book data
518 ratings, 3.41 average rating, 58 reviews
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published
September 2008
by Klett-Cotta
binding
Gebundene Ausgabe, 815 pages
isbn
3608938133
(isbn13: 9783608938135)
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 716)
Read in June, 2007
recommends it for:
masochists
Robin Hobb excells in writing characters that are tragically human. Time and time again her characters deny their destiny, struggle against fate, make astoundingly bad decisions, have terrible luck, and are put through the most soul tearingly body wracking experiences. Ms. Hobb fulfills that most human of hopes, reward after monumental trials and tribulations. In this story Nevare Burville, the soldier son of his noble family, finds himself under a seemingly irreversible spell that causes him t...more
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If you are a huge Robin Hobb/Megan Lindholm fan, you will probably enjoy her latest Soldier's Son books. These books are just as character driven as her previous work; the characters just as solid and fleshed out (no pun intended), the overall writing is just as polished. If Hobb explored moral ambiguity through Fitz in the Six Duchies world, she goes even further with Nevare in her Soldier's Son books.
Nevare is not as exciting a character as Fitz or Althea or the Fool. He starts out fairly sh...more
Nevare is not as exciting a character as Fitz or Althea or the Fool. He starts out fairly sh...more
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Read in February, 2007
recommends it for:
Those with a perverse love of tragedy
So, I really like Robin Hobb as an author. I have read everything else she has ever written under this name. Always, the books are well written but always follow the troubled life of the main character.
Well, this book marks the first time I have given up on a character of Hobb's. Fitz-Chivalry and Althea and the rest, they made mistakes, they were stupid but you had a grudging respect for them that kept you going, even when you watched there life disenegrate from the course they chose.
But I ...more
Well, this book marks the first time I have given up on a character of Hobb's. Fitz-Chivalry and Althea and the rest, they made mistakes, they were stupid but you had a grudging respect for them that kept you going, even when you watched there life disenegrate from the course they chose.
But I ...more
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Read in June, 2008
This is the second in the Soldier Son trilogy. I had serious doubts about the first one, but found this second to be much more palatable. The main character, Nevare, is forced to break with this traditional beliefs/goals in a much more significant way within this book when he is expelled from the military academy for his ever-increasing weight. Hobb made a good choice in making her hero obese (or probably morbidly obese). At times I wanted her to be a little more clear-cut in the message that pr...more
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Read in February, 2007
Hobb usually does an amazing job of keeping her characters in conflict, challenging the reader with charged conversations and gut-wrenching tragedy. But her latest entry in the Soldier Son Trilogy is 700 pages of Nevare's whining and indecision and frankly... it gets boring fast. All the interesting characters from the trilogy's previous installment exist only on the outskirts here.
Get it from the library and read it for the last chapter. Those precious 15 pages at the end left me with some...more
Get it from the library and read it for the last chapter. Those precious 15 pages at the end left me with some...more
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Read in November, 2007
And Robin Hobb's grand tradition of torturing her characters continues. Infuriating to read - it took over 700 pages for the main character to stop whining about his fate and figure out what was going on, even though more than one character told him over and over again. Somehow still compelling and hard to put down, unless it was to throw it across the room from frustration.
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Read in July, 2006
Nevare has recovered from the Speck plague, but unlike other survivors, he is not weak and wasted away. Instead, he grows fatter and fatter, no matter how hard he works himself or starves himself. Spurned by his father, he tries to make a new life for himself, but he cannot be successful because the magic has hold of him and will not let him go. He must do as the magic wants of him. As he tries to resist, the magic cuts away everything that he holds dear. This book was painful to read in many pl...more
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Read in November, 2008
The awful thing about trilogies is having to read through to the end of the third book to discover what happens, but while I might skim the last chapter of the next book in a shop, I doubt I will buy it. Forest Mage was such a disappointment, given how much I enjoyed Hobbs' earlier Farseer books—I found this novel repetitive and pedestrian. I never found myself liking Nevare, and for a number of personal reasons, the constant remarks about his weight made for uncomfortable reading...more
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Read in November, 2008
"I was coming to think of my other self as my Speck-self. He was part of me and apart from me."
'Forest Mage' is the second part of the 'Soldier Son' -trilogy by Robin Hobb. After the Speck-plague in the first book, Nevare has to cope with the part of him that was influenced by Speck magic. This leads to changes in his personality and his physical appearance, and eventually to huge changes in his life's expectations.
I must admit, I'm a big fan of Robin Hobb's work. However, I he...more
'Forest Mage' is the second part of the 'Soldier Son' -trilogy by Robin Hobb. After the Speck-plague in the first book, Nevare has to cope with the part of him that was influenced by Speck magic. This leads to changes in his personality and his physical appearance, and eventually to huge changes in his life's expectations.
I must admit, I'm a big fan of Robin Hobb's work. However, I he...more
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Read in June, 2008
I read this book immediately following the first book in the trilogy. The first books ends with adventure, conflict, moral dilemmas, strong character interaction and hope that the main character had learned something that will help him in the adventures to come. Instead, this book throws us back into plodding, slow, weary exposition as more sadness befalls Nevare and he travels into a new life that is even more sad and useless than his previous one.
