The Willful Princess and the Piebald Prince by Robin Hobb

Robin Hobb really seems to love writing tragedies. I'm normally not into reading something that's going to leave me more depressed than when I started, and I've had to stop reading a couple of Hobb's series over the years, when I just couldn't take it any more. However, she is a fantastic writer, and I've been able to finish several of the series, so I don't dis-recommend her.

This tale is far shorter than most of her books, so it was an easy read, but in true Hobb fashion, grew tragic in a hurry. The Willful Princess is the tale of Queen-in-Waiting for the throne of Buckland, Caution, who definitely does not live up the her name. She grows up horribly spoiled by her otherwise quite wise parents, and is aided and abetted by the character telling the story, her companion from cradle to grave, the low born Felicity (daughter of her wet nurse), who has seen to it that Caution's every whim has been granted, hoping to secure a better future for herself when Caution comes to her throne.

There's no way this can end well, of course, and when Caution buys a piebald stallion and its Witted (able to communicate with animals) handler, Lostler, from a Chalcedean trader one year, it begins to go predictably wrong. Caution begins by obsessing on riding the stallion, whom no one else can tame, and ends by riding the handler - ditto. She becomes pregnant by this commoner, and gives birth to his bastard son. When Felicity deceives her into believing her lover Lostler has been unfaithful to her, he and the stallion are killed in the ensuing struggle to banish them, and Caution pines her way to death, as well.

The Piebald Prince tells the story of how her son goes from being the bastard no one loves, to designated heir to the throne, and on to his own horrible tragedy, as well. Our tale-teller, Felicity, suffers horrible consequences, in the end, for her sad role in this tale.

Compelling writing, as always with Hobb. I can take depression in small doses.

Dragon Keeper by Robin Hobb

Robin Hobb's novels tend to be a little difficult for me to read; in fact, I never did finish her Liveship Traders trilogy, just kept getting bogged down in depression halfway through The Mad Ship. The characters in her books just get totally run through the wringer, physically and emotionally. I did really enjoy her first trilogy, which begins with Assassin's Apprentice, but struggled with the rest.

Dragon Keeper, first in the Rain Wilds Chronicles, takes up, evidently, shortly after the Liveship Traders, and the characters from those books play cameo roles in this one. The dragons are finally hatching from their cocoons, but they turn out mostly to be stunted, deformed or mentally subpar, and the citizens of the Rain Wilds are bound by their agreement with the dragon, Tintaglia, to care for and feed them. This gets old pretty quickly for them, and they scheme to find a way to be rid of them without violating the letter of the contract.

Meanwhile, back in Bingtown, we get to know Alise, a rather plain young woman from a minor Trader family. She hasn't been fortunate in the looks department, and lacks for suitors until a wealthy young Trader approaches her about a marriage of convenience. If she will marry him and get his family to quit badgering him about producing an heir, she can live a life of ease, and have the funds she wants to acquire scrolls and other materials to further her studies of dragons and Elderlings.

While she seems to be clueless about it, it's fairly obvious to the reader that her new husband, Hest, a cold and manipulative fellow, prefers men for his sexual dalliances. In fact, his main lover is one of her childhood friends, Sedric, and when she demands to be allowed to travel to the Rain Wilds to study the newly hatched dragons, Hest sends Sedric to accompany and chaperone her.

Another major character in the book is Thymara, another girl with poor marriage prospects. She, like many of the Rain Wilds folk, had some major mutations at birth, and should have been left to die from exposure. Her father loved her too deeply to let her go, however, so she has grown up without status in the community and will never be allowed to marry and have children. When the Rain Wilds Council offers her a position helping the dragons to make their way to the fabled city of Kelsingra, which the dragons remember as a place of plenty, she jumps at the chance to make something useful of her life.

There are lots of different agendas and intrigues afoot in this book, and though it did take me a while to finish it, it doesn't seem as much of a downer as Hobb's earlier books. I'm definitely intrigued to know what the dragons will find when they reach Kelsingra, and wonder how Alise and Thymara will turn out when they've grown up.