Rain Wilds Chronicles Books In Order

Publication Order of Rain Wild Chronicles Books

The Rain Wild Chronicles is a series of fantasy adventure novels written by Robin Hobb. The books follow a party of dragons and the humans assisting them in their efforts to rediscover their mythical homeland.

+The Story
The Rain Wild Chronicles series is part of the Realm of the Elderlings, a larger series of novels of which the Rain Wild Chronicles is merely the fourth subseries. Readers that have encountered the Elderlings books before will recognize some of the characters, concepts, and ideas.

The Rain Wild is a place in the Realm of the Elderings universe. The setting was introduced to readers in the Liveship Traders books. That particular trilogy introduces readers to a pack of sea serpents that were hunting for a place where they could evolve into beautiful dragons.

The Rain Wild Chronicles reveals that things did not go quite as the sea serpents had planned. The Rain Wild is as dangerous as it is wonderful. The people who inhabit its lands are forced to live in homes suspended on enormous tree canopies.

Their living situation is informed by the river that rages below whose waters are so toxic that they can erode everything from skin to the walls of boats. The only boats capable of traversing the Rain Wild are Liveships which have magical properties that allow them to counter the toxic elements of the river.

But even with the Liveships, the people of the Rain Wild live difficult lives. ‘The Dragon Keeper’, the first of the Rain Wild Chronicles series sets the stage for a grand adventure.

In the world of the Realm of the Elderlings, there are sea serpents that can encase their bodies in cocoons, undergoing drastic transformations over time and eventually emerging as full-fledged dragons.

A long time ago, Tintaglia, a powerful dragon, helped the Trader Cities stave off an attack from a great enemy. For his help, the humans gave Tintaglia their allegiance, vowing to assist the mighty dragon in his efforts to see his kind thrive.

Not long after, a party of sea serpents, far older than they should be, made the arduous journey upriver. Upon identifying a suitable location, they entered their cocoons and waited to metamorphose into beautiful dragons.

Unbeknownst to them, the toxic elements of the river corrupted the process. The dragons that emerged were weak and deformed. For a time, the humans kept their pledge to Tintaglia.

They tried to care for these creatures. But the dragons couldn’t be controlled. They would either rampage, taking innocent lives in the process or they would die. So a plan was put in motion.

The mutations would be cast out of their swampy riverbank and sent to Kelsingra, an ancient Elderling city, a haven for dragons from were true peace for their kind could be attained.

The Rain Wild Chronicles series essentially tells the story of this journey. It highlights a few prominent dragons, though most of the attention is thrown on the dragon keepers.

The dragon keepers are outcast; humans that have either been mutated by the toxic river or drawn the ire of their friends, family, and community. The Dragon Keepers are assigned to one dragon each and it is their job to ensure that their charge reaches Kelsingra in one peace.

It is worth noting that no one knows for sure that Kelsingra exists. The dragons undertaking this journey are relying on the memories of their ancestors to find their new home.

However, most of those memories are vague, and the newly hatched dragons must look for dead dragons to eat if they want to achieve clarity. Each dragon is normally assigned to a human who best reflects their temperament.

The relationship between the two is supposed to be symbiotic in nature, with the dragon’s magic eventually growing to shape their human.

The Rain Wild books focus on Thymara, a girl with claws and scales who is hated for her lizard features. Thymara jumps at the opportunity to take the journey to the Elderlings City.

She is joined by other boys and girls who also feel somewhat uneasy in their communities, from Alise Kincarrion to Hest, Leftrin, and Sedric to mention but a few.

The Rain Wild Chronicles lean heavily into the young adult genre and they have been criticized for it. Not only have Robin Hobb fans complained that very little happens in these slow-paced novels but they also hate the number of pages spent following the human characters as they hunt for people to have sex with.

+The Author
Robin Hobb is a pen name for Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden. Hobb is an American author who was born in 1952 in Berkley, California. She attended Austin E. Lathrop High School and Denver University.

Hobb initially wrote short fiction for children. She eventually jumped to fictional but educational material before finally finding her footing in the fantasy fiction department.

+The Dragon Keeper
When a group of sea serpents that should have become dragons hatch into deformed creatures mutated by the toxins in the river, the people of the River Wild are forced to act; these new diseased dragons are too difficult to control.

When they aren’t rampaging, they are dying. So a decision is taken to force the dragons to undertake a journey to an ancient mythical homeland. They will be joined on this journey by dragon keepers.

Thymara is one such dragon keeper, an uneducated girl with lizard features that must overcome the haughty personality of the dragon she has been assigned in order to form a bond that will serve them both on their difficult trip.

+Dragon Haven
For some years now, a party of deformed dragons has been stranded on a swampy riverbank, posing a danger to themselves and others.

But it looks like they can finally find peace if only they can successfully journey to the mythical city of the Elderlings.

Fifteen dragons have taken the journey. Among them are Mercor, Sintara, and Relpda, golden, silver-blue, and copper colored dragons. They will attempt to keep their kind in check on a trek that could bring them their salvation.

Joining them on their trip are humans who the Rain Wild Society has rejected. They also yearn for the walls of Kelsingra, a new home within which they can create their own society, a sanctuary that bends to their will and follows their rules.