Dark Tower Comics vol. 3-4 - Robin Furth & Jae Lee

Honestly, disappointing. I'm getting sick of Jae Lee's refusal to draw backgrounds. His characters are quite good realisations of the original characters, but they act everything out in front of a big blur of smoke and colours and the occasional table. Given that these are fantasy stories set in a richly imagined and (in King's prose) deeply detailed world, Lee's style is completely wrong for this project. And the writing is underwhelming, and the story is unnecessarily different from the one established in the novel. Bit of a shame, really.

Assassin's Apprentice - Robin Hobb

My first actual foray into the overcrowded genre of high fantasy (not counting Lord of the Rings or Dark Tower) and I loved it. The setting is vividly evoked but doesn't steal the show. Each character is very well-written. The story is all politics, espionage and assassination, but with a streak of the supernatural. The magic is very subtle (all about telepathy and empathy) and the "Red Ship Raiders" are superbly frightening. The spying and assassination stuff reminded me very much of the Dark Brotherhood in Oblivion. This is one writer I'll definitely be coming back to.