Fool's Assassin cover art

Fool's Assassin

Fitz and the Fool, Book 1

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Fool's Assassin

By: Robin Hobb
Narrated by: Lee Maxwell-Simpson, Avita Jay
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About this listen

'Fantasy as it ought to be written' GEORGE R.R. MARTIN

Tom Badgerlock has been living peaceably in the manor house at Withywoods with his beloved wife Molly these many years, the estate a reward to his family for loyal service to the crown.

But behind the facade of respectable middle-age lies a turbulent and violent past. For Tom Badgerlock is actually FitzChivalry Farseer, bastard scion of the Farseer line, convicted user of Beast-magic, and assassin. A man who has risked much for his king and lost more…

On a shelf in his den sits a triptych carved in memory stone of a man, a wolf and a fool. Once, these three were inseparable friends: Fitz, Nighteyes and the Fool. But one is long dead, and one long-missing.

Then one Winterfest night a messenger arrives to seek out Fitz, but mysteriously disappears, leaving nothing but a blood-trail. What was the message? Who was the sender? And what has happened to the messenger?

Suddenly Fitz's violent old life erupts into the peace of his new world, and nothing and no one is safe.

©2015 Robin Hobb (P)2015 HarperCollins Publishers Limited Classics Epic Epic Fantasy Fantasy Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Small Town & Rural Assassin Royalty

Critic Reviews

'Hobb is superb, spinning wonderful characters and plots from pure imagination' Conn Iggulden

'Hobb is one of the great modern fantasy writers… what makes her novels as addictive as morphine is not just their imaginative brilliance but the way her characters are compromised and manipulated by politics' The Times

‘Robin Hobb is without question among the two or three finest writers of fantasy working today’ 5 stars for Fool’s Assassin, SFX

‘Fantasy writers don’t come much bigger than Robin Hobb’ Independent
All stars
Most relevant  
This has been one of my favourite series EVER.. I have read these from the start when I was a lot younger and have continued to love them since, the first book of the Fitz and the Fool trilogy does not disappoint!

I look forward to listening to the next one.. starting now!!!

The Best!!!!

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14 books deep and me and my wife loved this so much. to be fair, if you started here from nothing, I bet it's going suck balls for you.
the whole world is incredible of the elderlings storyline and the readers on this smashed it

excellent

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Quite slow and not a lot happens for most of the story - then everything happens in the last couple of chapters. I have to say that it was pretty predictable.
All this being said though, I’m going straight onto the next in the series

Finally got somewhere in the end

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I came into this series solely on the audiobook side. I immediately got enticed by this series from the original voice actor from the first 3 books, he had great voice direction at the time, the next Fitz series had a different voice actor but put a lot of emotion into it.

This series makes me think they fed this through an AI voice creator because there is no emotion, no urgency, nothing. gonna have to deal with it because it's not readily available to me physically but goddamn when I re-read this, I'm putting actual emotional inflection in my head because the monotonous voices just ruin the drama.

Great story, awful commitment

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slow to start but couldn't put it down by the end. can't wait for the next one

bit slow to start but couldn't put it down

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I was sceptical of the 2 narrators at first, but it actually worked really well!

2 may be better than 1

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Fantastic book, would recommended to anyone. however, even though it's book 1, felt as though you're reading the story from the middle. That being said, easy to follow and the narrators where lively, well spoken.

Highly recommended!

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Outstanding again! Well done Robin Hobb and Harper Audio. It was NEARLY perfect. My one small loving complaint is that Lee Maxwell-Simpson did not dramatise and distinguish the voices as much as the narrators in previous series. In particular, I wish the Fool had received a voice more distinct from that of Fitz... But it was all still excellent, so thank you again!

Outstanding again!

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good voice for it but the fulla didn't do the lilts and accents like the chick did, makes it easier to distinguish between characters

nice voice

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Don't switch narrators if it can be helped. Lee Maxwell-Simpson is great - but he's put in an awful position of trying to take on somebody elses work. Avita Jay was fantastic.

Story lacked a little of the special sauce the previous series had but was still great - and still far better than the first series... there's only so many morbid and repetitive captured and tortured arcs that a person can deal with before they tune out.

Thank you for another amazing book Robin Hobb!

Narrators and series

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