Customer Reviews (104) 
Compelling charactersand richly detailed worlds
With Dragon Keeper and Dragon Haven, award-winning fantasist Robin Hobb returns to the richly drawn world of her bestselling Liveship Traders series.Now she takes the reader deep into the dangerous and mysterious Rain Wilds on a quest for the mythical city Kelsingra, the ancient home of dragons and their Elderling keepers.More importantly, she draws us deep into the lives of the outcasts that take this journey for reasons both secret and public, benevolent and vile.
Alise Kilcannon Finbok, bound by contract into a loveless, soul-crushing marriage of convenience, takes an opportunity to leave the niceties of Bingtown life to study newly-hatched dragons far into the acidic jungles of the Rain Wilds.Thymara, shunned by Rain Wilds society due to her bizarre physical aberrations wrought by the strange environment, seizes a chance to prove herself on the expedition to find a new home for the deformed, yet still expensively destructive, creatures.Sintara, a newly hatched dragon queen, is hobbled by physical deformities that belie the proud memories of her majestic birthright.
Change is the driving theme of this series.Alise struggles against the dictates of her marriage and the shackles of her weak sense of self to blossom into an assertive young woman who knows what it is that she wants from life.Thymara comes of age in hard circumstances; her stubbornness is tempered into a firm resolve that will serve her well as a band of similarly disfigured outcasts form their own community. Sintara, as well as the other malformed dragons of her tangle, begins to grow and develop into a true dragon, wrestling against the need to be "kept" by humans and her desire to change them...though knowing that as dragons change their human companions, they too, are changed.The hardships of the journey, shifting alliances, unearthed betrayals, and kept secrets will ensure that everyone who undertakes the journey, human and dragon alike, will find themselves changed irrevocably: there can be no return to what they knew before.
Dragon Keeper, volume one of the presumed trilogy, sets the stage for the conflicts that are mostly resolved in volume two, Dragon Haven.In fact, Dragon Keeper is very much a first act; were it not for the high quality of the writing, it would not stand alone without the resolutions presented in the next volume.Dragon Haven ties up many of the loose ends, and like a good second act, introduces new conflicts that lurk in the shadows of the next volume.Hobb's strength has always been her ability to create compelling characters to inhabit her richly detailed worlds.The Rain Wilds Chronicles is no exception.
This book rocks!!!!!
This book was very entertaining!I couldnt wait to read at nite. I was glad I had the second book to start after I finished the first one. Robin Hobbis an excellent writer.The characters are so real and so human and the Dragons are so unpredictable . The story keeps you quessing.Theres no way to know which way the story is going to go therefore it was unpredictable(which I like)I would recomend this book to anyone. It has it all!!! Janny
Best writer in Fantasy
Robin Hobb's books leave me breathless when taken as a whole.Dragon Keeper and all the Rain Wild Chronicles books are the culmination of an incredible original story which began with the first live ship book.Another reviewer noted how differently Hobbs presents dragons.Very true, and that fact alone is an indication of Hobbs' originality in plotting, world building, characterizations, etc.
No imitation Tolkien, no medieval borrowings, no Harry Potter.In fact when you finally get around to reading about Bingtown, you'll feel quite at home.Yet a home with VERY original touches.
She's built a world for her stories and her very unique dragons which is unlike any other world you'll find in fantasy.That one thing alone makes it worth while to buy this book. It's simply wonderful, written by an excellent writer.Dragons have almost completely disappeared from the world except for the one, Tintaglia.There's a chance to renew the species which once dominated the world, but something goes terribly wrong.A small handful of humans have dedicated themselves to nurturing the mishapen and sometimes unhealthy newborns to health and maturity while they guide them up the Rain Wild River to a new home.These people are the outcasts of a Rain Wild city and culture which would rather not see or deal with those born at birth with scales and growths on their skin; effects of being born on the River?People who should have been killed at birth, as right and proper.The small tales of the individual relationships between a dragon and his/her personal keeper are themselves fascinating and often touching. For the most part the dragons are so proud and arrogant, they look down on their personal humans distainfully.But, despite deformities, the dragons are so beautiful and godlike, their keepers overlook this and love "my dragon." Mental linking make the bonds tight; if uncomfortable.Meanwhile, people are also having to work out their own human relationships and attempts at building a cohesive unit.The Rain Wild River and forest where all this takes place is also beautiful yet incredibly dangerous and uninviting as a place for humans.The very water of the River is so acidic even at quiet times it'll eat through your clothes and burn your skin.But, then, so will dragon saliva; let's not even mention dragon venom!I don't want to be a plot spoiler, so am unsure if I should add more details.
This book taken by itself, good as it is, is a "small" book in that the story is written on a small stage.No world shaking events it seems.Some times a quiet, though always fascinating story.
I happily read it and went on to continue the entire series.Then went on to read all her books, realizing while reading of the live ships in the first series that all of her books make up one big links-on-a-chain "Big" story.
Originality, excellent plotting, world building, characterization, beauty.I cannot praise Hobbs high enough.
Product isn't worth the price
Below average story from Hobbs, some interesting character development but that's it.Charging that much money for an electronic version of this book is unacceptable.Re-think your pricing strategy.This goes for book 2 as well!
A slow starter that burns steady-and make sure to have the sequel ready for the second you're done!
"Dragon Keeper" was an impossible find for me to pass up on even though I had given up on the Liveship Traders trilogy about a third of a way through "Mad Ship" (for reasons of hating characters-it had nothing to do with Robin Hobb's writing which is fantastic and amazing) because I knew just enough to know that I wanted to read this story-and that I'd have to finish the Liveship Trilogy to do it. So I went back, re-evaluated my position of a great deal of the trilogy and headed forth into the unknown.
"Dragon Keeper" is the first in an a duology dealing with the serpents who survived the perilous journey up the rain wild river to their spawning grounds at the long ago destroyed Elderling city ofCassarick, managed to cocoon themselves for the coming winter and emerged as newly formed dragons.
Only unlike Tintaglia, the great blue dragon who emerged at the end of "Mad Ship", each of these very dragons has something wrong with it. Some have a limb that is too short or too long, some misshapen wings, and some poor intellects. And none of the dragons can fly-making them a huge burden on the nearby community who must feed them constantly.
And the Dragons themselves are sick of wallowing in the mud and eating near rotten meat. So they hatch a plan- and soon rumors reach the humans ears of an older Elderling city far away-one that was likely not buried in whatever cataclysm changed the surface of the world so long away-and so is still ripe for plundering for the magical goods the rest of the world will pay nearly any price for. The Dragon's ancestral memory may take them there-but first these creatures have some demands.
The Dragon's require keeper's to accompany them on their journey-to clean them and help feed them. For the Rain Wilds this is a perfect opportunity to get ride of some of the more harshly marked citizens who for reason where not exposed at birth when their claws or overly scaled bodies first appeared. People whose deformities are so severe that they are forbidden to procreate because of the likelihood of the offspring dying and taking up valuable resources in the meantime. One of these people is Thymara. Born with claws like a lizard she was saved from an early death by her father-and sees this expedition as a chance to make a life for a her self within the strict rules of her society-especially since her best friend Tats-a former slave boy, signed one.
But all is not as it seems. The boat hired to take the dragons, keepers and hunters up river is the oldest liveship around- a river barge named Tarman who has no figurehead but at the same time operates far to well to be as ordinary as it seems. Its owner is on the look out for a man seeking dragon parts (as the Duke of Chalced is dieing and request dragon parts at any price to save his life) and two well to do Bingtowners-A self educated dragon and Elderling expert and her escort and cousin end up along for the ride.
With no map, no real guide other than murky memory's, no leadership among the young keepers and multiple potential side agendas-some of which could be harmful to the Dragons-all who signed on are in for a trip of a lifetime. For the dragons may be large, amazing creatures, but even they are headed far into uncharted territory.
This book starts off pretty slow-the first hundred or so pages span about five years-but once things start to pick up they really start to pick up. And having read the Liveship books it is so amazing to read a novel that dedicates so much of its world building to the Rain Wilds society and scenery. It's equally fascinating to realize that the dragons in this book where characters in the Liveship book's-they were just serpents then-so it becomes a kind of guessing game to figure out who was who as they all take on new names and appearances.
The only kind of annoying thing in this book is the constant communication between the keeper of the carrier pigeons in Bingtown and the keeper in the Rain Wilds. Normally there's some sort of message that has to do with the story and then a little personal or professional note attached to that. But a lot of it feels just unnecessary.
All in all, once you get into this book it's an exciting read. And make sure you have "Dragon Haven" handy when you finish-you won't want to delay starting the second part to this story.
Four stars.
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This book was a sales trick.
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