The Dragon Keeper by Robin Hobb

Dragon Keeper by Robin Hobb is another venture into the Realm of Elderlings, an exciting world that I’ve been drawn into since I read Assassin’s Apprentice. I’m a bit of a Robin Hobb cheerleader, so I can’t say my opinion of this book is not influenced by my devotion to anything she writes, but the brutal honesty in this review should be enough to convince you that I’m not simply a fanboy.

In short, this book frustrated me. I suspect that as Hobb’s writing style has matured, she is more likely to take on weightier subject matters, but I don’t feel that her attempt to be controversial has added to the quality of this book. I can’t go any further into the type of controversy, but it is sexual in nature.

If you have read other books by Robin Hobb, you’ll be excited to learn that the readers are reintroduced to a few our of favorite characters from the Liveship trilogy. We also learn a great deal more about life in the Rain Wilds and how the introduction of Dragons into the Elderling Realm has effected its people.

This book is in no way a complete story. The last page ends with absolutely no resolutions and until the next book is released in 2010 we’ll have no idea how this story ends. So, overall I can’t say that this book lived up to the hype. While it was fun to reenter the wonderful world Hobb has created, I feel that his book played at the end of a cheap modern romance novel rather than another epic journey, like her previous novels have been.

Rating: 7 out of 10