Assassin's Apprentice

Lucky me to have downloaded Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb on my Kindle for free. Yes, I'm addicted to the free books offered on the Kindle, but the 'lucky' part is that this book is actually good and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it; in fact I plan to read the whole series and possibly everything Robin Hobb ever wrote. (This, I am sure, was the diabolical reasoning behind the free offering, like giving a person one M&M knowing that they will certainly eat more...tricksy, tricksy.)

The story begins with a grandfather dumping his six year old grandson at the king's castle because he can no longer afford to feed and clothe the child, who is apparently the bastard son of the prince first in line to the throne. The book is the story of the boy, who they call Fitz (which means illegitimate son) and how he grows up in the castle keep, not quite royalty but not quite commoner. He is taught many skills by many experts, one of which (you guessed it) is how to be a subtle assassin. The assassin's trade deals with poison's and herbology as opposed to the skills he learns with weapons.

But Fitz has a two unique abilities of his own that set him apart from everybody else. First, he is very powerful but very unstable with the 'Skill,' a form of telepathy that runs in the genes of some royalty. Once honed, the Skill can be used to influence what people think (for example, I could touch your mind without you even knowing it and have you bring me a bag of M&Ms). Fitz's other ability is the 'Wit' which is extremely shunned so he has to keep it a secret from everyone. Wit is not only the ability to connect minds with animals, but to possibly bond with one of them, thus eventually turning your mind into something much more savage and animalistic.

The story unfolds as Fits learns all these things while he grows up in the midst of royal intrigue and scheming. He learns what it truly means to be a 'king's man' and all the sacrifices that entails. One of my favorite characters in the book is the Fool, who is the least foolish person in the book. I will leave it up to you to discover the meaning behind "Fitz fixes feists fits. Fat suffices." I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did.