Fool's Fate by Robin Hobb

FitzChivalry Farseer has, reluctantly, re-entered the corridors of power in the Six Duchies. Posing as guardsman Tom Badgerlock, he has been assigned to journey with Prince Dutiful to the Outislands, where the Prince seeks to win the hand in marriage of the Outislander Narcheska, ending all enmity between the two nations. But there are other agendas at work. To win a lasting peace, Fitz must help his prince slay a dragon…and take a stand against his greatest and best friend.

The concluding novel in Robin Hobb’s Tawny Many Trilogy is something I was bracing myself for. Previously, Hobb’s form has been to write an exciting, busy opening volume in a trilogy and then have a slow middle volume which leaves the final book with a lot of heavy lifting to do to end the story, usually resulting in a third book which wraps up the story but with serious issues with structure and pacing. Ship of Destiny deal with the problem somewhat well, but Assassins' Quest really suffered from it. The relatively slow pace of The Golden Fool was also not a good sign.

Fool’s Fate, fortunately, rejects this issue. Whilst you could never call any Hobb novel fast-paced and action-packed, this enormous book (or rather the first two-thirds of this book) comes as close as she gets.

The book consists of a long sea voyage, an exploration of Outisland culture and then an expedition to the island of Aslevjal, where a dragon is said to sleep in the ice. These sequences of explorations on a glacier and survival in freezing temperatures with unknown dangers lurking in the dark are atmospheric and effective, with occasional scares reminiscent of Dan Simmons’ The Terror.

There is then an epic showdown and an appropriately grand finale…which takes place 200 pages before the book ends. The rest of the book is an extended epilogue in which everyone’s fate is revealed and – dare we say it – a couple of characters are even allowed to have happy endings. There is, however, enough material left dangling for both the Rain Wild Chronicles quartet and the Fitz and the Fool trilogy.

As with most of Hobb’s work, and this trilogy in particular, the book is deliberately paced and introspective, with Fitz ruminating on his mistakes a lot. Fortunately, he is also allowed to develop more as a character and even – gasp! – to actually make amends for past mistakes and move forward with his life rather than just moaning about his lot in life. The ending to Fool’s Fate is suspiciously uplifting, in fact, to the point I’m suspicious Hobb is just keeping her powder dry to make things even worse in later books.

There is also a sense of completeness to this book. It addresses outstanding elements from the Liveship Traders books and even finishes off a whole host of storylines left unresolved from the original Farseer Trilogy. The result is a book that works as a finale to one trilogy and an effective epilogue to two others, and is one of Hobb's strongest books to date.

As usual for Hobb, the characterisation is rich, the emotional storyline is impressive and, less usually, even the worldbuilding is impressive. It also brings enough closure to the story to make the trilogy stand alone. Fool's Fate (****½) is available now in the UK and USA.

The Golden Fool by Robin Hobb

Fitz has returned to Buckkeep, but it's far from the hero's welcome that might have been imagined. He serves the Queen and spymaster Chade incognito, posing as Tom Badgerlock, bodyguard and servant to the visiting "Lord Golden" (in reality, the Fool, likewise in disguise). He now has to train Prince Dutiful in the ways of both the Skill and the Wit, whilst also investigating the threat the Piebald (militant Witted rebels) pose to the crown. But delegations from overseas arrive, one from the Outislands to the north and another from the Liveship Traders of Bingtown, both emissaries bringing opportunity...and great danger.

The Golden Fool is the middle volume of the Tawny Man trilogy, as well as the eighth book in the wider Realm of the Elderlings series, bringing the overall series to its halfway point. Its predecessor, Fool's Errand, was one of the stronger single novels in the series, with a very good, mostly self-contained storyline. The Golden Fool, alas, isn't quite as strong at standing on its own two feet, but it is very much what readers have come to expect from a Robin Hobb novel: introspective, brooding but also a deeply human work of fantasy fiction.

The Golden Fool centres itself on Fitz's relationships at Bukkeep, with Queen Kettricken, Chade, his foster-son Hap, Prince Dutiful and, most notably, the Fool. The Fool has always been the most enigmatic character in the series (for all that he is the only character to appear in every book to date) and Hobb has been very careful not to give away too much of his secrets. This book doesn't really get into that either, instead being more interested in the ambiguities of Fitz and the Fool's relationship.

That's not to say there isn't any action - the plot turns on a very brutal sword fight - but it's definitely a quieter and more introspective book than even the norm for Hobb. At first I thought the detailed account of Fitz's everyday comings and goings for the Fool, Chade and the Queen was a prelude to a more traditional fantasy narrative (as was well-done in Fool's Errand) but instead it turns out to be the whole book. This makes The Golden Fool a prime example of "middle-book" syndrome, one which exists to bridge the start of the story to the end.

Still, even a slow, bridging Robin Hobb novel is a cut above most fantasy. The prose is exemplary, the characterisation is absolutely first-rate and it's a brave and refreshing fantasy novel where the most important thing that happens is a quiet (but brutally honest) conversation between two old friends. And it does leave the story in a very interest place for the next novel in the series, Fool's Fate.

The Golden Fool (****) is available now in the UK and USA.

Fool's Errand by Robin Hobb

Fifteen years have passed since the end of the Red Ship War. FitzChivalry Farseer is believed dead, with only a few knowing the truth that he survived and helped end the war and the threat of the cruel King Regal. Living a comfortable life as a smallholder with his wolf Nighteyes and an adopted son, Hap, Fitz occasionally has strange dreams. He dismisses these, until his old friend the Fool visits with news: Prince Dutiful, the son of Queen Kettricken and the late King Verity, has vanished in a very strange manner. Reluctantly, Fitz returns to Buckkeep and a life he thought he'd left behind.

Fool's Errand is the fourth novel featuring the adventures of FitzChivalry Farseer, picking up after the events of the original Farseer Trilogy. It's also the seventh novel overall in the Realm of the Elderlings setting, which now extends across sixteen books. It's a bit of a fresh start in the series, as although it follows up on events in the Farseer books (and a brief mention is made of the Liveship Traders trilogy), it also introduces new characters and new storylines.

Fool's Errand is a slow book, at least to start with. The first 200 pages - more than a third of the novel - are taken up by Fitz's home life and routine, with lengthy ruminations on chicken-farming. Fitz's main concern isn't war, death or assassinations, but instead raising enough coin to find his adopted son a good apprenticeship. Some may find this sequence interminable, but Hobb uses this sequence to establish Fitz's good, comfortable and quiet life away from the mayhem of the court, and what it means when it is taken away when a new crisis erupts.

