The Golden Fool

4.5 out of 5 stars – see this review and others at The Speculative Shelf.

Golden Fool expands and improves upon every aspect of Fool's Errand, just as Royal Assassin did for Assassin's Apprentice. This story was firing on all cylinders – the pacing, the plotting, the action, and the intrigue; it was all on full display.

Fitz (as Tom Badgerlock) is firmly back in the game and he's juggling relationships with: his three children (one by blood, one adopted, and one...well, it's complicated), The Fool/Lord Golden, spymaster Chade, Queen Kettricken, Starling, Thick, and his past self. He's developed a keen insight into his own grief – something that is now fully realized after having so much practice at it. Even after five books in Fitz's story, the characters and relationships around him continue to evolve in fresh new ways – as does the overall plot of the Realms of the Elderlings narrative. This book marked the first major crossover between adjacent trilogies, as the events of the Liveship Traders series are reframed and what I understood about certain characters was cast in a new light.

This book fully rekindled my addiction to this world. I've been swept into the Skill stream and I'm happy to go wherever it takes me.

Executive Summary: I really enjoyed this book, and found myself staying up till 2 in the morning and rudely reading while visiting with family on Christmas Eve just to finish it.

Full Review
There isn't a lot for me to really say about this book without getting into spoilers. Robin Hobb seems to find a way make you really care about her characters and suck you into the story even when it's just day to day living. Of course Fitz's days are a tad bit more interesting than your average person.

It also re-enforces my belief that you're really missing out by skipping Liveship Traders and moving right to Tawny Man from Farseer. I don't see how you can really understand the depth of some of the events of this book a lot that happens in this book without the full back-story from the previous trilogy.

In this book Fitz learns more about the Fool, and it changes their relationship. I however don't feel like I learned anything that I didn't already suspect. It simply confirmed those suspicions while leaving me questions I hope will finally be answered in the last book.

This book does suffer a bit from middle book syndrome. A lot of it really sets up the final book in the trilogy. That doesn't mean I was bored along the way, simply that the ending didn't come to any satisfying conclusion.

Really it just leaves me hoping for a lot of things to be resolved in the final book. When I was done I wanted to jump right into the final book, but didn't have time due to the holidays.

Full review at SFF Book Review.

While I consider this the weakest instalment of Robin Hobb's trilogy of trilogies, I can't deny that anything the woman writes is beautiful. The language is precise, yet gorgeous, the characters don't need introduction at this point.

But as the plot goes, it was pretty weak, and most of the book is spent setting up events that are probably going to happen in the next - and final - volume in the Tawny Man trilogy. There were some action-filled moments and even though I've never needed a lot of fast-paced action to be happy with a book, the conversations, intrigue, and introductions of new characters became tedious very fast.

So all of that said, instead of a fantastically great book, this is merely a very good one.