Dragons!

24. (Vine) Dragon Haven: Book Two of the Rain Wilds Chronicles by Robin Hobb 4/3

Pick:
Well, I read the first one for Vine; why would I pass up the sequel and conclusion?

Story:
The first thing you should know is that the story doesn't end here.

This book, the sequel to "Dragon Keeper" and the conclusion of the Rain Wilds Chronicles, is not the end of the story. Things remain unresolved on the last page, and some of the most interesting possible story lines remain open; I can only hope that Robin Hobb will see fit to continue the tale in subsequent works.

Because this one's a beaut.

The first book (DEFINITELY required reading; this is more of a single story in two volumes than it is separate novels in a sequence.) tells several parallel stories: the story of Alise Fincarron and her marriage of convenience (and perhaps love) to the dashing and wealthy Hest Finbok, the best evidence in these books that despite Robin Hobb's brilliance as a storyteller and creator of genuine, full-color and deep-hearted characters, she has trouble thinking up good names; the story of Thymara, child of the Rain Wilds whose deformities (claws instead of fingers and scales instead of skin, in some places) should have led to her being exposed and abandoned at birth; the story of Leftrin, captain of the livebarge Tarman, oldest and perhaps wisest of the Liveships; and, of course, the story of the newborn dragons, the transformed remnants of Maulkin's tangle from the Liveship series. All of these people (and dragons, who are not, as this book points out, either people or animals, but something else entirely) have serious troubles in their lives, and some don't even realize how serious those troubles are. They come together when the Traders' Council of Trehaug, the ruling body of the Rain Wilds, sends the dragons, for whom they cannot properly care, up the Rain Wild River to find the lost (and perhaps vanished) city of Kelsingra, where the Elderlings of old once made a home for the dragons they loved and served and perhaps even worshipped.

They don't make it to Kelsingra in the first book, and for nine-tenths of this book, the party is still traveling up the Rain Wild River. They do reach a destination at the end, or at least an end of their journeying; I won't say more to avoid spoiling the ending, which is quite nice, despite leaving room for much more story.

In this book, most (but not all) of the interpersonal frictions are resolved. Secrets are finally revealed, some voluntarily and some not; arguments are brought from a long, slow simmer to a raging boil (most of them involving either Thymara, or her dragon Sintara, or both --fitting for the two most defensive, combative, and snarling-stubborn queens of the group), and all of the dragons, and the people, begin to find either their true potential -- or the light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak.

The book is long, but never slow; some of the characters bog down slightly as they try to work through painful and difficult issues, which quite naturally takes time, and might seem repetitive in the hands of a less capable writer. But Hobb is her usual brilliant self, showing sides and nuances and depths to all of her characters that some people never see in real life, let alone in fiction. There is some action, some blood (How could there not be, when there are more than a dozen proud, and hungry, dragons in the mix?), some disasters and some triumphs. Not everything came to the conclusion I would have liked to see, but then, isn't that always the case?

What is also always the case is: I loved it, as I have loved all of Robin Hobb's books, and I would recommend these two highly to all fantasy fans. These are, in my opinion, the best dragons since Smaug. As a brief note to those who have not read Robin Hobb's other works, you should know that nearly all of her fantasy is set in this same world, revolving around the same geopolitical structure and sometimes the same world-changing events --such as the rebirth of dragons, begun in the Liveship series and continued here. Therefore, reading all of her books is necessary to get the real depth; however, these two novels, "Dragon Keeper" and "Dragon Haven," can stand alone and would be a good place to start, if you can stand missing some background details that will be filled in later.