood.livejournal.com) and I think that Hobb’s publishers are giving her more pressure to crank out books at a quicker pace. The Soldier’s Son trilogy felt rushed to me as well. I agree with the clunky exposition and occasionally awkward phrasing. I didn’t connect well with any of the characters, and I should have instantly loved Alise because I’m a sucker for strong, educated women in fantasy who rise up against the patriarchy. Thymara has promise and I’m looking forward to seeing how she develops.
Dragon Keeper was fun and I’ll happily devour the rest of the series as Hobb’s one of my favourites, but I’d like her to ruminate and take her time on books. Her readers are loyal and patient–she needn’t rush.
I read the other three related trilogies a few years ago and found them gripping–which is why I read them all–but dreadfully depressing. Is this book as well?
@2. aedifica
This duology definitely has more of a hopeful/ “future is bright” sort of tone than Hobb’s previous work. But then, it’s also much less epic.
a_neonta – thanks! From this review the book(s) sound(s) interesting, but I wanted to be sure I wasn’t getting into something similar again.
The “general feel of paddedness” isn’t really new. I enjoy her books, but I remember stopping to check the page numbers in Fool’s Errand. The Fool doesn’t show up until around page 100 and the Errand doesn’t start until nearly page 200. There isn’t 200 pages worth of story in that first section.
I’d enjoy her books twice as much if they were 25% shorter.
aedifica: This one was not gutrippingly depressing. I have not read the sequel yet, however….
Laura Lam: I agree. I felt as if the whole marital-rape/lousy husband angle was overplayed a bit: it felt to me a bit obligatory, and I do not feel that that is the sort of thing that should be handled in a cursory fashion.
I liked Thymara an awful lot, though.
@5. While I can’t speak to the paddedness of the book being reviewed, I don’t agree that Farseer or Tawny Man were padded. Without the set up in the first 200 pages in Fool’s Errand, you wouldn’t get the same emotional payoff later in the book and in that series.
Rob
The first 200 pages of Fool’s Errand are mostly farming and rabbit hunting, with a trip to town to meet whats-her-name, a secondary character. I’ll never get those hours back. To me, that kind of filler means that the author doesn’t respect their readers.
I just re-read a Heinlein novel that was 185 pages (The Door into Summer). It wasn’t great, but it had 5X the payoff of the first 200 pages of Fool’s Errand.
Seriously, think about starting that novel with the courier arriving on the first page and how little you would lose. That could be made up in a few pages of flashback. Then think about how much you would gain in momentum.
I don’t know if anyone will agree with me, but I find Hobb’s main characters to be insufferably whiny, self-centered, and hard-headed. Sort of like me.
But what bothers me is how little they learn or change throughout the trilogies. I don’t remember the earlier books as well, since that was a while ago, but I know the Tawny Man was only saved by how great Fool is, and Fitz couldn’t help reacting to that force positively.
But the Soldier’s Son books were a total chore to sit through. It felt like an exercise in fantasy writing, with a bit of Sisyphus thrown in for good measure (a lot of effort just to end up back at the start).
So, yeah, what’s changed with Hobb’s writing lately? Dare I pick up this series?