Robin Hobb- Fool's Assassin, chronique II

From 262 onwards. 

Much much better than the first 262 pages : the fantasy becomes present in the background, all at the same time as the action finally sweeps in, the writing finds grounds on which to build, and ‘secondary’ characters are finally put to a use.

Almost excellent for the way it works within the confines Hobb defined. That is, you don’t really get your Fool, and, you might as well know it, Fitz will be really, really, distant (that’s my one big reproach for this second part), but instead of falling into despair, you start warming up to those characters you do get, even if they’re new ones. Or cooling down. 

I have to swallow some of my earlier statements, especially regarding Bee: I may have been too hasty in judgment…or the book too long in setting up a path that could make our judgment more favourable for that particular character. Did we really need a 100 pages of detailed childhood showing us Fitz, Molly and Bee all in negative light? Having said that, the second and third parts of the book (from 262 onwards) more than repair the lacks in characterisation: Bee is well-developed thanks to a proceeding that, I have to confess, really annoyed me at first (she becomes a narrator), but that I finally came to accept. It was the wise way to do it, anyway_ considering the narrative size that this particular character will take on.

We can note, however, that Chade and Nettle mostly intervene to piss Fitz off like a bunch of spoiled brats, and Kettricken and Dutiful almost not at all. It’s first and foremost about Bee, then Fitz, then Riddle, and, unfortunately for everybody, Shun and FitzVigilant. Boy, did Hobb master her portrayal there, or what ! You will want to throw the book to the other side of the room. As usual, it takes an incredible long time for Fitz to realise he must handle once and for all the trifles of his life before they take on an importance of themselves and actually disrupt what really matters (and thereby make the plot happens). All of this Bee-Shun-Lant plotline would not be credible if it wasn’t for our knowledge of Fitz’s cluelessness.

Now, it's obvious, particularly regarding Shun, that those characters will directly or indirectly have an impact on the intrigue of the following books, and Hobb doesn't really make a secret of it. So with the intrigue around Bee. There's no real big revelatory "ha!" because we felt it develop chapter after chapter. The interest of this book will be in the way we come to discover this not-so-big revelation!, the narration itself rather than the action, but you will be turning the last page wondering: "what's going to happen, now?"