Earmark
Sign in

Work · one recording

Assassin's Apprentice

Robin Hobb · The Farseer Trilogy, book 1 · read by Joe Eyre

It tells a story. Hardcover files this book as fiction, and its readers there call it emotional and adventurous. Facts, not factors: neither plays any part in our call.

Read it

Thin evidence · 170 ratings of this reading, short of the 250 we trust. So the call is made without the recording’s half of the case. Why we hold that line

Every book we have judged on how far the recording outruns the page: 201 of them, the page's answer at the left-hand end and the recording's at the right. Marked for scale: All the Light We Cannot See, To Kill a Mockingbird and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. This one sits in the bottom 14% of our shelf of books for how far the recording outruns the page. −0.40, where we start backing the page; 0.40, where we start backing the recording.Assassin's Apprentice (Farseer Trilogy, #1)
ordinary · 0.79 clear of the line where this would stop being a read

Audio is doing this one no favours: 84 readers call it slow. That is a book that wants a page you can turn back to. Only 170 people have rated the reading, so it is not part of this call either way, and 250 is where we start letting a judgement about a reading move a verdict.

Length does not decide this

16h 35m to listen, at 1×13h 16m to listen, at 1.25×11h 03m to listen, at 1.5×9h 29m to listen, at 1.75×8h 17m to listen, at 2×about 15 hours to readabout 11 hours to readabout 9 hours to readabout 7 hours to readabout 5 hours to read

The runtime is Audible’s own, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 435 pages at 30 pages an hour, the pace you told us. Ours is 50, about 300 words a page, read at 250 a minute.The runtime is Audible’s own, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 435 pages at 40 pages an hour, the pace you told us. Ours is 50, about 300 words a page, read at 250 a minute.The runtime is Audible’s own, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 435 pages at 50 pages an hour, which is about 300 words a page, read at 250 a minute.The runtime is Audible’s own, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 435 pages at 65 pages an hour, the pace you told us. Ours is 50, about 300 words a page, read at 250 a minute.The runtime is Audible’s own, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 435 pages at 80 pages an hour, the pace you told us. Ours is 50, about 300 words a page, read at 250 a minute.

If you must listen → dedicated listening only

About as demanding in audio as The Handmaid's Tale.

All the books we hold · 222

Harder work in audio than 90% of the books we hold.

Fiction · 176

Harder work in audio than 89% of the fiction we hold.

Long books · 56

Harder work in audio than 89% of the long books we hold.

Reading load against listening load

Every book we hold placed by how much work it asks on the page, left to right, against how much it asks in your ears, bottom to top: 222 of them. Easy both ways is the bottom left corner, hard both ways the top right; above the dashed line the ears work harder, below it the page does. Marked for scale: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, To Kill a Mockingbird and The Diary of a Young Girl. This one is in the middle 40% of our shelf of books for effort on the page and in the top 23% of our shelf of books for effort in your ears.
The dashed line is where a book would be same effort either way. This one sits above that line (audio asks more of you here than the page does), in the top 10% of our shelf of books for extra work in audio.
On the page0.16
In your ears0.62
Audio disadvantage1.19

Where that puts this one among the books we hold: in the middle 40% of our shelf of books for effort on the page and in the top 23% of our shelf of books for effort in your ears. The middle of the scale is not the middle of the shelf (most books sit below the average on both), so a book at 0.00 is already in the top 43% for effort on the page. Each of the three is measured against the whole shelf separately, so the bottom figure is not the top two subtracted. It is this book’s own distance from the middle.

What the audio disadvantage is made of. Two things and no others: how fast readers say this one moves, and how demanding the reviews we read found it. There is no third: the structural one has no data source, so it contributes nothing rather than being guessed at. Both directions are declared priors we have never fitted against a real verdict, which is the weakest-evidenced part of the whole model.

Every book we could measure both features on placed by pace, fast to slow, against how demanding the reviews we read found it, plain to demanding: 166 of them. The easiest listens are the bottom left corner and the hardest the top right, which is the shaded one. Marked for scale: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, To Kill a Mockingbird and The Diary of a Young Girl. This one reads slower than most books we hold and about as demanding as most, which is what leaves the format leaning towards the page.
This one reads slower than most books we hold and about as demanding as most, which is what leaves the format leaning towards the page.

How the call was made

Where a bar carries ticks, the grey one is the middle of our shelf and a coloured one is a line we publish, cool where we start backing the page, warm where we start backing the recording. The evidence squares at the foot are a different thing: how far each of our four sources went, hatched where there was nothing to measure at all.

The audio case
−1.19With the reading left out, this figure is the format alone: it is harder work in audio than most books we hold (in the top 10% of our shelf of books for extra work in audio). Past the line where we start backing the page.
Narration payoff
0.00The reading took no part in this call. It scored 0.49 above the middle of our shelf of books (the second mark on the bar), but only 170 people have rated it, short of the 250 at which we let a judgement about a reading move a verdict, so it is recorded at 0.00 and the call rests on the book and the format. No line is drawn on this row, because none was applied.
What is at stake
0.16It sits between the bottom 27% and the top 33% of our shelf of books for how well the print crowds think of a book: middling regard, so this barely moves the call either way. Blended across 446,920 Goodreads ratings and 1,465 on Hardcover, each scored inside its own population first, and never added together.