Nevare was frustrating in the first book, b...more
Nevare was frustrating in the first book, b...more
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Read in July, 2008
I think this trilogy could have done with a lot more editing than it got. Robin Hobb's world-building is very, very detailed, built up block by block. Unfortunately, in the first book that made it somewhat slow, and in this book it made it very hard to read. That isn't made any easier by the uncomfortableness of the topic. My English teacher always said that fiction is all about conflicts, but Nevare's life in this book is just one long conflict -- fighting the good, fighting the bad, fighting e...more
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Read in January, 2008
This second book in the soldier son trilogy brought Nevare, the main character, to a surprising start of a new life in the magic of the Speck people. Pulled into this life against his will he struggles throughout the book to keep the life given to him by the one true god. He denies, to the end, that his choices have led him to a life that contradicts and battles directly with his birth order, family and society at large. The realization that he has been taken by the pagan magic of the Specks m...more
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Read in June, 2008
This sequel to Shaman's Crossing was a bit of a let down. I don't mind when a book takes its own good time, but this was glacial.
Many authors will use narrative time to skip ahead, but Robin Hobb teased the reader with lines like "It was twenty days before..." and you think you are about to skip twenty days. But no. "On the first day..." "The sec...more
Many authors will use narrative time to skip ahead, but Robin Hobb teased the reader with lines like "It was twenty days before..." and you think you are about to skip twenty days. But no. "On the first day..." "The sec...more
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Read in June, 2008
This book is more of a study of depression than anything else. Although Nevare is very introspective, he's also quite self-absorbed and deliberately cuts himself off from any help/friendship to the point where, although he is not entirely to blame for what happens at the end, you can see how it happens. I understand he's torn between two vastly different worlds, but as a protagonist, he's not very proactive. Nevertheless, the world Hobb has created is an interesting one, where three different cu...more
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Read in January, 2008
I really enjoyed this book. I am always surprised when I am finished with Hobb's books on how thick they are, yet how little really happens in the story. However, I don't mind, as the characters are so dam real! Her descriptions and characterizations are deep and rich, and strangely comforting. Although you may get a little sick of hearing how fat Nevare is, there are not many novels where you can sympathize with the main character so absolutely.
I was a little disappointed in the ending a...more
I was a little disappointed in the ending a...more
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Read in March, 2008
recommends it for:
Robin Hobb fans, most fantasy readers
This book was good, but hard to read, and probably about 200 pages longer than it needed to be.
Hobb tells an engaging story that suffers from two distinct problems. The first is the "idiot plot" where her protagonist has to be an idiot to do lots of the things that he does. The second is that like many of her heroes in past books, they do little but suffer and know very little happiness. It wears on the reader after a while.
That said, the story is interesting enough, and the...more
Hobb tells an engaging story that suffers from two distinct problems. The first is the "idiot plot" where her protagonist has to be an idiot to do lots of the things that he does. The second is that like many of her heroes in past books, they do little but suffer and know very little happiness. It wears on the reader after a while.
That said, the story is interesting enough, and the...more
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Read in July, 2008
recommends it for:
ALL
*I will edit this review as I read*
I have now devoured the first 174 pages of this book. I love how the author gets you into the story. And it's believable. His immense fatness' role in the story line is played out beautifully to this point. If a book was visual art, this would be a 14-layered oil painting (I don't know if those exist).
I have stopped once so far since I started reading- once to eat supper, once to write about it. Now, off to the book!
Just finished Chapter 10. This is one...more
I have now devoured the first 174 pages of this book. I love how the author gets you into the story. And it's believable. His immense fatness' role in the story line is played out beautifully to this point. If a book was visual art, this would be a 14-layered oil painting (I don't know if those exist).
I have stopped once so far since I started reading- once to eat supper, once to write about it. Now, off to the book!
Just finished Chapter 10. This is one...more
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Can't say I am as enthralled by Hobb in this series. She still is a great storyteller but I found my interest waning.
The first turn off was dredging up old themes, primarily the memories of a race gathered over time. Then there was the young man, coming of age, stubborn, unable to see the bigger picture.
I also didn't like the warring internal selves. I felt like this ambiguity was resolved in the first book and then randomly re-surfaced without any explanation.
Griping aside I fini...more
The first turn off was dredging up old themes, primarily the memories of a race gathered over time. Then there was the young man, coming of age, stubborn, unable to see the bigger picture.
I also didn't like the warring internal selves. I felt like this ambiguity was resolved in the first book and then randomly re-surfaced without any explanation.
Griping aside I fini...more
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Read in January, 2008
I'm not really one for writing reviews, but I thought I should clarify my stars by saying that I enjoyed the book a lot more in the context of the trilogy. However, as I was reading it, I often felt a bit frustrated that the protag, Nevarre, was not making more of a stand against his circumstances, accepting and bemoaning the unfairness without actively seeking to put an end to them. Nonetheless, everything does come together nicely in the third, and I can look back on the second book with more ...more
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I agree with the others - Nevarre could be one of us. The astoundingly stupid decisions he makes (it's like watching a horror movie - no good can come of the pretty girl opening the door to the basement, but she does it anyway!), the temptations he gives in to, the struggles with weight...all are highly relatable. Ms.Hobb beats up her heros but good - this series is no exception. It's very enjoyable, though, to follow the story of someone you "know" so well. It's great fiction, if you ...more
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