Customer Reviews

Forest Mage (The Soldier Son Trilogy, Book 2)

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(28)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(20)

 

 

I consider the `Assassins ` series one of the top ten fantasy series I've ever read, and I've read a lot. Therefore it was with keen interest that I picked up the `Forest Mage', especially after reading the first book `Shaman's Crossing'.

This book should have been titled `Diary of a Depressed Fat Man'. Yes, I like complex character development - it's one of the reasons why the Assassins series was so good, but give me a break! I stayed up till 2:30am finishing this book, not because it was so captivating but because I couldn't believe it wouldn't somehow get better and justify the time I wasted reading it.

Let me save you the time:

He gets fat.
Everyone hates him.
He discovers that he has magic but doesn't know how to use it.
He is still fat.

If you enjoy books about characters who have a million and one problems, but never seek out solutions for them, CONGRATULATIONS! Forest Mage just might be the book for you! Imagine a man who is slowly being overtaken by a controlling magic he does not want . Is being impinged upon by an unwanted personality who makes him do evilly evil things! Any other writer might make their main character fight their own fate. BUT NOT ROBIN HOBB! And we love her for it! And don't worry, even if Nevare seems to be making an attempt to turn his life around, take a deep breath and relax. Because he won't. He'll have sex with a Speck instead and then complain about it later.

There were a lot of complaints that the first book in this series was overly slow or even boring. While I agreed that book one was slow and at times dry, I thought it rewarded the patient reader and that the pace was mostly appropriate for the content and character. The same complaints about book one could also be leveled at Forest Mage, and here, unfortunately, I can't quite defend the book as strongly.
Like the first book, there isn't a lot of "action" here. One expecting large battles, political upheaval or machinations, encounters with monsters, or showy displays of magic will be best served not bothering, though if anyone is picking up Forest Mage after reading Shaman's Crossing they're already aware of all this. Mage picks up with Nevare returning home after having "recovered" from the Speck plague of book one. Unfortunately, he is still seemingly in thrall to the Speck magic and his recovery takes the form of a gross gaining of weight as the magic "swells" him, forcing his exile from first the military academy, then his own family. The first third or so of the book deals with his worsening relations at home (things with his father turn particularly horrific), which only are resolved by a new wave of plague that frees Nevare to move on toward the frontier where he hopes some desparate unit would take him on. He ends up a cemetary soldier in the last town at the far working end of the King's Road. There, at the boundary area between his own culture and that of the Specks (whose mountain forest the road must carve its path through), he must solve the problem of the Speck magic that grows in him and either choose sides between the two cultures or find some way of bridging the two.
As in book one, the analogue between our own historic treatment of the Native Americans is strong. As is the way Hobb refuses to let her main character play the "hero" consistently (or even usually). Life on the frontier is painted in sharp detail, as is the allure of the Speck forest. The possible love interest for Nevare is a strong character who slowly grows on the reader--one of the major plusses of the book is how Hobb allows that relationship the time to develop realistically. Finally, the tension between major plot points and themes picks up greatly towards the end and leaves the reader wanting more.
There are several weaknesses to the book, however. As mentioned, it reads more slowly and more dryly than book one. Nevare's struggle against the magic becomes overly repetitive, as does his struggle between the two sides of himself. The same is true with regard to his battle with his father and the various negative interactions he has due to his great girth. The book easily could have lost 200 or so pages and the reader feels each one of those extra pages at various points. It simply doesn't compel in too many places as Soldier's Son did.
In the end, Mage is not quite as rewarding as book one; one is not quite as sure that the slow pace and dry spells were worth the pay off, though by the end I think the reader will tip over into believing so. It's a closer call than I would have liked, however. Those who liked the first book a lot, as I did, will find their way to the end with moderate difficulty. Those who struggled to finish book one, however, may just concede this one halfway through. I'd recommend they continue on, skimming if need be, for it does leave us pointing toward a third book that I at least am very interested to read based on what's gone on so far. Those who barely finished Soldier's Son might be best deciding after the first 75 pages or so of this one if they can take the slow pace and if not read a summary somewhere. Recommended, though with fair warning due to its slow, dry pace.