The rest of the novel is more familiar: a prince has gone missing, the Witted people of the Six Duchies are rebelling against the persecution and murder of their kind by forming an armed resistance and a new peace treaty between the Duchies and the Outislands is in jeopardy. Keen for people to not realise he's survived, Fitz adopts a new identity (the uncouth Tom Badgerlock) and undertakes clandestine mission for the crown. This results in some splendid, classic epic fantasy elements such as an awkward cliffside sword fight against superior enemy numbers, the experimental use of magic and the gradual teasing and unravelling of a labyrinthine conspiracy.

This doesn't mean that Hobb's straying too far from her established tropes. When in doubt about what to do next, she just makes Fitz's life more miserable and horrible than ever before, killing off loved ones and finding ways to put him in as awkward and painful a situation as possible. It's all vaguely depressing, which is an odd juxtaposition given that the second half of the novel is as lively and swashbuckling as Hobb has ever gotten.

Still, if you're in the mood for a beautifully-written, somewhat melancholy fantasy where the focus is firmly on the characters rather than magic or battles, Fool's Errand (****) is a very fine novel. It's also surprisingly stand-alone: you'd definitely miss a fair amount if you hadn't read the Farseer trilogy, but the plot is focused on a new story and situation. Also, whilst the story clearly is set to continue after the final page, there's no major cliffhanger ending. The novel is available now in the UK and USA.

Ship of Destiny by Robin Hobb

The liveship Vivacia is in the hands of the pirate king Kennit, who has won the living ship's heart with his kindness and rejection of slavery. But Althea Vestrit is not prepared to let her family ship be taken into piracy. Having refloated the liveship Paragon and assembled a crew, she now plans to retake her vessel. Meanwhile, the forces of Jamaillia and Chalced have sacked Bingtown. The surviving Traders have to rebuild and reassert themselves in times of great adversity. But, far to the north, the first dragon seen in the world for centuries has taken wing...

Ship of Destiny concludes the Livship Traders trilogy, the second major movement (of five, so far) in Robin Hobb's Realm of the Elderlings mega-series. The conclusion to her first series in this world, The Farseer Trilogy, was sabotaged by the book being incredibly overlong, with poor pacing and structural issues that made ploughing through it a chore. Ship of Destiny is certainly a far superior ending, juggling a much larger number of stories and interesting characters far more effectively, although some similar issues remain. It does feel like events continue to unfold more slowly and laboriously than they really should, and the book has more endings than the film version of The Return of the King.

Still, Hobb's gifts of characterisation continue to shine with her treatment of her major cast. After being fairly restrained in the previous novel, it's good to see Althea reassert herself as a major protagonist and after all of his self-delusions and justifications, it's good to see Kennit's flaws and plans blow up in his face. However, I can't help but feel that the mechanism Hobb uses to make it clear that Kennit is a villain and not a cool, amoral antihero - the rape of another character - is a little too obvious. Unlike some characters who introduce this idea into their work for shock value, Hobb owns this story decision and follows through on its consequences effectively, which is a refreshing change even as it makes for some grim reading.

The storylines and characters are developed satisfyingly, although as we reach the climax the focus shifts to events on the Vivacia and Paragon and the storylines in Bingtown and Trehaug are completely abandoned. This is a bit surprising as major characters vanish abruptly from the story for hundreds of pages at the end of the novel, but Hobb actually makes it work quite well when we eventually catch up with those characters at the end of the story.

Ship of Destiny (****) is a surprisingly relaxed conclusion to a highly enjoyable and some different kind of fantasy trilogy, with Hobb's fine gifts for characterisation on full display. The novel is available now in the UK and USA.

The Mad Ship by Robin Hobb

The fortunes of the Vestrit family have become more desperate. Their liveship, the Vivacia, has been captured by the notorious "pirate king" Kennit and is now helping liberate slaver ships on the seas between Jamaillia and Chalced. The Vestrits have no choice but to help refloat the mad liveship Paragon in the hope they can convince the deranged vessel to help them regain the ship and rescue their kin.

The Mad Ship is the middle volume of The Liveship Traders trilogy and very much reads like one. The story doesn't really start or finish, instead transitioning from the beginning to the end without necessarily having a defining storyline itself. The storylines begun in Ship of Magic are pretty strong so having them continue is fine, and the new additions to the world - a subplot involving the Satrap of Jamaillia and one of his Consorts, and a new story set in an Elderling city in the Rain River Wilds - are well-judged and engrossing.

However, the novel definitely loses some of the pace and momentum of Ship of Magic, which remains my favourite Hobb novel (again, only having read the first six). Hobb's net is cast wider here and the story, world and characters remain fascinating, but there's also much greater periods of time in which nothing much seems to be happening, or we touch base (again) with the Vestrit family having another grim conference about the status of the lower field and getting embarrassed with a family friend whose clothes are a bit old.

Still, if the momentum isn't quite as swift as in the previous novel, Hobb's other strengths remain on full display. The depth of characterisation is remarkable, especially of previously-annoying characters like Malta who develops impressively in this novel beyond the more stereotypical, troublesome teenager of the first book. The biggest success is in the curious relationship between Kennit, Etta, Wintrow and Vivacia, which defies cliche at every turn and becomes a gripping study in character dynamics, power structures and obligation (Hobb does torpedo this, rather frustratingly, in the final volume of the trilogy but at this point it's fascinating).

There's also some uncharacteristic (for Hobb) large-scale action scenes which she handles well, some more deft political maneuverings and some effective mystical dream sequences which hint at a major plot revelation about the nature of the liveships and their place in the world.

The Mad Ship (****) doesn't impress as much as Ship of Magic and definitely feels like it's a slower, more relaxed book, but it evolves the story and characters nicely and sets things up well for the final (and rather more problematic) volume in the trilogy, Ship of Destiny. The book is available now in the UK and USA.

Wertzone Classics: Ship of Magic by Robin Hobb

The Bingtown Traders have grown rich from the use of the liveships, great, sentient sailing ships made of the fabled wizardwood. After three generations of captains die on their decks, they quicken into life. Epheron Vestrit's death brings the liveship Vivacia to life, but the jubilations of the Vestrit family are cut short when it is revealed that the ship will pass into the ownership of Kyle Haven, the husband of Epheron's eldest daughter, rather than to his younger daughter Althea. Furious at this betrayal, Althea vows not to rest until the Vivacia belongs to her again. This resolve only hardens when Kyle decides to use the Vivacia to carry slaves, to the horror of his family.

