Eden (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
wilderthan) wrote2008-07-05 02:05 am
wilderthan) wrote2008-07-05 02:05 am
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Review - Renegade's Magic
Most of the final book of Robin Hobb's Soldier Son trilogy didn't impress me very much. I thought it could have been cut down a lot, and made more interesting just by that. I thought that the resolution to it all got so painfully obvious by about two hundred and fifty pages in that anything more was simply labouring the point.
But.
The last one hundred and fifty pages or so were brilliant. Things came together, and you could finally see how everything was meant to work out. Everything suddenly made a lot more sense, and characterisations -- I'm mostly referring to Nevare's father -- became much more satisfying to me. Points that I'd thought were a little irrelevant made a lot more sense and contributed to the story.
The end left me with a very positive view of the book, whereas in the middle I'd been getting quite tired of the dithering and the mistakes that kept being made. The same thing happened with Forest Mage, actually. Robin Hobb has a knack with writing satisfying endings. I think the pacing in her more recent work needs tidying up, but the end of this trilogy makes me think something I'll find as good as Farseers might be along soon.
But.
The last one hundred and fifty pages or so were brilliant. Things came together, and you could finally see how everything was meant to work out. Everything suddenly made a lot more sense, and characterisations -- I'm mostly referring to Nevare's father -- became much more satisfying to me. Points that I'd thought were a little irrelevant made a lot more sense and contributed to the story.
The end left me with a very positive view of the book, whereas in the middle I'd been getting quite tired of the dithering and the mistakes that kept being made. The same thing happened with Forest Mage, actually. Robin Hobb has a knack with writing satisfying endings. I think the pacing in her more recent work needs tidying up, but the end of this trilogy makes me think something I'll find as good as Farseers might be along soon.