Books I Like #2

Del Rey, New York 2017

I am a genre reader and writer, and this is my genre.

This book stands in for the entire 15-book sequence, from Assassin’s Apprentice on, and including the Liveship Traders books. You are not allowed to skip the Liveship books, because you need that part of the story for the huge payoff you get in this book. Part of why this works so well for me may have to do with the fact that I’ve been reading them since the very first one was new, eagerly anticipating each one as it hit the shelves like a total nerd. She also wrote the Soldier’s Son trilogy (which I also love, by the way) in the same period, so that’s 18 books on the highest level of epic fantasy writing, all published within a 15 year span. They range in length from about 500 to over 1000 pages.

They chronicle a time when the world built to tell the story in changes over the space of about 50 to 60 years. 9 of the 15 books focus on a dreamer/clairvoyant who is determined to change the course of history, and who is gender variant, sometimes presenting as male, sometimes as female, and who never reveals a set gender identity at all (the Fool) and their catalyst, the bastard son of a dethroned heir-apparent prince from a large medieval-equivalent kingdom (FitzChivalry Farseer).