Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

Robin Hobb has to be my choice for week 29, an author who writes under more than one name.

Nevare Burvelle was destined from birth to be a soldier. The second son of a newly anointed nobleman, he must endure the rigors of military training at the elite King's Cavalla Academy--and survive the hatred, cruelty, and derision of his aristocratic classmates--before joining the King of Gernia's brutal campaign of territorial expansion. The life chosen for him will be fraught with hardship, for he must ultimately face a forest-dwelling folk who will not submit easily to a king's tyranny. And they possess an ancient magic their would-be conquerors have long discounted--a powerful sorcery that threatens to claim Nevare Burvelle's soul and devastate his world once the Dark Evening brings the carnival to Old Thares

While not what I was expecting from Robin Hobb, it was a good read and I may continue the series at a later date. It was a western with magic.

I totally didn't like this one, it was a struggle to read it (in fact, I probably read just half of it as it was the French edition and they cut Hobb's books in two books). The world building seemed interesting and different from what she did in the realm of the ederlings but the story didn't work at all for me. The military stuff wasn't entertaining, it was really slow paced and I didn't care about the character.

My friends and me are usually big Hobb's fans but this series worked for none of us (and some succeeded to finish it).

Thank you Zazz, I may just leave it until I desperately need to read something, anything.

Well, this was my first Robin Hobb book, so I didn't have the benefit of comparison to other series (Farseer, etc).

I read it for ATY19, #17, a speculative novel (fantasy, sf, ....).

I found the characterization and world-building interesting. I wasn't put off by the military or western setting, as some have been. I didn't like the protagonist, but he was well-developed and interesting, as were many of the characters (even some we see for only a short while). My main disappointment with the novel was plotting, as we lost touch with characters who were interesting, the focus of what was to be achieved would shift (and thus not build on other aspects). This could be a long set up (designed as part of a trilogy), but even if so, I have been lost in some of the arcs, and find that many of them have just been deadends or withered in importance. The use of magic, and the alternative points of view (Plainsmen, Specks, class divide) are interesting, but there is then too much going on to resolve it in time for a completion in the first volume (after nearly 600 pages).