20. Dragon Haven – Robin Hobb – 570 pages (4.5 stars)
This is the sequel to the two-part series of the Rain Wild Chronicles by Robin Hobb. I reviewed its prequel, Dragon Keeper, last year (follow the link to view that review). Hobb has another trilogy set in this part of her world, the Liveship Trilogy, and several characters overlap into another trilogy, the Tawny Man trilogy (which I will likely re-read this year). This is a satisfying conclusion to another glimpse into Hobb’s world of the Rain Wilds, but even though they are excellently written, I always have a soft spot for Hobb’s books because they are how I met my husband.
Bingtown is a trading outpost, where the rich are very rich indeed and own liveships, ships made of wizardwood, a “wood” that after several generations become sentient. Much of the economy of this part of the world is dependent on plundered Elderling loot from buried cities of the Rain Wilds, or what the liveships can fetch to trade.
The Rain Wilds is a palpable, harsh setting—a marshy rainforest with very little solid land. Those who live in the Rain Wilds live in treehouses in the canopy. After living there, nearly everyone becomes “marked” by their surroundings, growing warts, scales, glowing eyes, or other changes.
The Rain Wild Chronicles have a wide cast of characters—dragons that emerged from their cocoons malformed, weak, and angry at their predicament. They are searching for a place that may or may not exist, Kelsingra, a Dragon and Eldering city only half-remembered in some of their ancestral memories.
Heavily “Marked” children of the Rain Wilds were chosen to go along as their keepers, as much to get them out of the way as to actually protect the creatures. Thymara, keeper to the proud blue dragon Sintara, is partly scaled and was born with claws instead of fingernails, meaning that by custom she should have been exposed at birth and left for dead. Many of the other keepers are similarly marked, though some are fully human.
Alise Finbok is a rich trader woman from Bingtown who is married to a manipulative man and Sedric is her friend, assistant, and other things she does not realize. Captain Leftrin owns one of the earliest wizardwood vessels, a barge named Tarman with special modifications.
These characters together continue to make their way up the river, hunting for the city. The story focuses on the difficulties they face in their surroundings and with each other. Dragons are becoming at odds with each other over the importance of their keepers. Keepers are frightened by accelerating changes to their physiology. People are drawn together and torn apart.
I had a few reservations about the first volume, mainly because the two books were initially meant to be one volume, so the prequel has a lot of exposition and not quite as much action, though that is to be expected. The second volume more than makes up for that and is an engaging read. Recently, due to a myriad of factors, my concentration when it comes to reading has been lacking. I’ll pick up a book and immediately put it down again. But I devoured this book in less than two days, sitting and reading furiously for hours at a time. I both love and hate it when books do this because on the one hand I’m so engrossed, but on the other, I don’t get as much done as I need to do.
If you like fantasy with engaging characters, a rich setting, and fantasy that manages to both toy with and avoid most tropes of the genre, then Hobb is definitely an author to pick up.
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