 

Meanwhile, an unusually eloquent and cultured pirate captain named Kennit schemes to become King of the Pirate Isles. His plotting involves liberating slaver ships, winning the hearts and minds of the people...and finding and capturing a liveship.

Ship of Magic is the first novel in the Liveship Traders trilogy, which takes place in the same world as The Farseer Trilogy but in the lands to the south. There's an almost completely new cast and setting (one major Farseer character does show up in disguise), with most of the action taking place on ships or in dingy port towns. This shift to a nautical setting is refreshing and makes for a very different-feeling novel to the previous books.

The structure of the book also changes. Farseer was told in a first person point-of-view from FitzChivalry Farseer, but The Liveship Traders is told from a rotating POV structure. The major characters are Kennit, Althea, her mother Ronica, sister Keffria, niece Malta and nephew Wintrow, but other POV characters include the Vivacia herself, the beached, mad liveship Paragon and Brashen, another crewman on the Vivacia. This immediately makes for a grander, more epic story as the author moves between different characters.

Whilst this loses the immediacy of the Farseer books and the deep connection with Fitz, it does allow Hobb to cover the story from more angles and explain things more clearly rather than filtering all of the exposition and information through Fitz alone. It's a good move, justifying the novel's impressive page count (over 870 pages in paperback) rather more convincingly than the Farseer books, which felt rather padded out to reach such lengths.

 

Indeed, although I've only to date read Hobb's first six novels, Ship of Magic is easily the best. The story is epic, but it feels tight with naturalistic character development of a large cast and events proceed at a steady clip. Hobb's main skill has always been in the development of a convincing emotional connection to the characters and that skill is in impressive form here. We share Althea's frustration and betrayal, Wintrow's shock and hurt at his relationship with his father Kyle and the casual betrayal of his calling, Ronica's uneasy dealings with the Rain Wild Traders as she tries to protect her family's holdings and Kennit's ambitions as he strives to make his people more than what they are.

Kennit is easily Hobb's most fascinating character to date. He is greedy, selfish and arrogant, but he also has a fast-moving intelligence and wit and altruistic outcomes see to flow from his self-centred acts. Kennit's ability to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances on the fly and ensure that he always comes out on top is impressive. Kennit clearly has negative characteristics, but it's not entirely clear in Ship of Magic if he is supposed to be a villain. Indeed, it is Kyle Haven who more readily fulfils that role in this book.

Ship of Magic (*****) is an outstanding fantasy novel, and an impressive return to form after the disappointing slog that was Assassin's Quest. The book moves with pace and vigour despite its length, the cast of characters is fascinating, the worldbuilding subtle but convincing, the background politics intriguing and the book moves with tremendous purpose. The ending will leave you eager to read the next book, The Mad Ship, immediately. The novel is available now in the UK and USA.

Assassin's Quest by Robin Hobb

Betrayed, tortured and left for dead, Fitz has survived the depredations of his mad uncle Regal and been taken to safety in the countryside of the Six Duchies. Plagued by nightmares and trauma, Fitz eventually recovers enough to swear himself to two tasks: the murder of Regal and the safe rescue of Verity, the long-missing true king.

Assassin's Quest concludes the Farseer Trilogy in a manner that I don't think anyone was quite expecting. The first two volumes of the Farseer series are traditional epic fantasies in many respects, but ones where more overt displays of magic and violence are rolled back in favour of a deeper emotional storyline and character development. Still, with their intrigue, battles, romance and betrayals (if separated by lots of long-winded introspection), there is much of the standard fantasy template within them.

Assassin's Quest is completely different. In fact, it's a very strange book. For most of the novel we are firmly in Fitz's head as he undergoes what can best be described as a PTSD-induced nervous and near-mental breakdown after the trauma he suffered at the end of Royal Assassin. Suffering severe depression and making awful judgement calls (as everyone calls him on but himself), Fitz has to first find himself and restore his confidence before he can embark on his long-delayed true quest, which is to find and rescue Verity. Eventually, after crossing (with agonising slowness and quite astonishing amounts of angst) the entire length of the Six Duchies, Fitz overcomes his demons and gets on with the story. The problem is that this happens some around page 500, meaning that the novel only then has 300 pages to wrap the entire trilogy up in.

You might imagine this means that those last 300 pages are full of incident and plot and character development as Hobb brings the story across the finish line? Not so much. Those 300 pages still meander, circling around major plot and character moments for dozens of pages before landing (and often exactly where the reader can see them going). Eventually, in the last few pages of the book, the author explains the background of the Elderlings, Forging, the Red Ship Raiders, the Skill and many other aspects of her world, but it comes so abruptly after almost 800 pages of slow-burning despair that it feels highly anti-climactic.

In some ways you have to respect Hobb for crafting such an utterly strange ending to a fantasy trilogy, one that shys away from convention and ignores every rule of plot structure and pacing. In many respects Hobb was writing a profoundly anti-epic fantasy, something similar to what Patrick Rothfuss appears to be doing with his trilogy (only with rather less humour), and in its sacrifice of plot and action and exposition for character and a realistic approach to how a real human mind might cope with the craziness of your average epic fantasy adventure, Hobb is clearly doing something different.

But different does not mean good and the thing about experiments is that they sometimes just don't work. Assassin's Quest has fine moments of characterisation (probably best exemplified in the relationship between Fitz and the Fool), some real moments of jaw-clenching terror and some very odd moments of real magical weirdness, but it is also a novel that unfolds with all the verve, pacing and tension of watching a lethargic snail travel thirty miles. The massive stakes and tensions raised over the course of almost 1,200 pages across the first two volumes are effectively handwaved away at the end of the novel: the Red Ship Raiders are defeated off-screen, the Fool remains resolutely unexplained and most of Fitz's friends and allies remain in complete ignorance that he is alive.

Obviously we know now there is more to come in the Tawny Man and Fitz and the Fool trilogies, but on its own merits Assassin's Quest (**½) is an altogether unsatisfying conclusion to the first series, languid to the point of unconsciousness until the too-rushed ending. There are some wonderful atmosphere moments and some occasionally effective dialogue, but overall it is a disappointing novel. Still, it is followed up by the far superior Liveship Traders trilogy. The novel is available now in the UK and USA.

Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb

Winter has fallen, bringing a brief respite from the depredations of the Red Ship Raiders. Fitz, returning to Buckkeep from the Mountain Kingdom, finds Prince Verity working hard to build ships and watchtowers to defend the coast, but everywhere the conniving Prince Regal is working to undermine his brother and pave his own way to the throne. When Verity embarks on an ill-advised quest to help save his kingdom, it falls to Fitz to try to hold everything together in his absence.