Other reviewers have stated repeatedly that this novel was depressing. That is true, but Robin Hobb has never been an author with a light-hearted, upbeat tone to her books. She does however always deliver characters with great depth and feeling. While reading the novel, you become totally immersed in its world and extemely hestiant to leave it, no matter how dark and depressing it is. As always, the characters seem to be real people. Living, breathing, people with their own itineraries. None are neither all good or all evil, but moved by complicated needs and desires that make them so real. I have just finished reading this novel about 30 minutes ago, and feel as if someone important to me has died or disappeared. That is how deeply Robin Hobb's characters affect me.


***Warning, small spoilers in this review. I usually try to avoid these, but with this novel, I don't how else to comment on it.***

While the first novel showed up the maturing of the boy, Nevare, this novel shows the making of the man.

In the first portion of novel, Nevare begins to be stripped of everything in his world. His physical fitness, his education, his love, and his family. Disaster after disaster befall him. Although he attempt to make the best of it, and grows into a man, taking charge and better the area around him, he stil loses everything dear to him.

In the second, and longest portion of the novel, Nevare is broken down to the lowest of the low... weak-spirited, reviled, almost friendless, and constantly attempting conform to his destiny as decided on by his father. Even after his father has renounced him, he stuggles to gain his place in this society that he was "born" to have.

Nevare however is meant for other destinies, no matter how he may try to revolt against them. Over and over his defies this new destiny, only to destroy his current life, and everything around him. Guides and mentors are given to him by his destiny, simultaneously giving him insight and providing him an antagonist to fight against. Temptations are thrown at him from both sides. Nevare is cursed to be torn between two world, able to see the good and evil in both, and unable to give himself completely to either one.

The end of the novel is heartbreaking. Nevare is finally able to commit to one side, but the reader's heart aches for him and his fate.

***End of slight spoilers***



I eagerly await the final novel in the trilogy, hoping against hope, that Nevare is redeemed and is rewarded with all he desires (Just like I did with the Farseer trilogy). Unfortunately, I realize that Robin Hobb's trilogies do not usually end that way, and I doubt that the Solder's Son trilogy will be any different. As soon as the third novel is available for pre-order, I will buy it and check constantly on it status, much like I did for this novel.

I read it in seven hours, staying up until 3:30am. And I remembered what I'd forgotten about the Robin Hobb trilogies.

The middle book is always AWFUL.

Oh, I don't mean the writing is bad; it's not. But the situational turmoil the characters go through, and the emotional turmoil you share with them, is completely and utterly devastating. No holds barred. Hobbs pours on despair like the sand in one of those old B-movie closed-room booby traps... it just keeps coming and coming until it buries you and you drown in it or are crushed under the weight.

The few bright, hopeful spots are the size of fire-flies, tiny pin-pricks of light that do nothing at all substantial to hold back the darkness.

And yet, you can't put it down. Never once while reading did I think, okay, this is depressing, I'm gonna quit. The book sucks you in with a totality so immense that you forget you have a separate life and personality outside its pages. You BECOME Nevare Burvelle for the space of those hours.

I could go on and on, but it would get repetitive, and if, you've read it, you already know what I'm talking about. If you HAVEN'T read it, I urge you NOT to read it until the third and final book comes out. If the series stays true to Hobbs form, the ending will make up for it all, in ways you never imagined.

Certainly don't read it now if you have any tendency towards depression. After I finished, I felt as though I'd been beaten with a sack of flour for those seven hours... achy and bruised both mentally and physically.

I enjoy Robin Hobb's work, but I dont know if I can truly say I enjoyed reading Forest Mage. It turns everything we saw in Shaman's Crossing on its head, and indeed, Shaman's Crossing becomes simply a prologue to Nevare's ongoing story.

The book itself is relentless and challenging, and I suppose that serves to give us some idea of the life Nevare finds himself facing. At the end of Shaman's Crossing we thought Nevare had triumphed over multiple adversaries - and he had, but won those battles only to lose the war.

We meet new characters, and old friends return - almost all changed for better or worse, save Epiny, who is the strange combination of selfless and selfish she always was.

Lastly, the magic of Nevare's world is really a character all of its own in this book, in a way rarely seen in fantasy fiction.

