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Renegade's Magic

Renegade's Magic

Epic FantasyFantasy
Published
2008

Synopsis

Wrongly accused of monstrous crimes and presumed dead by the people he once called his own, Nevare Burvelle retreats into the very forest his nation is bent on destroying. There the Speck magic that has reshaped his life finishes its work: the personality the Specks call Soldier's Boy seizes control, leaving Nevare a prisoner inside his own body, watching and arguing but unable to act. The two selves are forced to share one life, Soldier's Boy wielding their combined magic to halt the Gernian road and protect the ancient trees, while Nevare's lingering love for the family and friends on the other side gives him no power to stop what is coming. Among the Specks, Soldier's Boy rises as a Great One, taking his place in the rivalries of mages who command vast magic and command armies of feeders and dancers. Tended by the Speck woman Olikea and the boy Likari, he marshals a desperate effort to drive back an empire that does not understand what it is razing. As the conflict escalates toward catastrophe for both peoples, Nevare searches for a way to reunite the severed halves of his soul and find a resolution that does not require the annihilation of everything he has ever loved. This final volume brings the trilogy's meditation on conquest, nature, and identity to its close.

Prose complexity
7/10

Vibe

DarkTenseReflectiveMelancholicAtmospheric
BetrayalMorally GreySurvivalRedemption ArcReluctant HeroSacrifice

Genres

Epic Fantasy Fantasy Military

About the author

R
Robin Hobb

Robin Hobb is the principal pen name of American fantasy author Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden, born in 1952 in California. She spent her childhood from around age ten in Fairbanks, Alaska, and that rural Pacific Northwest and Alaskan upbringing informs much of her work. She published her first novel at thirty while working as a waitress and raising four children, her husband often away at sea as a commercial fisherman. From the early 1980s she wrote as Megan Lindholm, producing more grounded, o...

Characters

Nevare BurvelleProtagonist

Reduced to a passenger in his own body as his Speck-made second self takes command, he fights to reclaim his soul without dooming either people.

OlikeaSupporting

The Speck woman who feeds and cares for Soldier's Boy as he rises among the great mages.

EpinySupporting

Nevare's cousin, who with her husband Spink continues to act on his behalf back in Gernian society.

SpinkSupporting

Nevare's loyal friend and Epiny's husband, who works against the injustice done to Nevare.

All characters in Renegade's Magic

Frequently asked questions

  • Is Renegade's Magic the last book in the Soldier Son trilogy?

    Yes, it is the third and final volume, concluding the story begun in Shaman's Crossing and Forest Mage.

  • What is the central conflict of Renegade's Magic?

    Nevare's two selves share one body: his Speck half, Soldier's Boy, fights to stop the Gernian road and protect the forest, while Nevare struggles to keep his old people from harm and reunite his divided soul.

  • Who is Soldier's Boy?
  • Do I need to read the earlier books first?

    Yes. Renegade's Magic is a direct continuation and assumes full knowledge of Shaman's Crossing and Forest Mage.

  • Is the Soldier Son trilogy part of the Realm of the Elderlings?

    No. It is a self-contained trilogy set in a different world from Hobb's Farseer and Liveship Traders books, notable for a more modern setting with firearms.

  • Who are the Specks and what is their magic?

    The Specks are a dapple-skinned forest people whose magic is bound to their ancestral trees; their great mages command large bodies of feeders and dancers.

  • What themes does the final book bring to a close?

    It resolves the trilogy's exploration of colonial expansion, environmental destruction, cultural identity, and a soul divided between two peoples.

  • How does the trilogy's tone compare to Hobb's other work?

    Like much of Hobb's fiction it is slow-paced, introspective, and first-person, dwelling on suffering and inner conflict, though it reaches a relatively hopeful resolution.