{"id":6748,"date":"2019-12-17T08:25:52","date_gmt":"2019-12-17T14:25:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.delirium.org\/?p=6748"},"modified":"2019-12-17T08:25:52","modified_gmt":"2019-12-17T14:25:52","slug":"fools-errand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/delirium.org\/?p=6748","title":{"rendered":"Fool&#8217;s Errand"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-6751\" src=\"http:\/\/www.delirium.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/6391993.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"318\" height=\"473\" srcset=\"https:\/\/delirium.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/6391993.jpg 318w, https:\/\/delirium.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/6391993-202x300.jpg 202w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 318px) 100vw, 318px\" \/>My Hobbsian (and let&#8217;s be honest, to a very real extent Hobbesian) journey continues, with the first book of the Tawny Man trilogy. <a title=\"Fool's Errand by Robin Hobb, at Amazon\" href=\"https:\/\/smile.amazon.com\/FOOLS-ERRAND-AUTHOR-Paperback-Nov-2002\/dp\/B006DUM0PO\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Fool&#8217;s Errand<\/a>, in addition to being a thoroughly apt title, is a surprisingly focused book. We&#8217;ve returned to Fitz&#8217;s quiet, retired life (one cottage, one wolf, one teenaged ward, one sporadic booty call), and the Fool has returned from wherever the Fool has been[1], and catching up on the last 15 years of not much happening[2] takes up the first third of the book. Then, the remaining thirds are taken up by, well, you <em>know<\/em> Fitz was going to get re-involved in the Farseer family and the fate of the Six-or-Seven Duchies, or else how do you even have a new trilogy starring him? But all of the above covers maybe three weeks. Like I said: focused.<\/p>\n<p>So, there&#8217;s this one small errand to be undertaken, and if it&#8217;s going to cost Fitz everything, that&#8217;s pretty much how these things go. Details would go to the heart of what the book and the trilogy are likely to be about, so I&#8217;ll stay out of them, but I&#8217;m not sure how long it&#8217;s been since I&#8217;ve been pounded so hard over the head by a book, regarding a single unifying theme; in this case, letting go.<\/p>\n<p>The thing that surprised me the most is that I never felt the sense of personal misery from <a title=\"My reviews of the Farseer trilogy\" href=\"http:\/\/www.delirium.org\/?tag=the-farseer\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the first trilogy<\/a>, nor of societal misery from <a title=\"My reviews of the Liveship Traders trilogy\" href=\"http:\/\/www.delirium.org\/?tag=the-liveship-traders\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the second<\/a>. This was mostly a straight adventure story, albeit shot through with threads of quiet, persistent melancholy. But what I&#8217;m saying is, melancholy is <em>so much nicer<\/em> than misery.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, I&#8217;ll keep reading these quickly, because I&#8217;m coming close to needing to finish out the Malazan books, and I don&#8217;t want that big of a gap interrupting this story, in which I am already heavily invested.<\/p>\n<p>[1] I mean, it&#8217;s pretty clear where, but spoilers. And I reserve the faintest sliver of doubt, based on notions of the other prophet and catalyst on the other side of the Red Ship Wars not being a mislead, but instead a clue. But it&#8217;s a very fine sliver indeed.<br \/>\n[2] Or a well-documented trilogy happening, depending upon where you fall in your beliefs about the books<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My Hobbsian (and let&#8217;s be honest, to a very real extent Hobbesian) journey continues, with the first book of the Tawny Man trilogy. Fool&#8217;s Errand, in addition to being a thoroughly apt title, is a surprisingly focused book. We&#8217;ve returned to Fitz&#8217;s quiet, retired life (one cottage, one wolf, one teenaged ward, one sporadic booty [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[106,1322],"class_list":["post-6748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-words","tag-fantasy","tag-the-tawny-man"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/delirium.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/delirium.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/delirium.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/delirium.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/delirium.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6748"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/delirium.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6748\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6756,"href":"https:\/\/delirium.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6748\/revisions\/6756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/delirium.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/delirium.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/delirium.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}