WiF - Robin Hobb
Intro
Robin Hobb has been writing fantasy - under this pen name - for more than 3 decades. And her work positions her to have a unique voice in fantasy; she is an author comparable to George R.R. Martin - and we will effectively compare a few of them - and she does not benefit from the same visibility.
Why is she a cool epic fantasy author?
And I felt this was an appropriate moment to bring her to our attention. I know more and more people are getting exposure to her work lately: I recommend her name as much as I can and it gives me great pleasure seeing readers reading and enjoying her work!
The queen of emotions
In fact, I tend to call her the queen of my emotions (sometimes in the threads community she is even upgraded to goddess of emotions). If anyone can manipulate my feelings, that is her. She does it the best, for who I am and how I think. And I do not think I am alone in this; now, are her books - with the exception of Assassin’s Apprentice - long? Yes. Does she take long journeys to get to the end? Yes. It is on purpose nonetheless, this is what she does the best, taking us on long journey trying to also figure out our emotions. While being in an incredibly scenic world, with plenty of magic and a cohesive world building, making sense to everyone.
The queen of villains?
She has also a unique competence in writing villains; and with some of them actually being sympathetic - until they are not. And yet, the emotional journey, understanding their perspective and their choices actually make sense. Or better, as a reader there is an understanding how the characters ended in the position that they are in.
And she manages deep themes
She is also great at exploring themes. I have two in particular to bring to our attention, one per main storyline.
With Fitz and the Fool we explore the difference between magical abilities, the Skill and the Wit. The Skill being associated with nobles; the second being more typical of the peasants. And I am using this terminology on purpose to make sure that there is a difference between social classes (and it is arbitrarily use to dive more divide between classes!).
This also leads to the secondary commentary - next to an incorrect social class approach, and incorrect because both magical systems can impact both social classes - which is that people who are Witted are considered outcasts; and more and more over time. While there are more qualified people who made a parallel to being queer, what this power reminds me most of is the X-Men, the outcast who create their own society essentially. And if there is something consistently relevant for me is that I enjoy an outcast story (ideally with gods in the story but that is neither here nor there).
The other theme that I enjoyed every single time is the exploration of the role of women in society. And most of the characters have to flex around because of circumstances; and I will be listing just a tiny fraction of them, as we have so many different ones here to explore. And this diversity of women in this world makes this place even more fascinating.
We have a woman who needs to be the business woman of the household; and while she is strong and able to do these things, they also come at great personal cost, forcing her to keep thinking about her loved ones and having to worry about them;
we have another woman who needs to learn to find her own voice, after having stayed at home and in the shadow of her husband for years. This growth feels scary and challenging all together; and while the character does not resonate so much with my life experiences what we can all relate to is having to do something outside of our comfort zone and having to run with it and in this case, it’s not even a choice, it’s a situation that is forced on her;
we have another woman who pursues her own passions even when she is pursuing a traditionally male job; and this commentary is interesting on so many different levels, including being very relatable and applicable to today’s standards; and
the last one needs to become an adult and she starts from being the most awful person, entitled and manipulative; and she also has to learn new lessons in pretty extreme ways, evolving into an interesting person.
And yes, the characters are mostly designed by women for women? Sure, and yet it’s a really modern take on the role of women in society and it truly goes beyond the existence of women in a fantasy world.
So I recommend her to any fantasy reader - whether you are in for an epic fantasy story (and she can certainly deliver in that respect) or if you like to focus on a different sensitivity of epic fantasy - with some of the most heartfelt relationships built in fantasy. Not to mention that her poor lines are particularly effective too; all of the stories I read so far have great pay offs. And while it might take a long time to get there, the reality is that these stories are very well drafted and executed from a plot standpoint.
Last but not least, her world building is really strong; while she borrows heavily from traditional fantasy, she also develops her own world in unique ways to give us more modern takes on traditional tropes; for instance, dragons. And I am doing my best to make sure that these posts are spoiler free and yet, I can only highlight that her way to look at dragons is unique. The fact that they need help is such an interesting thing. And it is a thing of beauty, with such emotional connection tied to that journey!
A few stats
Let’s go into a few stats here. I am going through GoodReads stats for reference. The only goal that I have with this frame of reference is to encourage you to pick up her work - as, in the category of comparable stories, she is rocking the epic fantasy story telling. She has completed a series of 16 books - so unlike so of her
Assassin’s apprentice - the very first book in the Realm of the Elderlings - has 365k reads and it was first published in 1995.
George R.R. Martin (the comparison works if limited to the fact that they essentially started publishing their most successful work around the same time; the numbers should not really be compared as Martin’s books have been boosted by the show too) with A game of thrones (the first book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series) more than 2.6M ratings; and it was first originally published in 1996.
Patrick Rothfuss with The name of the wind as more than 1M reads,
Sanderson with Mistborn, first era: The Final Empire has more than 824k reads.
Robert Jordan with the Eye of the World has about 560k ratings!
N.K. Jemisin is another underrated author in fantasy - and her The Fifth Season is the most popular book (in terms of number of ratings on Goodreads) and that is little bit above 300k.
Conversely, she is also writing stories that appeal to a more sensitive approach to fantasy - and yet, she does not have the same numbers that romantasy gurus do.
Sarah J. Maas is probably the most representative author in the romantasy space (because she is prolific and each book is quite successful); her more successful one, A Court of Thorns and Roses has more than 3.5M ratings; and most of her books (with her more popular series, I believe she has 14 published books!) have more than 1M ratings (with a notable exception for me with Crescent City, which was Sarah J. Maas’ series I enjoyed the most).
Rebecca Yarros’ Fourth Wing has 2.6M ratings. Comparable with A Game of Thrones but in less than 2 years from first publication and without a popular tv adaptation.
Another interesting fact to consider is that there are two authors who are comparably prolific (as in relation to Robin Hobb) and they are Sarah J. Maas and Brandon Sanderson. And the other comparable fact between these authors? They created worlds that are somewhat connected! The Maasverse, the Cosmere and The Realm of the Elderlings.
Unlike other authors on this list - such as Martin and Rothfuss - her series is completed and it includes 16 main books in total.
What is also really cool about this series is that “some assembly is required” in the sense that the series is nearly packaged in 5 self-contained series, which one can decide to read in different orders (with the exception of a few things that need to be read in order). And the best thing about this take is that feel like there is a lot of progress!
So if you want to support women who write epic fantasy you have a great author right here.
Her (main) books:
