Dragon Keeper (Rain Wilds Chronicles #1)

by Robin Hobb

Overview

“Robin Hobb is one of our very best fantasy writers.”
New York Times bestselling author Kevin J. Anderson

With Dragon Keeper, Robin Hobb, critically acclaimed, New York Times bestselling “master fantasist” (Baltimore Sun), begins a breathtaking  new series about the resurgence of dragons in a world that both needs and fears them—the world Hobb’s readers most recently visited in her immensely popular “Tawny Man” trilogy. Volume One of the Rain Wilds Chronicles, Dragon Keeper is yet another magnificent adventure from the author of  The Soldier Son and Farseer Trilogies, confirming the Contra Costa Times of California’s assessment of Hobb as “one of the most important writers in 21st century fantasy.”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061561658
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	09/25/2012
Series:	Rain Wilds Chronicles , #1
Pages:	528
Product dimensions:	6.86(w) x 4.26(h) x 1.14(d)

About the Author

Robin Hobb was born in California but grew up in Alaska. It was there that she learned to love the forest and the wilderness. She has lived most of her life in the Pacific Northwest and currently resides in Tacoma, Washington. She is the author of five critically acclaimed fantasy series: The Rain Wilds Chronicles (Dragon Keeper, Dragon Haven, City of Dragons, Blood of Dragons), The Soldier Son Trilogy, The Tawny Man Trilogy, The Liveship Traders Trilogy, and The Farseer Trilogy. Under the name Megan Lindholm she is the author of The Wizard of the Pigeons, Windsingers, and Cloven Hooves. The Inheritance, a collection of stories, was published under both names. Her short fiction has won the Asimov's Readers' Award and she has been a finalist for both the Nebula and Hugo awards.

What People are Saying About This

"Hobb's meticulously realized fantasy tale is a welcome addition to contemporary dragon lore." —-Publishers Weekly

Editorial Reviews

Time and more time have passed since the dragon Tintaglia helped save the Trader cities from a deadly invasion. In the years since, The Traders have forgotten or ignored their promises to protect the earthbound dragons and their weak, afflicted offspring. Now, threatened with dragon attacks, Trader leaders have resolved to exile the dragons to the creatures' ancestral memories. On their long journey home, the dragons will be escorted by two women, one a young forest girl and the other a wife of a wealthy Trader. Dragon Keeper tells their story. Acclaimed in hardcover; now an inexpensive mass market paperback.

In a novel as good as it is massive, the first of two Rain Wilds Chronicles...Hobb continues to occupy a perch at or near the top among contemporary fantasists. This book is imaginative, literate, and compassionate from first page to last.” — Booklist (starred review)

“Hobb does an admirable job of creating a complex and engaging medieval fantasy world …with originality and subtlety [she handles] such traditional fantasy elements as dragons and magical items…A nicely imagined fantasy setting that will engage readers and raise anticipation for the second installment. — Kirkus Reviews

“Hobb’s meticulously realized fantasy tale is a welcome addition to contemporary dragon lore.” — Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

In a novel as good as it is massive, the first of two Rain Wilds Chronicles...Hobb continues to occupy a perch at or near the top among contemporary fantasists. This book is imaginative, literate, and compassionate from first page to last.

Booklist (starred review)

In a novel as good as it is massive, the first of two Rain Wilds Chronicles...Hobb continues to occupy a perch at or near the top among contemporary fantasists. This book is imaginative, literate, and compassionate from first page to last.

Booklist (starred review)

"In a novel as good as it is massive, the first of two Rain Wilds Chronicles...Hobb continues to occupy a perch at or near the top among contemporary fantasists. This book is imaginative, literate, and compassionate from first page to last."

Booklist

Hobb (Renegade's Magic, 2008, etc.) delivers the first of two dragon-filled fantasies, set in the same world as her popular Liveship Traders trilogy. This inaugural title deals mainly with the swirl of events leading up to a quest to find the legendary city of Kelsingra by a group of sickly, deformed, sentient dragons and their human keepers. A host of human and dragon characters are introduced, but two well-drawn women take center stage: unhappily married Trader Alise, a scholar of dragons; and teenage Thymara, a dragon-keeper who is herself deformed by scaly skin and claws. Hobb does an admirable job of creating a complex and engaging medieval fantasy world, greatly expanding on the Rain Wilds setting she introduced in previous books. Characters from past novels make cameos, but the author takes care to keep her new tale self-contained. She handles with originality and subtlety such traditional fantasy elements as dragons and magical items. The only complaint readers may have is that, after hundreds of pages of buildup, the novel ends abruptly before the main quest really gets going. A nicely imagined fantasy setting that will engage readers and raise anticipation for the second installment.

Kirkus Reviews