Renegade’s Magic (The Soldier Son #3)

The Soldier Son trilogy isn’t the easiest of the Robin Hobb novels to get into with the amount of filler and all of the negative stuff that happens to Nevare. Hobb manages to successfully conclude the series in Renegade’s Magic while providing additional insight into the Specks and how magic was influencing everything. Overall, I really enjoyed the world that Hobb created for this trilogy. While I found book two to be more hilarious than I probably should’ve book three became more serious and sort of redeemed the series for me. Would be interesting if Hobb creates more books concerning the past history of the Kidona and the Specks and how they became enemies of one another.

I became fascinated with Robin Hobb’s writing only six months ago when I was introduced to her fantasy series. I could not put them down and eagerly looked forward to the next and the next. I finally arrived at the Soldier Son series and just finished the last page. I was deeply disappointed in the majority of this series. The first book did grab my attention enough to look forward to the second book. However, Robb’s writing took a turn to heavy introspection by the main character as he becomes infused with Speck magic. Plot was still full of conflict and action. But into the third book, the writing turned so much to repeated introspection that I started browsing through paragraphs just to find any action. I kept pushing on, and only in the last 60 pages came the answers to conflicts started in book one, and the in the last 50 pages the character’s struggles were resolved in the contents of a letter packet. This series could have been written in 2 books and still contain the action and character that I so enjoyed in her other series. Her fantasy works are 5, but this series is a 3.

Reading the books makes you think that you may really not have all the answers. What seemed simple is not and what seemed so hard was not.
There are things that cannot be explained but we can also fail to see the simple truth. I just don’t want to give this away but these are very different from her other books except that I find her main characters often at first are not living their lives but what other want them to live, they have to grow and often suffer and eventually figure it out. Again this is more Supernatural than Fantasy, But I grew to like them!

My feelings on this book are quite similar to my feelings to the last two. The entire series is decent; I didn’t feel like I wasted my time reading it but neither did I feel hugely impacted by what I’d read. The mark of a good series, whether fantasy or not, is whether you feel changed when you come to the end of the story. Has it made any difference in you as the reader? Do you ache and rejoice with the characters for the sadness or happiness at the end? I did none of those after reading this book. I simply put it down and selected what to read next. None of this to stay that the story wasn’t good, it just wasn’t exceptional.

Being an avid reader of fantasy, I’m fairly familiar with the whole ‘and they lived happily ever after’ story line. It grates on me that so many writers don’t accept the reality that the hero doesn’t always win, and even if he does he doesn’t always end up with the girl he loves living happily ever after. In previous books, Hobb hasn’t seemed to subscribe to the camp of fantasy writers but this book takes that idea completely. It stretches the credibility of everything working out in the end. Not only does Nevare become handsome (thin) again but every sundered relationship is seemingly repaired with little trouble.

I feel that Hobb was experimenting some in this book by the issues she dealt with as well as the story line and I don’t feel like it was hugely successful. I saw a lot of ways that the story couldn’t have been better if it had clung more to reality and less to wishful thinking. I did, however, like the look at the Speck culture because for the most part it was a foreign culture with different views and beliefs that she brought to life. But during a pivotal point in the book when the son of Nevare/Soldier Boy’s keeper is taken away they revert to what you would expect of any culture. This was a weakness in the story because she had constantly been pointing out that the Specks were not like the humans in how they dealt with each other and especially with their children.

I’ve said it throughout my reviews of this series but in the end it was a decent read but nothing spectacular. There are better series by Hobb and better authors out there.

A great ending for this trilogy with a fantastic closure. There were often times while reading that I was so engrossed in Navarre ‘s character I had to check myself to see if I was experiencing the same kind of physical changes. That’s a first for me…having read sci to and fantasy for over fifty years. Robin is a great author. Ive gobbled up all her other books and can’t wait for next..

Galaxyaudiobook Member Benefit

- Able to comment

- List watched audiobooks

- List favorite audiobooks

- Bookmark will only available for Galaxyaudiobook member