The Farseer: Assassin's Apprentice

By: Robin Hobb

Narrated by: Paul Boehmer

Length: 17 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's summary

With unforgettable characters, a sweeping backdrop, and passionate storytelling, this is a fantasy debut to rival that of Robert Jordan. Filled with adventure and bloodshed, pageantry and piracy, mystery and menace, Assassin's Apprentice is the story of a royal house and the young man who is destined to chart its course through tempests of change. Young Fitz is the bastard son of the noble Prince Chivalry, raised in the shadow of the royal household by his father's gruff stableman. An outcast whose existence has forced his father to abdicate his claim on the throne, Fitz is ignored by all royalty except the devious King Shrewd, who has him secretly tutored in the arts of the assassin. For in the young man's blood is a heritage of magic, the talent called the Skill, as well as another, even more mysterious ability.

As barbarous raiders ravage the coasts and leave behind the zombie-like husks of the townspeople to prowl the countryside, Fitz is growing toward manhood. Soon he will face his first dangerous, soul-shattering mission, a mission that poses as much a threat to himself as it does for his target---for Fitz is a threat to the throne...but he may also be the key to the survival of the kingdom.

©1999 Robin Hobb (P)2010 Tantor

Critic reviews

“Intriguing, controlled, and remarkably assured...at once satisfyingly self-contained yet leaving plenty of scope for future extensions and embellishments.” ( Kirkus)

Diary of a Wimpy Assassin

I ended up buying all three books, and I enjoyed them, but it was really hard to like this hero. He is not much of an assassin. The only assassinations he does are by poisoning and those are mostly zombies, and he feels guilty about it. He kills in self defense and feels guilty about it. He doesn't take out the really bad people, even though everyone knows they are the really bad people and he would have saved thousands of lives and endless suffering if he had poisoned them too, because of some promise he made... but mostly because it would end the story too soon.

He has magic ability he doesn't want to use and doubts himself constantly and really hates himself... but ends up saving the kingdom anyway... and gets little credit for it. He spends a large chunk of the third book on a useless quest, and all the while he is thinking (and I was thinking) this is a bad idea. And it was.

Conan he is not. He is more like Conan's half-witted baby sister.

Despite all that, the plot was good, the world was rich, and the narration was very good. There is magic and herbology and animal kinship woven in here. I enjoyed it overall. I just wish the main character had more backbone.

Less than promised

I purchased this book part because of reviews comparing it to the Jordan WOT series. While the book is well written, it is heavy on detail and light on action. I kept listening thinking it was just about to become exciting, but it never quite happened. The narration was very good, which helped me to make it through this. If your thinking about purchasing this book, I recommend you thumb through a hard copy first.

Painfully slow

I gave this book three stars because it was written well, and the main character was interesting. However, it moved so slow that I literally had to pause it for a few days to forget my boredom. Absolutely nothing happened of importance until the last hour or two, and what did happen was so laughably small that I wouldn't have believed it if someone told me about it. I love fantasy but regret spending a credit on this one. If you want good fantasy, try George R.R. Martin, Joe Abercrombie, Tolkien, J.K. Rowling, Brandon Sanderson, Robert Jordan, or David Farland.

Loved it

I'm a little embarrassed about how much I love Robin Hobb's books. They are so much fun! Adventure, romance, pirates, dragons, and lots of imagination. What more could you ask for. I wish Audible would get the Tawney Man series. Paul Boehmer is an excellent narrator -- much easier to listen to than Ann Flosnik (who does the Magic Ship and Rainwilds trilogies).

Different

I always reserve a 5 star for fantasies such as A Song of Ice and Fire and most of the book in Wheel of Time. This was enjoyable and very different, I was hoping for something a bit more gritty and fantastic. I was tempted to move my rating up from a 3 to a 4 because I was happy that the author did something different, it wasn't the same old elemental magic, or sorcery (like Sword of Truth) The Author didn't pull Ideas out of his backside at the last minute(like Sword of Truth), but I felt robbed by the ending, and the narration was mediocre.

You need to listen to all three to find closure.

Where does The Farseer: Assassin's Apprentice rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

The book ranks in the top 20. It is not as good as Tolkien or Paolini, but there is much wisdom woven into the story. The main character has much growing up to do, so he is sometimes annoying, but you really care about the characters.

What other book might you compare The Farseer: Assassin's Apprentice to and why?

Somewhat like Eragon in Paolini's books, but more whiny. The magic isn't as prevalent and the wisdom isn't as strong, but I liked it. I definitely wanted to finish all three to see the outcome.

Have you listened to any of Paul Boehmer’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I don't remember if I have listened to him before, but he did a good job. The characters stood out differently and the women were just a little annoying as it has to be when men perform their voices. I've listened to books where I could not finish it because the performance was so poor. Fortunately, these books do not have that problem.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

This book was emotional because so many horrible things happen in it and the people are pretty mean. I did laugh and get angry, but I don't remember crying. I felt sad sometimes, too. There were a couple wise parts that made me write down the lines to think about. The amount of growing that the main character has to do made me reflect on my growth.

Any additional comments?

I'm glad I listened to it. I cared about the characters and missed some of them when it was over.

Well written coming of age tale in first person

This book more than held my interest. The characters felt real, and the story was engaging.

A cut above mediocre but far from elite in the ranks of epic fantasy

Having run out of good fantasies to read at the moment, I gave this book a shot. While this book is better written than pulp such as Terry Goodkind (nothing personal), it flounders at about the same mediocre level as Robert Jordan while featuring a less intricate plot and less robust world building. This book cannot be considered in the same breath with finely wrought fantasy such as that of George Martin, Patrick Rothfuss, Ursula LeGuin, China Mieville, Patricia McKillip, and Richard Morgan. It doesn’t even reach the level of Lev Grossman, Tad Williams, Robert Silverberg Moorcock, Lieber, Gene Wolfe, Paul Kearney, and Andrzej Sapkowski. It’s slow moving, nearly tolerable, with simplistic characterization. A high school boy of moderate intelligence might like this, but any more discerning readers will want to pass. Re-read Earthsea or Riddlemaster for a third time or Tolkien for a tenth time rather than spending your time on this. Heck, a stand-alone novel such as Martha Wells’s City of Bones is far superior, as is Scott Lynch’s Lies of Locke Lamora. I greatly enjoy fun, well written fantasy and sci-fi , but unfortunately this just doesn’t qualify as that. This review is written by a guy who had read lots of run-of-the-mill fantasy in high school but after age 16 has needed something more interesting than just meh and blah. I studied lit and then got three more advanced degrees (3 from Harvard) while teaching world literature. So if you want an opinion from someone who has read a few things, this review is for you. If you’re a smart seventh-grader, then ignore this and follow the reviews on YouTube which probably rave about these sorts of books.

kept my interest

I liked it because there were some new ideas. I had some trouble keeping track of characters, but over all, a good read.

Worth a listen but requires some patience.

I liked the story but it was very slow at times. Hopefully the next book picks up the pace. Also, not my favorite narrator. But I got used to him over the course of the book. Overall I enjoyed the story.