Just Finished Reading Assassin's Quest by Robin Hobb

The other day I finished reading Assassin's Quest, Robin Hobb's concluding book in her Farseer Trilogy after going through the first two, Assassin's Apprentice and Royal Assassin...click on their titles to read my reviews, which I recommend before you continue this article.  As in tightly chronologically ordered series like this where what happens in the first two volumes directly leads into the beginning of the third, there is little of specifics about which I can discuss without ruining the story for anyone who hasn't begun reading this series yet.  I can cut to the chase with generalities, though...here we go.  Assassin's Quest succeeds in tying up the lingering mysteries from the first two books as readers normally expect from the author...bravo!  I mentioned in one of my reviews the absence of mythical creatures in this series...I'm afraid the ending backloaded a crucial factor in this regard, which almost made it seem like a deux ex machina tactic on the part of Hobb that made the ending much less satisfying to me.  I also felt that telepathic communication over distances between the different characters, sometimes knowingly and sometimes not, took up too much of the narrative and drove the story's resolution to too high a degree instead of real-life action and character interaction.  Well, for what it's worth, I'm glad to get that off my chest.  There is no shortage of fantasy fiction out there to read, but unfortunately too much of it involves privileged "nobles"...in essence authoritarian dictators...presented as the "good guys" while commonfolk are often depicted as overly ignorant and superstitious.  If you dig these stereotypes, then you shouldn't have too much trouble with this genre...but it bugs me.  Maybe down the line I'll try a new fantasy series, but for now it's on to a different type of fiction...