The middle volume of The Farseer Trilogy is Robin Hobb's attempt to avoid "middle book syndrome", that annoying situation where a book has no real opening or ending. As such, Royal Assassin tries to work as its own self-contained story in the structure of both the larger trilogy and the much larger Realm of the Elderling sequence beyond that.

In this endeavour, the author is mostly successful. Royal Assassin continues the storyline of Assassin's Apprentice, with FitzChivalry Farseer trying to overcome his status as the illegitimate son of a dead prince and a secret assassin to become a respected member of the court. He hopes to woo his childhood love, but King Shrewd wants him to marry for political advantage instead. Regal hopes to undermine and destroy Fitz, but Fitz's willingness to lead from the front and throw himself into battle against the Red Ship Raiders stymies him, as do Fitz's growing magical powers (in both the animalistic Wit and the telepathic Skill) and his canny support of Verity's bride, the Queen-in-Waiting Kettricken. Events boil over at the book's ending, which features a powerfully emotional moment of catharsis (arguably still the highlight of the entire sixteen-volume Elderling series to date) and setting the scene for the final confrontation in Assassin's Quest.

Hobb's facility with prose is enviable, creating a rich and engrossing fantasy world. Things may not move too far from the medieval fantasy norm and some of the worldbuilding doesn't entirely ring true (such as the vast size of the Six Duchies but the tiny size of its settlements and its apparently extremely low population), but for the most part the world of the Six Duchies is vividly and memorably portrayed. Her facility for characterisation also remains intact, with Kettricken, Patience, Burrich, Molly and Nighteyes all being well-drawn and convincing characters as well as Fitz himself.

Fitz has always been a problem for some readers, especially since the trilogy is told in the first person from his perspective. In the first volume Fitz was a little too passive and reactive and that problem persists into this second volume. However, in the latter half of Royal Assassin he does become more proactive in opposing Regal's plans. He even engages in some very mild political intrigue. It's no A Game of Thrones, but it does up the stakes a little at a key moment of the story.

Some of Hobb's key weaknesses as a writer do re-emerge in this volume, however. Her ability to conjure up the unfairness of life and the mountain of problems Fitz must struggle to overcome is remarkable, but there is also chapter after chapter where Fitz stews in the alleged utter misery of his life - as a favoured servant and assassin with a cool telepathic wolf companion and a beautiful, strong-willed girlfriend who loves him absolutely - whilst not really doing anything. It's still not as much of a problem as in later novels, but there is an interminable middle section to the novel and it feels like a comfortable 200 pages could have been shaved off the page count (already approaching twice the length of Assassin's Apprentice) without too much trouble.

Royal Assassin (****) is a bigger novel than its forebear and one with more political intrigue and action, at land and at sea. However, it's also overlong and suffers the same issues as its forebear but stretched over a longer page count: a plot that kicks into gear only intermittently and a protagonist too reactive for his own good. But Hobb's skills with character and emotion, and evoking her world in rich detail, continue to prove remarkable. The novel is available now in the UK and USA.

Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb

The Six Duchies are troubled by internal strife. King Shrewd's eldest son and heir, Prince Chivalry, has fathered an illegitimate son. Riven by guilt and controversy, Chivalry abdicates his position and goes into into exile. His son, Fitz, is raised in Buckkeep and tutored in the ways of becoming an assassin. For King Shrewd, Fitz is a weapon he can use to further the cause of his kingdom. But all Fitz wants is a home and a place to belong.

Assassin's Apprentice, originally published in 1995, is the first volume in The Farseer Trilogy, the first of nine books focused on the character of Fitz and also the first book in a sixteen-volume series entitled The Realm of the Elderlings. For a book that launched an enormously successful series, it is relatively small-scale and restrained.

This is traditional epic fantasy, but one that is slanted a little from the standard. It's medieval faux Europe, but the land of the Six Duchies is based on Alaska (albeit a slightly warmer one) and the neighbouring Mountain Kingdom is more inspired by Tibet. There are existential threats - the Red Ship Raiders who ravage the coastline and the threat of civil war - but for the most part these are kept firmly in the background. Assassin's Apprentice is primarily the coming of age tale of FitzChivalry Farseer as he grows up, gains allies, masters the art of the assassin and encounters two forms of magic: the Skill, a form of telepathic communication and control, and the Wit, a bond of empathy with animals.

Robin Hobb's greatest strength is her deft hand with charaterisation and her naturalistic way of presenting the world. Her greatest weakness is a tendency to meander, to have characters sitting around talking about the plot rather than getting on with things and taking a hundred pages to do what a more concise author would do in ten. These weaknesses manifest much more strongly in the later volumes of the series, however. Assassin's Apprentice is, at 480 pages in paperback, relatively short and breezy by Hobb's standards with both a strong character focus and clarity of storytelling.

Much of your enjoyment of these books relies on your engagement with the main character, Fitz. Fitz is an introverted, introspective young man who spends a lot of time reacting to events rather than taking decisive action (this changes in later novels, in which he is a lot less passive). This can be frustrating, but it is also realistic: Fitz occupies a place less than nobility but more than being a peasant, and this dichotomy leaves him isolated and almost friendless, his position in the world uncertain and unreliable. It is only towards the end of the volume, when he visits the Mountain Kingdom and encounters people less concerned with rank and pomp, that he is able to come out of his shell a little. As it stands, Fitz is a mildly engaging but far-from-compelling central character. However, he does serve as an effectively unreliable narrator: the further things and events are from Fitz's perspective, the less reliable they are. This serves to upset reader expectations several times over the course of the trilogy. It's not exactly Gene Wolfe, but it is an effective way of getting the reader to share in Fitz's biases and ignorance before presenting them with the truth of events later on.

Hobb is a superior prose writer and a gifted communicator of emotions and atmosphere. Although it's not a primary focus of her writing, she is also a good writer of horror: the Forged, people with their morals stripped away to be turned into monstrous echoes of their former selves, are a truly disturbing fantasy creation. In terms of politics she stumbles a little. Concluding events in the Mountain Kingdom are highly implausible and the way that Fitz escapes retribution for the events people genuinely believe that he has committed is extremely unconvincing. Fitz should be dead three times over before the book ends and the fact he isn't stretches the suspension of disbelief to the breaking point.

But there's also a lot to enjoy here. Fitz's tortured upbringing, his relationship with Burrich and Chade, and his punishing tutelage under Galen are all vividly (and sometimes painfully) described. The Red Ship Raiders are an intriguing enemy and the Forged a horrifying creation. Certainly the novel leaves one wanting to move onto the sequel, Royal Assassin.

