Assassin's Apprentice
- 400
- Pages
- about 7 h
- Reading time
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Our view
Robin Hobb opens her trilogy with a life, not a plot hook: she stays with one growing boy and trusts prose and people to hold attention. They do. The characters are drawn with unusual care, the bond with dogs is a quiet pleasure, and the hardships land because of that closeness. Readers who need a driving plot may find the start slow; those who like to live inside a world are well served.
Worth knowing Assassin’s Apprentice, from 1995, was the first book Megan Lindholm published as Robin Hobb and the start of the Farseer trilogy, finished by Royal Assassin in 1996 and Assassin’s Quest in 1997. Fitz is the bastard son of the crown prince, left at a castle gate at six, raised in the stables by the prince’s man Burrich and trained in secret by Chade, the king’s assassin; he has the Wit, a forbidden bond with animals, and a little of the Skill, the royal magic, and the Six Duchies are being raided from the sea by ships whose crews leave the people they take alive but emptied. Told by Fitz in old age, which is why every happy moment reads like a warning. Sixteen books follow in the same world, and this is where they start.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
Assassin's Apprentice is a fantasy novel by American writer Robin Hobb, the first book in The Farseer Trilogy. It was Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden's first book under this pseudonym, and was published in 1995. The book was written under the working title Chivalry’s Bastard.
Reading order · The Farseer Trilogy
Full order & progress →- Assassin's ApprenticeThis book
8.38.3 / 10 - Royal Assassin
8.58.5 / 10 - Assassin's Quest
8.38.3 / 10
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.3 across 1,568 ratings. With that many, the reader vote carries 91% of the weight and the score stays at 8.3 — the Fantasy average of 8.0 barely moves it.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 7.8 | 62 | 4% |
| Google Books | 8.0 | 79 | 5% |
| Hardcover | 8.3 | 1.4K | 91% |
Frequently asked
How long is Assassin's Apprentice?
It has 400 pages — shorter than 78% of the ranked books in Fantasy.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
The same shelf — Fantasy — and a score of 8.3, the closest to this book.
