Realm of the Elderlings

The Realm of the Elderlings is the creation of Robin Hobb, a secondary world fantasy universe built across sixteen novels in five series - four trilogies and the four-book Rain Wild Chronicles - and a novella, published between 1995 and 2017. Set primarily in the Six Duchies, the Bingtown Trader coast, and the Rain Wilds, it is a universe defined less by its world-building than by the depth and honesty of its character work - Hobb's sustained examination of what it costs to live an exceptional life in a world that does not reward exceptionalism cleanly. Magic in this universe takes several forms - the Skill, a telepathic ability used by the Farseer royal line; the Wit, a bond between humans and animals regarded with suspicion and fear; and the mysterious transformative power of the Rain Wilds that shapes both its human inhabitants and the living ships of the Bingtown Traders. Dragons, Elderlings, and the ancient civilisation that preceded the current world provide a mythological depth that reveals itself gradually across the full sequence.