Assassin's Apprentice (****) is thus a conflicted book: extremely well-written with a interesting backdrop and a terrific atmosphere, but with a plot that is a bit start-stop and political intrigue that is rather undercooked. But in terms of emotional engagement and its use of an unreliable narrator, Hobb is a formidable writer. The novel is available now in the UK and USA.

TAWNY MAN trilogy gets spectacularly awful new covers

For inexplicable reasons, the American editions of Robin Hobb's Tawny Man Trilogy have been given some new covers which are quite remarkably terrible.

Fool's Errand: 17th Century gentleman out for a stroll after a hard day oppressing the peasantry.

Golden Fool: Benedict Cumberbatch playing a dapper version of the Witcher.

Fool's Fate: Art director trudges into Swiss mountains in search of John Howe to beg for his return.

This is a series of books that was once (in the UK) graced by cover art from the monumental John Howe. Even the original American covers were better than this. Urgh.

They also revealed a preview of the next reprint cover they are planning for the series:

(thanks to my friend Carol for that idea)

A History of Epic Fantasy - Part 27

Summing up what epic fantasy is and is not is difficult. The barest tropes of the genre - big armies, travelogues, magic - can be used to define it, but it always feels like it's describing the symptoms and not the causes of why people write the genre, and why people read it. One potential definition is that epic fantasy is the story of big events channelled through the eyes of a small number of well-defined characters whom the audience invests in.

Or to put it another way, we may be interested in Middle-earth as a place and a collection of societies, but we only get interested in it through the actions of characters we empathise with: Bilbo, Frodo, Gandalf, Gollum etc. The same with Westeros. The war for the Iron Throne is irrelevant if the reader does not care about Ned Stark or Tyrion Lannister or Daenerys Targaryen. Arguably epic fantasy can go off the rails when the scope balloons and so many characters are brought in that the tension and pace can become diffuse, a problem struggled with by many of even the best and most critically lauded authors in the genre. This tension between the macro and micro-scale, between the personal stories of characters we love and the epic struggle of clashing armies and gods and philosophies, arguably lies at the core of the appeal of epic fantasy and how different authors approach it can determine their success. It often feels like fantasy authors, when in doubt, move in favour of the massive, epic scale and throw so many new ideas, new characters and new magic systems into their narratives that they can risk overload or crashing the momentum of their series.

In 1995 a novel was published which firmly tilted in the opposite direction, where big things happened but the perspective was tightly limited (at least for most of the books). This gave rise to one of the biggest-selling, most critically lauded and respected fantasy series of the last fifteen years: The Realm of the Elderlings mega-sequence by Robin Hob.

Assassin's Apprentice & Ship of Magic

Of course, it didn't start out that way. Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden had published her very first novel, Harpy's Flight in 1983. By the early 1990s she'd been writing novels for ten years and had released ten books in the adventure fantasy field (and also a single SF novel, Alien Earth). These had been released under pen-name, Megan Lindholm. In July 1993 she concluded a deal with Bantam for three further books, this time an epic fantasy trilogy. The first volume at this point had the working title Chivalry's Bastard.

By the time the book was completed and delivered, the author and her publisher agreed it was a very different kind of novel for her. It was longer, more complex and much more adult. It was decided to remarket the novel as coming from a new author. She picked the name "Robin Hobb" after discovering that the "H" row was often on a perfect eyeline for an adult browsing the shelves in a bookstore.

Retitled Assassin's Apprentice, the novel was released in April 1995 and was immediately successful. Two heavyweight fantasy artists - Michael Whelan in the United States and John Howe in the United Kingdom - provided excellent covers. Reviews were very strong. The book was fairly traditional, focusing on the character of Fitz, the bastard son of the king's heir who is reluctantly allowed to live in the royal household but finds himself at something of a loose end. He is trained by the royal assassin, Chade, and uncovers political intrigue with his half-uncle Regal seeking to usurp the throne, the Six Duchies facing attacks by the mysterious Outislanders and relations with the Mountain Kingdom being strained. Royal Assassin (1996) and Assassin's Quest (1997) continue and resolve these issues, the three books together forming The Farseer Trilogy.

However, although the books feature political intrigue, two magic systems (the Skill and the Wit) and occasional bouts of violence, their popularity rested on a series of relationships: between Fitz and his wolf, Nighteyes; between Fitz and his mentor Chade, and his uncle Verity; and, most tantalisingly, between Fitz and the highly enigmatic Fool. The trilogy ended on a positive note, but Fitz did not seem to have truly found happiness at its conclusion.

Robin Hobb went on to write The Liveship Traders (1998-2000), a further trilogy set in the same world but along the coast of the continent to the south. This trilogy focuses on the families of Bingtown, who have developed the ability to carve ships controlled by sentient figureheads. Initially the books revolve around the battle within a family for ownership of the liveship Vivacia, but as the narrative unfolds the scope expands. Unlike the Farseer series, which was written in first-person, Liveship is written from a more traditional third-person viewpoint and encompasses a wide range of characters living in different locales. This trilogy features more compelling and original worldbuilding than Farseer, which is very traditional, but also is notable for giving the primary villain a journey and arc of his own that is understandable and sympathetic. Indeed, Hobb arguably is too successful in making Kennit a relatable figure and the decision to have him revert to pure villainy by becoming a rapist feels heavy-handed. But overall The Liveship Traders is as strong and readable a series as its forebear, benefiting from the shift in location and theme.

Hobb returned to Fitz's story in The Tawny Man (2001-03), which followed up on his adventures fifteen years after the events of Farseer. More intriguingly, it touched on events in The Liveship Traders and started pulling together story threads revolving around the Liveships, sea serpents, dragons and the extinct race of mysterious Elderlings, providing a larger-scaled and more mythic backdrop for the series. However, the focus remained resolutely on the key characters.

Hobb took a break from Fitz's world to write the Shaman's Crossing trilogy (2005-08), set on a completely different world with gunpowder. Although well-regarded, it wasn't as successful critically as her Elderling mega-series. She subsequently returned to the setting of the Rain Wilds, touched on in both the Farseer and Liveship story strands, for a four-volume series expanding on that region, The Rain Wild Chronicles (2009-13). This led Hobb to write Fitz and the Fool (2014-17, est), a new trilogy continuing (and perhaps wrapping up) the story of Fitz and his enigmatic friend, now emerging as arguably the central figure of the entire saga.