Forest Mage is an enthralling story, but one that is truly in the mold of "The Empire Strikes Back" - only bad things happen, and the protagonist's world is in ruins at its end.

I look forward to the final Soldier's Son volume, and hope to truly enjoy reading it.

Robin Hobb's greatest strength as a writer is her ability to set characters with certain weaknesses and strengths of their own down into a set of circumstances and watch them react. I think she generally lets them react on their own, the way they would in such circumstances.

Several people have characterized this book and its predecessor as slow and even boring. I completely disagree, as I could hardly put either one down. But this may be because I share Robin Hobb's view of reality--that life is brutal and there is a lot of pain in the world. If you have never been pushed almost beyond endurance by circumstances that, through no fault of your own, seem constantly on the edge of spinning out of control, then you probably won't appreciate these very difficult books. I say "difficult" because these are painful to read. As are the nine books in Hobb's three previous trilogies.

I partially agree with those who wish to give Nevare a kick in the rear, but I think his behavior is realistic. His father is overbearing and demanding from the beginning, making his son feel as if he (the father) isn't pleased with him and making the disastrously bad decision to send Nevare out to that evil Plains fellow (I forget his name). Nevare has to live with his father's disapproval and with the results of his father's mistake. In the second book, Nevare is thrust out so far from his home that he has to be cut loose from any attachment to his father's opinion. These circumstances would create a certain paralysis in a character. Parents with rigid expectations for their children in terms of who their children should be (I'm not talking here about normal discipline) often create emotional cripples, and that's exactly what has happened with Nevare.

I think Hobb is one of the greatest living fantasy writers today. Her books make me think--over and over again. I am now rereading my way through the first three trilogies (Farseer, Liveship, and Tawny Man) for the second or third time. I admit to being of a contemplative nature, so if you need a ton of fast-paced action, the Soldier Son books might not be for you. But I can't wait until the last one comes out, and I hope Robin Hobb won't quit writing for a good many years yet.

I give this a personal five stars, but I can see why some would be put off by this series. I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to say that the main character becomes incredibly obese. This is a blow to his self-esteem, career, most relationships, and the way he is treated by the world. Also, there is a lot of hardship and macabre scenes. The protagonist has a sort of split-personality soul. Finally, the writing style is dense, almost like the main character's journal, light on dialogue. Sounds like a dull read? On the contrary, my productivity was destroyed over Labor Day weekend as I devoured it! It is much more compelling than Shaman's Crossing.

Personally I didn't find it predicatable at all. While I often was led to realize things before Nevare himself could come to grips with them, this serves the story. It doesn't deflate the plot, because you want to see what he'll do both before and after he realizes things.

This is not high fantasy. I consider high fantasy to be Tolkienesque, sort of hero-and-sword stuff, in an epic fashion. In contrast, in Forest Mage there's not a drop of glamor, no true love, and no happy ending yet in sight. Particularly satisfying is the full development of everyone's motivations, without resorting to good-and-evil morality, or even simple wrong and right. Plus it's set in the gunpowder age of his civilization, more similar to our early 1800s than most fantasy settings are.

Some good supporting characters do carry over between books, but he doesn't get much of their companionship, due to the circumstances of the plot. (He does get very close to a few new people/entities though). I didn't find it bereft of emotion either, quite to the contrary.

The main theme is duality. Now that Nevare has recovered the other half of his soul, he is a more complete person, with more initiative and daring, yet he is constantly struggling to come to grips with the two very different halves of himself. That Hobb has compellingly pulled off this tricky characterization is to her credit. It's no wonder that Nevare is slow to accept some truths, because he wants to stay the old Nevare, the soldier's son, instead of sucumbing to his Speck half, the magic, and a whole new way of thinking.

He is begining to accept the magic, but he can't reconcile himself to the idea that he is merely a tool now, and all the choices he tries to make for himself end in disaster. In fact there is a Speck parable which Nevare tells as a bedtime story to some children that sums it up. The child is set a task by his mother, but he dilly dallies and tries to do as he pleases. All kinds of misfortunes befall him as a result. Ultimately he goes to do the task, and finds that his mother has already done it. Moral: some things are too important to be left undone. The magic will acomplish its goal one way or another.

