On paper, Royal Assassin should not be a successful sequel to 1995's Assassin's Apprentice. In execution, Royal Assassin changes all the factors that made Assassin's Apprentice a success. Gone are the cozy sentiments of a coming-of-age memoir, replaced instead with a slow, political affair, taking place over the course of approximately one year. Absent is both craft- and skill-learning, replaced with romance and courting. And shockingly, nearly extinct are the assassinations themselves.

What we are left with instead is FitzChivalry coming into his own as a character, something not quite a prince in nature, but more than the bastard that he is made out to be. And while he is apt to fall to the bullheadedness of teenage wisdom, Fitz is now a compelling character in his own right. Like Assassin's Apprentice before it, Royal Assassin is still very much a character-driven narrative; while Fitz can now stand on his own, his relationship to other supporting characters is integral to the story. Do not get me wrong, narrative is still important; Royal Assassin is less of a memoir than Assassin's Apprentice ever was. 

I do not want to repeat myself from my previous review, but a few items of note still hold true for this book; Hobb's prose is only descriptive when utterly necessary, and Royal Assassin falls in line with other fantasy works as George R. R. Martin's A Song Of Ice And Fire. Do not expect epic battles with monsters or complex magic systems, although, to its credit, Royal Assassin contains much more combat than its predecessor ever did.

The most important part of Royal Assassin? Its climax; satisfactorily wrapping the story while amping the reader for what is still to come. So many books falter in the last book of a series; will Assassin's Quest elevate The Farseer Trilogy into "must-read" territory?