The Robin Hobb books feature all the hallmarks of epic fantasy, but her prose and dialogue style are a marked improvement over much of the genre and her focus on character over the furniture of the setting is highly laudable. Her approach is also hugely appealing on a wide level. Her books were Harper Voyager's biggest-selling series until A Song of Ice and Fire overtook them in the early 2000s, and she has enormous respect from her peers. Authors as different as George R.R. Martin and Steven Erikson are big fans, and The Telegraph even called the first book of the Fitz and the Fool sequence "High art." If the books have a weakness it may be a traditional one: excessive verbiage with the streamlined opening volumes of both Farseer and The Liveship Traders being dwarfed by the concluding volumes of each trilogy (each almost double the size of the first), and the Rain Wild Chronicles expanding almost uncontrollably from a duology to a four-volume series.

But at her best Robin Hobb is one of the most human and humane writers in the field, writing intelligently and with clarity about people and what makes them tick, whilst also remembering to throw in the requisite fantasy cool stuff like dragons and sentient sailing ships.


By the end of the 1990s the genre's success appeared secured through the arrival and establishing of a new breed of epic fantasy authors writing with greater skill and interest in characters and people, whilst also being more willing to delve into the darker side of the genre. But a parallel subset of fantasy was also developing which wanted to turn over all the rules and do something really different. Really...weird.

A History of Epic Fantasy - Part 12

Of course, fantasy fiction has always had its female writers. But, even in 2015, epic fantasy still has a reputation of being a male-dominated genre. Authors like Tolkien, Martin, Rothfuss and Sanderson are talked about on a daily basis and female writers tend not to be...with a few exceptions like a certain J.K. Rowling.

A Wizard of Earthsea

As related previously, a key bridging work between The Lord of the Rings and the epic fantasy explosion of the late 1970s was Ursula K. LeGuin's A Wizard of Earthsea (1968), which was followed by four successors: The Tombs of Atuan (1972), The Farthest Shore (1973), Tehanu (1990) and The Other Wind (2001), along with the Tales from Earthsea short story collection (2001). The Earthsea series was set in a secondary world consisting of a vast, world-girdling ocean and numerous islands. Magic was real and treated as a science, with students learning how to use it in academies, whilst dragons play an important role. The human characters are also mostly dark-skinned, a result of the location of the Earthsea on its planet. SyFy's TV adaptation of the series in 2004 was largely reviled for "whitewashing" the cast. The setting and ethnicity of the characters also moved it away from the Tolkien model (and the one still prevalent in epic fantasy) of using western Europe as a primary influence.

Deryni Rising

Another author writing at the same time went in a different direction. When Katherine Kurtz set out to write a fantasy novel, she threw herself into European history (Welsh in particular) to map out the Eleven Kingdoms, the setting for Deryni Rising (1970) and numerous sequels. The Deryni series, as it came to be known, is set in a land reminiscent of Western Europe (the British Isles in particular) in the early Middle Ages, with a strong focus on religious faith. Rather then telling one large mega-story, Kurtz divided her story into smaller and more easily digestible trilogies, as well as treating the series like historical fiction. The series is sometimes called "historical fantasy" for the rigour with which Kurtz treats her story and setting, and is closer in style to the likes of Maurice Druon and Dorothy Dunnett than Tolkien and Howard. This type of "historical fantasy" has more recent successors in the likes of Raymond E. Feist and George R.R. Martin.

The Deryni series seems to have become fairly obscure over the years, which is unfortunate because it set the tone and format for many of the fantasy novels that would follow.

Dragonflight

We've touched upon Anne McCaffrey before, but the epic fantasy boom of the late 1970s proved to be a boon to her career. She had published Dragonflight and Dragonquest in 1968 and 1970 but the books had not been big successes. She'd envisaged a trilogy, but held off on writing the final volume. Instead she wrote a companion series, The Harper Hall Trilogy (1976-79), for a different publisher. The nascent Del Rey reprinted Dragonflight and Dragonquest with a lot of fanfare and allowed McCaffrey to both complete the trilogy and write additional books in the series.

The Dragonriders of Pern series is rationalised fantasy, where the fantastic premise - humans riding dragons that can destroy an infectious substance called "Thread" that falls from the sky as the result of the close passage to Pern by a rogue planet - is given a hard SF explanation. The books are set two thousand years after the colonisation of Pern by humans, with human society having become more primitive due to the constant dangers of Threadfall. In numerous sequels and prequels, McCaffrey would explore the colonisation of Pern, the genetic engineering of the dragons to combat Thread and numerous other aspects of the world. Later books were written in collaboration with her son Todd. Despite its SF rationale, the Pern books played an important role in furthering the role of dragons as a key cornerstone of epic fantasy mythology.

The Mists of Avalon

If epic fantasy owes a lot to The Lord of the Rings, it may owe even more to the legend of King Arthur. Developed over centuries, the legend about the youth who rises to greatness as the King of England but is then overthrown by hubris, jealousy and (in some versions) incest has proven immensely popular. However, it is also a story in which the men, particularly the Knights of the Round Table, are usually given centre stage.

Originally published in 1983, The Mists of Avalon was a surprising change of pace for Marion Zimmer Bradley, up to that point known more for her lengthy Darkover series of science fiction novels and a series of horror novels. The Mists of Avalon is told from the point of view of Morgaine, usually presented as a villainous figure but here treated with some sympathy. The story also focuses on other female characters from the legend, presenting a familiar story from a feminist perspective.

Although arguably not epic fantasy itself, The Mists of Avalon would foreshadow other fantasy authors who would base their work on existing mythology and history before spinning it in original ways, such as Garry Kilworth's Polynesian-influenced Navigator Kings trilogy and the works of Guy Gavriel Kay.

Stormwarden

Likewise mixing fantasy and SF was Janny Wurts. In 1984 (after publishing a stand-alone novel called Sorcerer's Legacy two years prior) she wrote Stormwarden, the first volume in the Cycle of Fire trilogy, which is set centuries after a starship crashes on a planet whilst carrying alien prisoners-of-war. The trilogy pitches the primitive descendants of the human crew against the descendants of the aliens (now believed to be demons) in a trilogy featuring action, politics and numerous seafaring scenes.

Wurts's work came to the attention of Raymond E. Feist and they decided to collaborate on a trilogy set during the events of his seminal novel Magician. This became the Empire Trilogy, starting with Daughter of the Empire (1987), now considered to be one of the more accomplished words in the epic fantasy subgenre and arguably one of the best things either author has written. In 1993 Wurts began her immense Wars of Light and Shadow mega-series, which would eventually comprise eleven novels spread out over five sub-series; two more books remain to bring this huge undertaking to completion.

