Vol. 1) - Volume One of the Rain Wilds Chronicles

The weird thing is that I agree with the substance of most other reviews of this book. Yeah, there's not much action. I wanted action. I wanted more magic. It's not there. The book focuses on several messed up characters, and they're messed up in a way that's not outlandish and bold, the way Dumas' Three Musketeers are messed up. These characters are twisted in on themselves. Hobb can write action well, but maybe her head isn't in that, the way it once was.

I agree with the other reviewers, by and large, and yet I enjoyed the book more than they seemed to have, despite these things.

So, what IS here? Robin Hobb's take on the patterns and struggles of life, expressed in skillful prose. For me, that's plenty. She creates Gordian Knots of emotion, and you wonder whether the characters will untie them, cut them, beatify or choke on them. Her focus is not on the fantasy, but on the reality of life as a sentient being. It's escapism for philosophers, I guess.

(A lot of people didn't like the Soldier's Son series, but I felt the final book in that series justified all that came before, as the knots came all undone.)

The dragon minds are interesting, but they don't get developed much in this book, or even in the next one. She should write a follow-up book-- no, a six book series-- to explore the relationship between humans and dragons. I hope she is working on that.

I read Dragon Keeper on the iPod Kindle Reader, which was a little like sucking wine out of a pothole in the street. Being in Sweden, I was then able to dash out and find Dragon Haven in the stores, and read that in hard copy, which was nice. (The book does NOT stand on its own. I recommend that you not read it until you have Dragon Haven standing by. That would be like swallowing poison and then ordering the antidote online... I also would not recommend this to anyone who hasn't read all the preceding Elderling world trilogies.)

If you enjoyed Fitzchivalry/Liveship universe, I recommend picking this book up. Hobb does a great job bringing that world to life with vivid descriptions of a unique environment and with believable characters. There aren't many writers in the shrinking non-romance fantasy genre that can do that as well, in my view.

But I found some drawbacks that keep me from rating it better, namely:

*The plot doesn't pick up speed until the last third of the book and is hampered by trying to continue events from the Liveship series while simultaneously introducing a new story and characters.

*Events will transpire but then are followed by flashbacks to conversations and actions that led up to them, stifling the momentum of the story and sucking away some of the drama, in my opinion.

I suppose these aren't huge issues and it's quite a bit better than most of the crap that's published these days, but I like to think I hold Hobb to a higher standard. I felt that aggressive editing (which is more than spell checking) would have gone a long way towards making a leaner, meaner, and smarter story.

I will raise my glass in the hope that Hobb dusts off the cobwebs for books two and three.

Again, lost in another world and couldn't put the book down. But it ended so abruptly that I thought my Kindle had not downloaded the whole book. It really is like a long book was divided in half after it was written. Still, Robin Hobb transports you to another time and place that you don't want to leave to you know the whole story.

Okay. Robin Hobb is just showing off. Come on! I freely admit that I never expected this book (mini-series) to be as intriguing as Live Ship Traders. After all, we already knew the secret, the people - what could be that new and refreshing? But boy, this author has a good poker face. I knew she had a great imagination and the ability to create great characters, and she's just proven it - again. Like I said. Showing off. :-D

All I can say is:
If you like fantasy, buy this.
If you never read the Live Ship Traders trilogy, read it.
If you haven't pre-ordered the second Rain Wilds book due in May 2010, order it.

I have.

Dragon Keeper started out slowly, taking time to build the "world" and the characters. I felt as though I were traveling down the Rain Wild River with all of them. Wonderful writing, and a splendid story. I'm on the third book now. I would recommend it to anyone who loves dragons and fantasy.

The characters were very well developed throughout the book and action built a bit slowly. Many of the dragons characteristics reminded me of the Pern dragons. While deep affections between the dragons and keepers wasn't there, the interactions and development especially as the journey progressed was good. Ended abruptly and had to get the second and third right away.

This is a fun and exasperating page-turner! Hobb creates an intricate landscape of characters that include sentience where we don't expect it. The land, how it is traversed, and who must take on the challenges are revealed with intimacy and clarity. I am looking forward to continuing the series!

After a long and tedious introduction of the characters, the book abruptly ends. No completion of a storyline, just done. I am intrigued by the story and characters, but I would prefer a more complete story.
Wait for an anthology to be available.

I kept reading this book hoping to get to something of substance. The "plot" of the story advances less in the entire book than most stories do in the opening act. This is a character driven story, and the characters aren't even enjoyable or original. They are all in some form of abusive relationship, either with their spouse, employer or society as a whole. A part of me is curious to see how the "plot" advances in the other books, but not enough to suffer through the angst-filled characters and plodding pace of the story.

I choose this rating because the book is very interesting to anyone who like stories of Dragons. It keeps you wanting to keep reading to learn more about the dragons and there Keepers. I would love to read the hole Rain Wild Chronicles.

Spoilers...

I picked this book up because the idea of malformed dragons seemed quite interesting. And while the passages relating to the dragons lived up to that promise, these interesting bits make up very little of the book. The majority of the book is just about the mostly unlikeable characters. Judging solely by the reviews for the second book, I doubt I'd enjoy it so instead I'm quitting this book at page four hundred something. I feel like I've been cheated out of my time, strung along with the promise of learning more of the dragons, and instead having to watch the soap opera nonsense of the 'human' characters.

When I finished the novel, I couldn't stop myself buying the second. I really wanted to know what happened next! Glad to see ms. Hobb has so many books to her name because they'll fill in the time until the next SOIAF...

I absolutely love this story. It really is a page-turner and I have always enjoyed the way she writes. I must admit, though, there are spots where the story slows to a snail's pace and perhaps repeats previous descriptions (or so I thought). But I consider these to be very minor faults. She introduces the characters in such a descriptive way and then interweaves many of the them throughout the story. It never becomes confusing (ala Jordan) as she keeps the number of characters to a manageable level. All in all, I highly recommend this book and the series !

The author has done a fantastic job with his imagination and description of very element in this book. The setting, characters, scenes are all vividly described and the plot is terrific. I had a hard time putting the book down. But the author draws so much on your imagination that it gets tiring after a point. I think the story stretched just a little bit too long. Overall it's a good read and I would recommend, but you will need to be patient halfway through the book.

I haven't finish reading The Dragon Keeper yet but so far it has kept me interested due to reading the previous trilogies of the Live Ships, which more or less leads into the next trilogies which are The Rain Wild Chronicles Books 1,2 & 3.
I will be more than happy to give you my opinion when I have finished.

First, let me say that Robin Hobbs writes excellently and descriptively. But let me follow that up by saying that if you like action and like the story to have SOME sort of pace to it, she may not be the author for you. I would have loved to like this book because her prose is amazing but theres nothing there for me to sink my teeth into. 2 stars because her writing is beautiful but only 2 because I could not get interested int he story at all.

This book was totally different than what I expect to see in a dragon fantasy book.I liked that the author showed the perspective of not only the dragons,but also of the Rain Wild people as well as the traders.A pretty good read but just be aware that the dragons are not what you would expect!

I really enjoyed the liveship trader books so I tried this one after them, but I found the characters to be hard to relate to, I found that I really could not get into the book, not one that I liked, and not as good as the liveship traders

I fell in love with this series immediately. While the story's simple, I love the twists Robin Hobb uses to make "typical" fantasy creatures or situations into something more unique and entertaining. I've read all the books of this series and I'd recommend it to anyone.

I enjoyed the plot line, female main character coming to know herself, but too much chatter about what other characters are thinking. Seems to border on a Gothic novel. I won't be continuing with the series.