Assassin's Fate

I think we all knew we were heading for something like this. I didn't predict the ending, although I feel a bit like I should have. This series of trilogies is, I think, the greatest modern work of fantasy I've ever read, and this was a perfect, amazing conclusion.

I didn't read this final trilogy for a good while after it was released, and procrastinated reading this final volume even longer, partly because the series is important to me and I didn't want it to be over, and partly because I've read enough Hobb to know that it would be an emotionally difficult read. I was right; I spent most of the last 10% of it – which is an insanely large amount, when you think about it, especially for a 950 page volume – sobbing and hyperventilating uncontrollably. My wife came downstairs to check on me, thinking from the sounds I was making that I might have received some kind of awful news.

The first volume of the first trilogy of this series was published in 1996, according to Goodreads, and I think I must have started reading it not long after publication. That means I've read this series for almost 25 years, which is a longer relationship than I have with nearly any other series. I hardly know what to say now that I've finished it, except that I have a decades-long connection to these characters and I'm incredibly pleased that Hobb has finished it so well, though that's no surprise.

Strangely, I never read the Rain Wilds trilogy, and I'll have to go back and do that. It'll be interesting and different to read it for the first time now, knowing what we learned in this final trilogy.

What an immense talent.