Arrows of the Queen

First published in 1987, Arrows of the Queen was the first volume of The Heralds of Valdemar. Author Mercedes Lackey had been a student and protege of authors such as Andre Norton and Marion Zimmer Bradley, contributing short stories to Bradley's Darkover shared universe, before embarking on her own epic fantasy series. Her debut novel revolved around a young farm girl who is chosen to become the Queen's Own Herald, gaining magical powers in the process and trying to win respect from her peers.

The Valdemar series now stands at 32 novels published in 13 distinct sub-series, with another eight collections of short stories and a companion volume, approximately tying it with Terry Pratchett's Discworld and Piers Anthony's Xanth as the most prolific fantasy series of modern times. Lackey's novels feature romance, adventure and magic, and her fans are happy to have an extremely prolific author: as well as the Valdemar series, Lackey has published at least another 120 novels, making her arguably the most prolific SFF author since Isaac Asimov.

Dragon Prince

In 1988 Melanie Rawn published Dragon Prince, a fantasy novel involving - yet again - dragons but this time in a desert setting (at least to start with). The book uses the traditional tropes of magic, a well-defined setting and political-religious intrigue, but combines it with romance, which resonated strongly with readers. This book spawned five sequels across two trilogies.

Rawn would later write other stand-alone novels and additional series, but her most popular work, the Exiles Trilogy, remains incomplete after almost twenty years.

Harpy's Flight

Published in 1983, this was the debut novel by Megan Lindholm. Set in a harsh mountainous landscape, the book and its sequels focus on harpies (a popular mythological creature under-utilised in modern fantasy) and the humans who serve them. In its own terms, this was a solid debut but not a major work. Far more interesting, however, is the fact that twelve years later the author would launch a new series about assassins under a pen name which would rapidly become one of the most accomplished and famous in the fantasy genre: Robin Hobb.

In the mid-1980s fantasy received another major boost in popularity from another source. As already related, fantasy had inspired the creation of the Dungeons and Dragons roleplaying game in 1974, but in 1984 the D&D game returned the favour and provided the genre with a trilogy which would become one of the very biggest-selling works of the decade.

Waterstones fail to recognise female fantasy authors

Fantasy author Foz Meadows recently published this article, in which she challenged the failure of Waterstones (the UK's only remaining nationwide chain of bookstores) to recognise female fantasy authors - or SF authors for that matter - in their 2012 literature on the SFF genre. No less than 113 authors are listed in the booklet but only nine of them are female, which is rather an eyebrow-raising imbalance.

Could do better.

Juliet E. McKenna expands on this by claiming to have seen lots of "If you like George R.R. Martin, why not try..."-style lists in bookshops, almost invariably consisting solely of male authors. Apparently, when she challenged one bookshop on why this was so, she was told "Women don't write epic fantasy." This is blatantly untrue, and it was rather idiotic of them to say so to an author with no less than fifteen epic fantasy novels under her belt. Indeed, when people have asked me what authors they should be reading after getting hooked on the likes of Martin or Abercrombie or Lynch, I often surprise myself with how many of the recommendations that come to mind are women.

So, without further ado, here is a brief list of female epic fantasy authors you should check out if you've gotten hooked on the genre via Martin or Game of Thrones:

Robin Hobb

Robin Hobb, aka Megan Lindholm (both pen-names of Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden), writes trilogies featuring epic battles and magical creatures (including dragons), but is resolutely focused on her characters. She enjoys writing characters who have their own motivations which make sense to them, no matter how they are painted as heroes or villains by others. Martin is a huge fan, as is Steven Erikson, and she has enjoyed a lengthy and prolific career. In fact, Martin has cited Hobb's use of animal magic as one of several influences on the warging in A Song of Ice and Fire.

Her best-known works are the five sub-series set in the Realm of the Elderlings, comprising the Farseer, Liveship Traders and Tawny Man trilogies and the Rain Wild Chronicles quartet, plus a forthcoming series currently planned to be a trilogy, The Fitz and the Fool. Hobb broke away from this series to write an unrelated work, The Soldier Son Trilogy, which was not as well-received. Writing under the pen name Megan Lindholm, she also wrote ten earlier books, mostly aimed at younger readers.

Key works
The Farseer Trilogy: Assassin's Apprentice (1995), Royal Assassin (1996), Assassin's Quest (1997)
The Liveship Traders Trilogy: Ship of Magic (1998), The Mad Ship (1999), Ship of Destiny (2000)
The Tawny Man Trilogy: Fool's Errand (2001), The Golden Fool (2002), Fool's Fate (2003)
The Soldier Son Trilogy: Shaman's Crossing (2005), Forest Mage (2006), Renegade's Magic (2008)
The Rain Wild Chronicles: Dragon Keeper (2009), Dragon Haven (2010), City of Dragons (2011), Blood of Dragons (2011)
The Fitz and the Fool: The Fool's Assassin (2014)

Kate Elliott

Kate Elliott is the pen-name of Alis A. Ramussen, under which name she published a fantasy, The Labyrinth Gate and an SF series, The Highroad Trilogy. After apparently disappointing early sales, she changed her writing name and returned with the SF Jaran series in the early 1990s. This was more successful and she has followed it up with a series of epic fantasies, including her more recent work, the Crossroads and Spiritwalker series.

However, Elliott's largest and best-known series is Crown of Stars, a seven-volume epic published between 1997 and 2006. If Martin's Song of Ice and Fire depicts a world set at the tail end of the medieval period, with armies in the tens of thousands, shining knights and full plate armour, Crown of Stars is set at the opposite end, when any army larger than a thousand is huge and kings tour their countries on endless processions rather than being tied to single capitals. Heavily influenced by real medieval European history (to the point where Crown of Stars can also be called an alternate history based on 9th and 10th Century Germany and Eastern Europe), Elliott weaves a large number of storylines focusing on themes such as war, chivalry religion and gender issues without dialling back (though also not over-emphasising) on the brutality of the period. Perhaps slightly overlong, but also genuinely thought-provoking.

Crossroads, which will eventually encompass at least seven novels set across three generations, is also interesting. Set in a world not based explicitly on any period of real history, it features a number of carefully-created original cultures clashing for control of a land called the Hundred. The original Crossroads trilogy will be followed by a new book later this year, The Black Wolves, set some years later.

