And Megan Lindholm I would remain for many years.

Leap forward in time yet another decade and a bit more. It was a time of change in my life. I had recently switched to a new US publisher, my career-shifting agent Patrick Delahunt had passed me on to a new agent, Ralph Vicinanza, and I was writing a story of a type I’d never attempted before. This was to be a big fantasy, on an epic scale, and written from the first-person point of view of a young man. I was writing in a style that I felt was completely different from any I’d ever used before. Perhaps it was a time to make a complete break with the past. The idea of changing my pseudonym greatly appealed to me. Although I remained very fond and proud of my works as Megan Lindholm, the drama of adopting a “secret identity” was irresistible. I jumped at the chance to become Robin Hobb.

My editors, my agent, and I all agreed that the change presented an opportunity for me to break out of my “Megan Lindholm” voice and tell a big compelling story in a very lively way, one that I hoped would reach new readers. I hadn’t realized that I had begun to feel bound by what readers might expect of a Megan Lindholm book until I stepped away from that name. I wrote with a depth of feeling that I didn’t usually indulge. When Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb was first published, I spent weeks with my nerves in a knot, wondering how this new series by a “new author” would be received.

The results were beyond my wildest hopes. I will never know how much the name change had to do with the success of Assassin’s Apprentice and the other Hobb books that followed it. I don’t think there’s a way to quantify that. But it felt absolutely wonderful to have reached a wider readership. And for several years, I played my cards very close to my chest, concealing that Megan Lindholm and Robin Hobb were one and the same. I attended conventions as Megan Lindholm, and while I was there, I did not speak about my work as Hobb. I did not do any readings or signings for the initial Farseer books.