For the page

  • A hard text to follow by ear
  • The crowds’ regard did not reach the line where we protect a first read, this reason did not apply

For the recording

  • Too few listeners have rated this reading, so we left the voice out of the call, this reason did not apply
  • Only 170 listeners have rated this reading, under the 250 we ask for, this reason did not apply

So the case for the page won it.

A bigger dot counted for more: the voice and the ear are sized by their share of the sum above, the other two by how much stands behind them. A hatched square is a reason that did not apply here, which is not the same as one that counted for little.

Evidence
0.94How much of the picture we actually have, out of 1.00: four questions, each answered as far as the source could answer it, less anything taken off for reading fewer reviews than we aim to.The reading170 people have rated this reading: enough to lean onThe second sourceHardcover knows this book, with 1,465 readers there: as good as it getsThe matchHow sure we are that the recording we scored is this book: as good as it getsThe reviewsWe read 300 reviews to judge how demanding it is: as good as it gets

What each crowd complains about

We would need 40 reviews from each crowd before setting the two side by side, and only 30 of the reviews we read said they listened to it. So we are not drawing this one.

What the two crowds said

Showing the stars as each shop prints them. The two crowds are not measured from the same place: on our shelf Audible’s listeners average 0.35 of a star above Goodreads’ readers, so a recording that is ordinary for Audible can still out-star a book that is genuinely well liked for Goodreads. Switch the toggle to take that difference off.Showing each figure as its distance from its own crowd’s middle on our shelf, in standard deviations, so 0 is a typical book for that crowd. Listeners start 0.35 of a star up, partly because anyone who finishes a twenty-five-hour recording chose it deliberately, and this takes that off. It is not a claim that audio is better, the story figure is still Audible’s own (people rating a story they heard), and none of it moves the verdict above.

170 ratings of this readingstar chartstoo few to draw beside the book’s, and 250 is where we start trusting the shape
4.77·Audible
overallAudible
overall, pooled by the shop, so we hold no ruler for it
82%5 stars: 82 per cent, 155 ratings
14%4 stars: 14 per cent, 26 ratings
3%3 stars: 3 per cent, 5 ratings
1%2 stars: 1 per cent, 1 rating
1%1 stars: 1 per cent, 1 rating

188 ratings · performance and story, as the shop pools them

4.83+0.89 sdAudible
the performanceAudible
the performance, against Audible’s own crowd
88%5 stars: 88 per cent, 149 ratings
10%4 stars: 10 per cent, 17 ratings
1%3 stars: 1 per cent, 2 ratings
0%2 stars: 0 per cent, 0 ratings
1%1 stars: 1 per cent, 2 ratings

170 ratings

4.75+0.87 sdAudible
the story, as heardAudible
the story, as heard, against Audible’s own crowd
83%5 stars: 83 per cent, 141 ratings
12%4 stars: 12 per cent, 20 ratings
4%3 stars: 4 per cent, 6 ratings
1%2 stars: 1 per cent, 2 ratings
1%1 stars: 1 per cent, 1 rating

170 ratings

4.20+0.08 sdGoodreads
the book itselfGoodreads
the book itself, against Goodreads’ own crowd
44%5 stars: 44 per cent, 194,440 ratings
38%4 stars: 38 per cent, 170,472 ratings
14%3 stars: 14 per cent, 63,321 ratings
3%2 stars: 3 per cent, 13,340 ratings
1%1 stars: 1 per cent, 5,347 ratings

446,920 ratings

The series

The Farseer Trilogy

Finished · One voice throughout

3 books numbered on Goodreads’ list, with 1 novella or companion filed between them. The last one came out in 2013 and Goodreads lists nothing further. Five quiet years is where we start using that word.

Joe Eyre reads all of the 2 volumes Audible names in our records.

From Goodreads’ own series index, checked on 11 September 2026.

Every reading we hold

One complete reading of this book, and it is the reading every audio figure above is measured on. If there is another, we have not found it. The shelf grows in reviewed batches, never because somebody searched for a book.

  • Joe Eyrethe one we measured16h 35m13h 16m11h 03m9h 29m8h 17m · One voice · Audible UK and US
    • The same voice all through

    Only 170 people have rated this reading, short of our published bar of 250, so we name it and print no scores for it.

    Hear it · Audible’s clip, its length read from them on load

The recording these numbers came from

Runtime
16h 35m at 1×
Read by
Joe Eyre
Kind
One voice
ASIN
B0G5PPTS4V · Audible UK
Rated in
Audible UK and US · 150 + 20 ratings of the performance
Judged on
170 ratings of the narration
Published
HarperVoyager · 2026

Too few people have rated this reading for us to call it our pick (our published bar is 250), so these are its details rather than a recommendation, and Audible sorts a search by newest, so check before you buy. The runtime is the check: if the one in front of you says 16h 35m, that is the reading these numbers describe. “Judged on” is the crowd behind every judgement we make about this reading: the smaller of the performance and story counts, which is why it is a little under the two shop counts added. We do not link out to a shop, and we take nothing if you buy there.