“Dragon Keeper” by Robin Hobb

Me and Emily from Embuhlee liest are back at it again. WE’RE READING ANOTHER ROBIN HOBB BOOK!!!! 😀 😀 And so far it’s great, of course!

Genre:

Fantasy

Series:

Rain Wild Chronicles, book 1

Realm of the Elderlings, book 10

Pubbed:

2009

Quick summary:

The dragon eggs have hatched! Finally the skies will be filled with dragons again…or so the characters hope. Despite the efforts of the dragon Tintaglia and the people of the Rain Wilds and Bingtown, the serpents that cocooned themselves in the Rain Wilds were too weak, too small, and too late to hatch as full grown dragons. Instead, they are deformed, weak, and unable to hunt to feed themselves. Tintaglia abandons them and leaves the responsibility to the people of the Rain Wilds to care for the deformed dragons (so it seems), but the dragons are a nuisance to their human neighbors, so the Rain Wild Council devise a way to get rid of them that would also purge the Rain Wilds of folks considered undesirable.

Meanwhile, the leader of Chalced is ailing. Someone whispered in his ear that dragon properties — scale, blood, stuff like that — can help heal him, so he’s pressured his sailors to secure some for him. In turn, this causes an obstacle for the people of the Rain Wilds who realize that the Chalcedeans are devising deceitful ways to infiltrate the Rain Wilds and get at the dragons.

And while all this is going on, a young Bingtown woman with a keen interest in dragons is considering what the future holds for her. She foresees that she will become an old maid because of her plain looks, abundant freckles, and family status, but has resigned herself to such a fate if only she can study dragons and become known as an expert on dragons. But one day, she receives a marriage proposal that’s too good to be true or to believe. Not only can she marry into a wealthy family and appease her parents, especially her mother, but she can continue to pursue her study of dragons, afford expensive scrolls, and maybe even visit the exotic Rain Wilds one day to see the newly hatched dragons to study them. (Goodreads)

My thoughts:

Oh man! It’s good to be back in Hobb’s world. I was a little ambivalent about this book because the Liveship Traders ones took a while for me to get into because the writing there felt a bit overworked and difficult to digest, but in Dragon Keeper, the writing reminded me of the Farseer and Tawney Man books. It went down easy despite being descriptive and full of imagery that made me yearn to see a picture of the Rain Wilds or visit the place myself.

I enjoyed reading Dragon Keeper though it was obvious that it’s function is only to lay the foundation for the larger story to come. We are introduced to new characters, the majority of whom are native to the Rain Wilds, and even glimpse some characters for the previous books like Malta and Althea and the liveship Paragon, who still seems conflicted but less so.

Of the characters, I immediately took a liking to Alise Kincarron. I think I’m going to love watching how her character develops as the story progresses because already I admire the chances she has taken and her ballsiness. I love how dedicated she is to studying dragons and that she’s stronger than the Bingtown folk imagine her to be. Of course, I hate her husband. He’s a fucking asshole who needs to be dropped in the Rain Wild River when it’s flowing white as milk.

Another favorite character is Rapskal. We don’t get much of him in this book, but I believe he will become more important later. I like how light-hearted and carefree he seems to be and his dedication to his dragon. I think he’ll get his dragon to fly very soon. And Tats, Thymara, and Leftrin aren’t bad either. Sedric Meldar, however, needs some sense knocked into him and what he does at the end creeped me out so much that I was reminded of Sam’s addiction to demon blood in Supernatural. (I wonder if the story will go that way.)

Of the dragon keepers who are accompanying the dragons up the Rain Wild, I find it very interesting how quickly the keepers begin to mirror their dragons, or vice versa. I wonder how this will play out later in the story and how it will affect mating among the dragons and among the humans.

There’s not much else to say because Dragon Keeper is all setup for what’s to come, but it left me craving more story and with a bunch of questions, like what’s Tintaglia up to and has she really abandoned these dragons? Will all the dragon keepers become Elderlings? Will Alise bond with a dragon? Will she divorce her horrible husband? Can she divorce him? What will happen when they all get to Kelsingra, which I think is the place where the stone dragons are made? And will my favorite characters Fitz and the Fool pop up in this series? Will Fitz bond with a dragon? That’d be so cool!!

Overall: ★★★☆☆ ½

It was a good read and I can’t wait to see what’s gonna happen next. Emily and I are so impatient that we’ve already started on the next book, Dragon Haven. Speaking of which, I need to catch up on my reading now. Ttyl.

Buy | Borrow | Bypass

If you’re reading the books in order, like me, and love the story, also like me, then you might as well just Buy the books. Treat yo’ self! 😊