Dragon Keeper by Robin Hobb

The latest book that I just finished reading was Dragon Keeper by Robin Hobb. I have to say that from reading her previous books, I was looking forward to this book as she usually has well developed female characters that are able to play a large role within the story.

This book takes place after her Liveship series, and explores the evolution of dragons. The dragon evolution is shown in a gritty light as most eggs that are hatched as serpents don’t necessarily make it back to incubate later into dragons.

As most fantasy books focus on a idealistic romance between characters who face a euro-centric powerful dragon, it was a nice twist for Robin Hobb’s dragons to be born not perfect and part of a pre-existing dragon-elder person civilization. The birth of this batch of dragons highlights their genetic individualism and the importance of incubation.

Central to this path of discovery, is the 2 female characters who journey through their own trials before joining the dragons and continue to undergo intriguing character development. One is a female scholar who has negotiated within her loveless marriage contract the stipulation that she be able to leave her home in Bridgewater and journey to study the dragons. And the other is a young girl who has grown up near the wild amazon like environment, where the very wilds can alter and impact genetics so that some children are born with genetic anomalies such as scales and thus often are seen as taboo or outcasts.

Above all, I would say that Robin Hobb’s book Dragon Keeper full of stories about growth and change, and is a great fantasy read.