I first read Robin Hobb’s Farseer trilogy in my 20’s (let’s just say that was a very long time ago) and immediately fell in love with FitzChivalry Farseer, Verity, Kettricken, Burich, Chade, Molly, The Fool, and especially Nighteyes. I quickly moved on to The Tawney Man Trilogy, and then to her Live Ship Traders series. Every time I would finish a book, I would think to myself, that was my favorite, and every time I picked up a new one, I relished each moment I got to spend in Hobb’s immersive fantasy world. A world that felt, to me, every bit as real as my own.
So, when the pandemic hit and we went into lock-down in March, when the real world became so scary and heartbreaking that my own writing well dried up, my anxiety spiked, and I needed a place to escape, I turned to some old friends. Robin Hobb’s newest Fitz and the Fool trilogy had been sitting on my shelf, unread, for a few years.
At that moment, I decided I wouldn’t just read the new series, but that I would embark on a journey through the Realm of the Elderlings, from the first time Fitz enters Chade’s secret passage, to the moment Fitz and The Fool complete their last quest, and everything in-between.
Sixteen books and six months later, I read the last page of Assassin’s Fate and I am so full of heartache, joy, awe, and inspiration, that all the emotions bubble up and spill over in ways I never expected. For the last six months, I’ve lived en entire lifetime with these characters, watched them age and lose loved ones, watched their children grow, experienced grief and laughter, and learned a lot about myself in the process. There’s something to be said for re-reading books decades later. Your relationship with them changes, different parts of the story resonate in new and unexpected ways.
Honestly, the hardest part about spending six months in another world has been saying goodbye. Every night I go to bed and try to pick up a new book, then quickly toss it aside. I’m restless, I wonder to myself, what now? No other books can tempt me. No other stories can fill the void. There will never be another Fitz or Nighteyes, or The Fool, and I wonder how Hobb must have felt saying goodbye to the friends she created.
And then I remember I have my own friends who have been waiting, patiently, for me to come back to them. For me to ask, what have you been up to? To listen to their adventures, their suffering, their joy. To put their words down on paper so that someday, someone from our world will find solace in their company the way I have with FitzChivalry.
And with that, it’s time to get back to the keyboard, to continue to breath life into words, and to finally finish the novel my agent has been so patiently waiting for. If I can make readers feel half of what Robin made me feel while traveling the Realm of the Elderlings, I will be content. Thank you Robin, for your writing, your inspiration, for everything I’ve learned and felt and struggled with while immersed in your world.
And now, its time to escape once again–not into the world of someone else’s creation, but to one of my own making. Cebrian and Aelyin, I hope I am worthy enough to tell your story.