Key works
The Golden Key (1996, with Melanie Rawn and Jennifer Roberson)
The Jaran Series: Jaran (1992), An Earthly Crown (1993), His Conquering Sword (1993), The Law of Becoming (1994)
Crown of Stars: King's Dragon (1997), Prince of Dogs (1998), The Burning Stone (1999), Child of Flame (2000), The Gathering Storm (2003), In the Ruins (2005), Crown of Stars (2006)
Crossroads: Spirit Gate (2007), Shadow Gate (2008), Traitors' Gate (2009), The Black Wolves (2014)
Spiritwalker: Cold Magic (2010), Cold Fire (2011), Cold Steel (2013)

Elizabeth Bear

Elizabeth Bear is an author I'm only recently acquainted with, thanks to her superb Eternal Sky Trilogy. However, she has published many novels in several different subgenres (including SF and urban fantasy), including her acclaimed Iskryne series, co-written with Sarah Monette.

The Eternal Sky trilogy is an epic fantasy set on an alternate version of the central Asian steppes, with a race of nomadic tribesmen who recall George R.R. Martin's Dothraki. However, whilst the Dothraki are (partly) based on the Asian nomads at the very start of their expansion and rise to power, Bear's series deals with a far more sophisticated and subtle people, depicted as intelligent warriors and capable engineers rather than just hordes of plunderers and rapists. It also features some intriguingly weird magic (the skies over each nation and culture are somehow different) and deliciously rich characterisation.

Key works
The Eternal Sky Trilogy: Range of Ghosts (2012), Shattered Pillars (2013), Steles of the Sky (2014)

J.V. Jones

Julie Victoria Jones hit the ground running with The Baker's Boy in 1995. Boosted by a Robert Jordan cover quote, it rapidly became one of the biggest-selling fantasy novels of the year and propelled her onto the bestseller lists. It was a rough novel, not unexpectedly for a debut, and she improved in leaps and bounds over the remainder of the Book of Words trilogy and a further stand-alone novel, The Barbed Coil. However, Jones found a different and far more sophisticated level of writing ability with her Sword of Shadows series, a decade and a half in the making and still incomplete.

Sword of Shadows is a (very loose) sequel to The Book of Words and picks up the story of the daughter of the previous trilogy's hero, as well as a whole host of new characters. It is set beyond the northern mountains in a bleak subarctic wilderness, heavily influenced by Scandinavia and the Inuit tribes. If you enjoyed those parts of A Song of Ice and Fire set beyond the Wall, this series is for you, with descriptions of snow and ice so vivid you may want to wrap up warm before reading. Unfortunately, Jones also seems to be emulating Martin's five-year gaps between volumes, but this is one of those series where the books are worth the long waits.

Key works
The Barbed Coil (1998)
The Book of Words: The Baker's Boy (1995), A Man Betrayed (1996), Master and Fool (1997)
The Sword of Shadows: A Cavern of Black Ice (1999), A Fortress of Grey Ice (2002), A Sword from Red Ice (2007), Watcher of the Dead (2010), Endlords (forthcoming)

Kameron Hurley

A relative newcomer, Hurley's works are challenging, direct and different. Her first trilogy is apparently SF, but magic (based around the manipulation of different kings of bugs) is liberally used. Her current series is an epic fantasy with a difference, set in a world which is being invaded by forces from its own parallel dimension, with the twist that only people whose doppelgangers are dead in the other universe can pass through. Hurley's books are complex, thought-provoking and vitally infused with life and action.

Hurley is also a prolific and essayist. She won a Hugo Award for "We Have Always Fought", an essay challenging the lazy gender assumptions prevalent in epic fantasy and science fiction based on erroneous understandings of history.

Key works
The Stars Are Legion (2016)
The Geek Feminist Revolution (2016)

The Bel Dame Apocrypha: God's War (2010), Rapture (2011), Infidel (2012)
The Mirror Empire: The Mirror Empire (2014), Empire Ascendant (2015), Broken Heavens (2017)

N.K. Jemisin

N.K. Jemisin is a relative newcomer, but made her mark on the genre with The Inheritance Trilogy (no, not that one) and the Dreamblood duology. The latter - which regrettably is so far all I've read - is set in a fantasised take on Egypt that completely avoids cliche: no cat-headed people fighting sphinxes, thankfully. Instead, it's a well-thought-out, intelligent take on the fantasy genre and its conventions about religion, power and gender roles, whilst also being a kick-arse adventure story set in a fantasy world refreshingly not based on Medieval Europe. Her next book, The Fifth Season, is out later this year.

Key works
The Fifth Season (2014)
The Inheritance Trilogy: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (2010), The Broken Kingdoms (2010), The Kingdom of Gods (2011)
The Dreamblood: The Killing Moon (2012), The Shadowed Sun (2012)

Juliet E. McKenna

Juliet E. McKenna is a prominent member of the UK SFF community, noted for her role in the writing collective The Write Fantastic. She has penned (as mentioned above) fifteen fantasy novels in four series, though all set on the same world.

I read her debut novel, The Thief's Gamble (featuring a female thief and rogue), when it was first released and found it highly enjoyable. Unfortunately, I haven't read the rest of her books but look forward to doing so.

Key works
The Tales of Einarinn: The Thief's Gamble (1999), The Swordsman's Oath (1999), The Gambler's Fortune (2000), The Warrior's Bond (2001), The Assassin's Edge (2002)

The Aldabreshin Compass: Southern Fire (2003), Northern Storm (2004), Western Shore (2005), Eastern Tide (2006)
The Chronicles of the Lescari Revolution: Irons in the Fire (2009), Blood in the Water (2010), Banners in the Wind (2010)
The Hadrumal Crisis: Dangerous Waters (2011), Darkening Skies (2012), Defiant Peaks (2012)

J.K. Rowling

You may have heard of her. And yes, I count her books as epic fantasy.

This is only scratching the surface here, so hit me with some more epic fantasies (or, sod it, fantasy in general) written by women in the comments.

ETA: When this article was originally published, it included K.J. Parker, at the time widely reported by the publishers to be female. It was later revealed that K.J. Parker is in fact comic fantasy author Tom Holt. As a result, the entry has been removed from the list and replaced by the more than deserving Kameron Hurley.

New cover art

Some upcoming cover art, courtesy of Jussi at Westeros.org once more:

First up, the American cover for Blood of Dragons, the fourth volume in The Rain Wild Chronicles by Robin Hobb. This book is due for publication in the UK and USA in April 2013:

Next up is the American cover for Great North Road, Peter F. Hamilton's new massive SF epic. This book will be out in the USA in December this year (and September in the UK):

The final UK cover art for Iain M. Banks's The Hydrogen Sonata, the latest excursion to The Culture. This book will be out in the UK and USA in September this year:

Rounding things off is the UK artwork for The Dirty Streets of Heaven, the first in Tad Williams's new urban fantasy series. This book will be out in both the UK and USA in September as well: