Series review: The Rain Wild Chronicles

Life tip for a Rain Wilder: do not get dating advice from a dragon. Or from a boat.

Hello, lovely people! Today I’m reviewing the Rain Wild Chronicles, which are four books of the Realm of the Elderlings series by Robin Hobb. The events in these books are set sometime after the events of the Tawny Man trilogy.

Too much time has passed since the powerful dragon Tintaglia helped the people of the Trader cities stave off an invasion of their enemies. The Traders have forgotten their promises, weary of the labor and expense of tending earthbound dragons who were hatched weak and deformed by a river turned toxic. If neglected, the creatures will rampage–or die–so it is decreed that they must move farther upriver toward Kelsingra, the mythical homeland whose location is locked deep within the dragons’ uncertain ancestral memories.

Thymara, an unschooled forest girl, and Alise, wife of an unloving and wealthy Trader, are among the disparate group entrusted with escorting the dragons to their new home. And on an extraordinary odyssey with no promise of return, many lessons will be learned – as dragons and tenders alike experience hardships, betrayals . . . and joys beyond their wildest imaginings.

Synopsis of Dragon Keeper, from Goodreads

I read all four books in quick succession and now I’m kinda hazy about where one book ended and the other began, so I’ll just be listing what I liked and did not like about this series.

What I liked

Erek and Detozi

This is a high stakes epic fantasy but these two people are living their best pen pals to lovers life, all the while investigating birdkeeper workplace corruption. I ADORE them. And because they have no personal investment in the happenings of this story, you get an outsider’s point of view as well.

The world building

These books are all about rediscovering a powerful and potentially dangerous magic system lost to the ages.

One half of the books are spent on a sentient boat made out of illegally obtained…wood (that’s a whole other story). Not travelling in the sea, but upstream on a river where the water is so acidic it could kill you instantly. There are no set riverbanks because of constant flooding, and the people live in houses made on the trees. How cool is that?

And the dragons. With their egg-sea serpent-coccoon-dragon life cycle and venom sacs and arrogance. The dragons are infuriatingly egotistic to read about at times, but they have to be one of the most unique designs for dragons I’ve ever seen.

The boat trip

There is something beautiful in life changing quests, especially when the characters have no idea what their end point is. When people start out with different goals and allegiances and struggles and slowly evolve and get to know one another.

Leftrin, the Tarman and its crew

SPOILERS!! You know what I liked about the Tarman’s crew? From the moment they were introduced I was SO SURE one of them was going to betray the rest. At first I thought it would be Swarge. Then I thought it would be Skelly, when Leftrin and Alise got together and it threatened her inheritance. But no! It never happened! I have a soft spot for teams that weather everything and stay together come hell or high water. And I adored the Tarman, with its creepy painted eyes and illegally installed legs. I love Leftrin, the no-nonsense captain who took one look at Alise and decided that she deserved better.

The Alise Sedric Hest situation

I liked Alise right from the start. She’s mousy and nerdy and it was so good to see her grow through the story. And Sedric, I grew from having a mild distaste towards him to him became one of my favourite characters. Hest was fascinating because he was such a mundane villain – the kind of disgusting abusive person who actually could exist today as well. All three got what they deserved, at the end. Especially Hest.

The Chalced plotline

The Chalced plotline was darker and gruesome than what I expected it to be, but I was invested in the story. Though the way it ended was a bit anti climatic, in my opinion.

Stuff that was just okay

Malta and Reyn

I’ve always found Reyn kind of a boring character. Malta is way more interesting, but she didn’t have much to do in this series (SPOILERS!! except for that one badass moment where she kills her kidnapper immediately after giving birth)

Thymara

Thymara’s such a wonderful character by herself, or when she’s talking to anyone but Tats and Rapskal. Her best moments are when she’s interacting with Sintara, her dragon. The love triangle drags her down.

Carson

(MILD SPOILERS) There are 5…6? queer characters in the Rain Wild Chronicles, which I did not expect. The fact that they are all gay men aside, I wish I knew more about Carson’s character, and I wish there was more build up to Carson and Sedric’s relationship. It felt like it happened out of nowhere.

What I did not like

The love triangle.

There have been love triangles in RotE books before. But they have always leaned towards unspeakably sad in the scale of things (Burrich, Patience and Chivalry, for one). The love triangle in this made me scream in frustration. And it was so damn ANNOYING. I hate it when two male characters just start squabbling over a female character as if they had some preordained right to her, because she was friends with them. The fact that all these were horny hormonal teenagers makes everything worse.

Weird discussions about sex

Greft was a disgusting person and it was painful to read through what seemed like pages upon pages of his weird ideology about how every female character should ‘mate’ with a male character to increase their population (I physically cringed while writing that sentence, ew.) I know most of the dragon keepers are impressionable teenagers but the fact that they all bought into his story? Unbelievable. And it just generally gives me a HUGE ick when human characters talk about sex as ‘mating’ (To be fair, this kinda makes sense in the context of the book, but still). Another thing that made me uncomfortable was the amount of slut shaming towards one character in the first two books.

Everyone ending up with somebody

This is a personal pet peeve of mine but like, even Reyn’s sister who’d been there for like ten pages fell in love with someone? I hate it when this happens in stories.

In conclusion,

The Rain Wild Chronicles it is magical as it is messy. I liked it, though I did not love it.

My rating for the series: ★★★★✩ (3.75 stars)

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