Much as Nevare would like to determine his own future, and serve as the bridge between peoples, betraying neither, the Speck magic may simply have its way with him in the end. At least, that's how he feels sometimes! Can Nevare find a way to be more of a champion after all?

If you hated Shaman's Crossing, you may not like this one much more, but if you have any interest in Nevare, I think you will have a good to excellent read, and look forward to book 3.

Robin Hobb is among the small set of authors whose books I would buy sight-unseen. As with anything by Lois McMaster Bujold and Connie Willis (granted, those are two totally different styles!), Hobb's writing is so powerful that I want to see what she can do with _any_ topic. Even when she falters (each of her books seems to have a slow spot, during which I find myself "peeking ahead"), she crafts such real characters and so compelling a magic "physics" that I can't resist her stuff.

If you haven't read the first book in Hobb's Soldier Son trilogy, don't imagine that you can pick up the story with this one. While Hobb does a bit of an arm wave on "what has gone before," you really do need to know who Nevare _was_ in order to understand what he becomes. Or, more accurately, to understand what he struggles towards/against becoming.

For the underlying theme in this book isn't just about the coming of age of a Soldier Son -- the second son who is "destined" to serve his country -- as he discovers and resists a competing destiny. Hobb separates one common fantasy trope into its component parts. That is, in most fantasy novels, characters who are given "magic powers" are also given some understanding of how to use them, under what circumstances they're appropriate to use, and the ability to choose when to do so. Nevare is not. In this universe, the Magic has its own plans, and those who serve the magic are not "armed" with it but must follow whatever destiny they're given... which lacks a lot of details.

In addition, the politics of Hobb's world are uncomfortably familiar to our own human history. The Gernian king wants to expand "civilization" to the east, and the native Plainsmen and Specks are in the way. We'll bring them all the benefits of our technology, of course, and they'll soon understand that the life we give them is better. Uh-huh. And, of course, Nevare is stuck splat in the middle of all of it.

As a result, most of this book is about Nevare's struggle as he tries to get control of his life. It isn't always pretty, and yes, as some other reviewers have said, some bits are depressing. Yet, it's not gratuitiously depressing, and Nevare does end up making a choice by the end of the book.

I desperately want to know what happens next. I think you will, too.

**BEWARE: SPOILERS**
Second in the Soldier's Son Trilogy (first: Shaman's Crossing ), this book finds Nevarre, the second son of his New Noble father who is destined to be a soldier, recovering from the Speck plague that has ravaged the Academy. Instead of dying or having his health break, Nevarre is putting on weight. In total denial, he keeps saying it is better than being frail and thin like others who have survived, or that he always puts on weight before a growth spurt. In reality, he's growing so obese that he is eventually discharged from the Academy and service in the Army. Much of the many, many long pages are spent describing him bursting buttons on his clothing and embarrassed by and scorned for his flabby flesh. Apparently, being fat in this world is grounds for him being shunned by his family, losing his fiancée, being abused by everyone he meets, not being employable at all; his father starves him and demeans him and locks him away during the nights and works him brutally during the day. Nevarre just keeps saying it's not his fault, but not doing anything. This gets the reader 300 pages into the book.

Aside from the denial of the Fatness, Nevarre is also in denial of the Speck Magic that is cursing him to fatness... even though he had to deal with it in the LONG first book and even though he knows it's the cause of his condition. Every single time the subject comes up he will deny that magic exists, even though it causes him to see strange things and do strange things--such as go to a source of Plainsmen Magic and simultaneous try to stop some desecration of the Spindle and inadvertently help cause its destruction. He continues to just drift and admit to nothing, despite horrible things happening to him--until he's forced out of his father's house and onto the road. He drifts there until other forces (he's told it's the Magic calling the shots, but he disbelieves it and does nothing about it) push him along.

While the examination of being the object of extreme prejudice by being fat is different for a fantasy tale, it's not enough to overcome the weird motivations (or lack thereof) of the primary character. Hobb's writing is good enough to have made me want to continue watching this weird and frustrating train-wreck until the end, even though there was little sympathy to be found in Navarre and in the conflict between his own people and the Specks--but it's not a pleasant read with very little pay off at the end.