Renegade's Magic, the third book of The Soldier's Son trilogy, is the conclusion of the tortured tale of Nevare Burvelle. Nevare is a man torn between the life he was born to, that of a solider's son, and the life he was forced into by a woman of powerful magic, that of a forest mage. In this volume, Nevare in fact lives as a split person: his original self, or consciousness is held prisoner inside his body, while control of the body and his actions is held by his forest mage self. Much of the novel sees Nevare helpless, able to mentally interact with his controlling self, but unable to physically influence anything in the outside world.The novel is set in the land of Gernia, an frontier-like world with a strong military tradition and a king who favors expanding his realm by building a road out beyond a mountain range. Unfortunately, this road-building involves tearing down an ancient forest. The trees here are sacred to the Speck people (analagous to Native Americans, but with 100% more magic!) because they house the souls of their mages; when a tree is cut down, the soul of the ancient mage is lost forever. The Gernians are suspicious/fearful of the Specks because of their magical abilities, and the Specks are furious at the Gernians for their destruction of their elder trees. This conflict is embodied in Nevare--his Gernian self and his Speck self are completely at odds, yet they are both him. How he deals with that duality and what it means for both the Gernains and the Specks form the meat of this trilogy.
One of the more unique aspects of this trilogy is that Nevare, when he becomes his forest mage Speck self, is enormously fat! The Speck mages' obesity is a physical manifestation of how full of magic they are; they all have dedicated "feeders," whose sole job is to feed the mages constantly and take care of their physical needs. I have never seen the like of it before in fantasy, and found it an interesting choice since morbid obesity is viewed as a rather repellent condition by many (including Nevare's Gernian family and friends, who cannot understand why their strapping soldier son has let himself go to such a degree; of course, they have no idea that he has been "claimed" by the magic). There are clear environmental themes here (cutting down the forest=bad, though not for the normal conservationist reasons), and a resounding call for trying to understand fully the ramifications of one's actions before blindly doing what one wants to do.
Unlike many sprawling fantasy works, Hobb does not overwhelm the reader with a huge cast of characters. Instead she focuses on world-building and character development. Hobb is masterful at both of these tasks, and I truly feel like I'm there with her characters as they go through their lives.
I first read Hobb's prior trilogies: Farseer, Liveship Traders, and Tawny Man, and absolutely adored them. These books are more in the traditional epic fantasy mold, with dragons and magic and medieval-esque setting. All three trilogies are set in the same world (The Soldier's Son trilogy is unrelated to the first three), and the 1st and 3rd feature the same main character. Upon finishing the last book of the 3rd trilogy, I was in tears, partly because of events in the book, but mostly because I knew I had come to the end of my time with this world and these characters, and I would truly miss spending time with them. So naturally, I was excited to see that Hobb had released a new series of books! I must say I didn't enjoy this trilogy as much as the first three, but she is such a good writer that I still was invested and wanted to read each book as it came out. If I were to recommend Hobb to a new reader, I definitely suggest starting with Assassin's Apprentice, the 1st book of the Farseer trilogy.
Catherine :-)
