Tries to be two different things and doesn't really work - Rated 
Robin Hobb is an excellent author, there's little doubt of that. While the Soldier Son is far from her best work, I am sick of people complaining because they prefer the Farseer more, or because her latest output is not as good as her older material. Well sorry to break the bad news to you, but authors have good times and bad times like the rest of us. I don't want another Farseer. I have already read that book. You cannot take a negative view on a novel because it is different from another. What you can do is take a negative view because the book is not particularly well written.
The Soldier Son suffered from day one. It was a difficult read, and in my opinion there were many great concepts and stories which were never really sewed together properly which caused the whole trilogy to have a detached feeling. What I mean by this is that there are two main themes through this series - the colonial era Gettysburg setting - Old Thares, Widevale, the plains people - and that part of it is all excellently described (even the main town in the last book is called Gettys). The second is the forest magic setting - the Specks and their great people, and their way of life. Again, very well described and an excellent new concept of magic.
Where it all fell down was where Hobb tried to bring these two cultures together - ironically mirroring the problems seen in the story between the two peoples. I feel that this story tried to be a great colonial book and a great tree magic book, and instead of perfecting one, the thread split down the middle and the whole trilogy fell into the crack at the centre. The book is as split as like Nevare and Soldier's Boy.
Having read it, I feel I have come away confused an a little bit bombarded with too many things which were mentioned too briefly. I have no clue how the whole Lisana thing saving Nevare actually works having only just finished it. I couldn't tell you how the problem of Nevare and Soldier's Boy finally being unified was actually rectified, because I don't think it was really explained very well. I have a nasty feeling that some things were swept under the carpet, though I can't seem to pinpoint specifically what I mean. I criticised the first two books but I think they were both better than the third, only upon reading Renegade's Magic did I realise how well thought out the world was and how well it was described in the first two books. But the book is not entirely without merit, I found myself enjoying most of it.
Hobb is now writing a new novel about the Realm of the Elderlings, set in the same world as the Six Duchies, thank God. This should please different people for different reasons.
An enjoyable read nontheless - Rated
The soldioers boy trilogy had a lot to live up to, coming hot on the footsteps of one of the best epic fantasy series (Assasin/Liveship/Fool trilogies). The author obviously wanted to write something completely different, and in that she succeeded. No, it is not as good as the afore mentioned epic fantasy books. But read on its own, this series is still compelling enough.
I did enjoy this, it had some interesting twists to the usual magical ingredients found in fantasy books. However I think one of the major let downs in this series is the characterisation of the main players, especially Nevarre. He is not particularely likeable, and ultimately that is what lets this trilogy down a bit.
A classic it is not, but read it anyway and enjoy it for what it is.
Slow-burning - Rated 
I found `Renegade's Magic' (the third and concluding part of the Soldier Son series) to be a bit of a slow-burner. The final high-octane scenes of the previous story `Forest Mage' were very likely the most engrossing scenes of this trilogy up to that point, as charged with electricity as Nevare was charged with the unpredictable magic of the elusive Speck race. Therefore it's understandable that the subsequent story detailing our protagonists trek into the forest and escape from his former military-outpost home are less thrilling and less involving than the previous books' breath-stealing climax.
Very shortly, after a hundred or so pages the story literally quickens its pace, but even so I felt disheartened that I wasn't more emotionally-involved and more eager to leap through the pages of this final story in a trilogy by Robin Hobb. While it's clearly a superbly written, highly enjoyable novel and there are many characters whom I personally liked & empathised with, I didn't feel the cataclysmic events of plot so synonymous with this author were as explosively thrilling for a large portion of this story as they had been in the previous two stories. Although you might be justified in describing some portions of `Shaman's Crossing' and `Forest Mage' as pedestrian by Hobb's excessively high standards, for me both books possessed in abundance those shock twists that are one of the well-known characteristics of this author e.g. the mass plague set into motion by Nevare in the first story and the decimation of his frontier home and the deaths of many of his loved ones in the second. So it was with mild disappointment that I noted fewer of those heart-stopping, maddeningly addictive twists in `Renegade's Magic' than I expected to find in this the closing story.
But of course, in the lead-up to the finale events take on an unpredictable and engrossing life of their own as Nevare becomes ever more conflicted in his dual existence as magically-bound forest mage and loyal soldier son, building to a crescendo which this author has never neglected to provide for her readers. But before that familiar escalation of character torment and unexpected directions in plot as I said, I found this story a little lacking, despite my deep appreciation of this unique and welcomingly refreshing series in the Robin Hobb fantasy canon.
As a novel you might pick up without ever having read any of this author's previous works I'd easily award the book 5 stars for its superlative prose and sumptuous vocabulary if nothing else, but as a long-time fan forced to rate to a higher standard 4 stars feels more appropriate, because personally I preferred the second story in the trilogy `Forest Mage'. But very truthfully as the ending to the story dawned I was left quite breathless with the symmetry of the tale and smiled ear-to-ear as the story ended on the perfectly enigmatic note. A wonderful series.
renegades steady stream of dissapointments - Rated 
i will start with saying i have been a big fan of robin hobb i loved the farseer triology and enjoyed the liveship traders and suffered through the tawny man books for the moment fitz meets burrich just as he dies but this book is such a drag i find it hard to believe it was written by the same person in fact i get the distinct impression that she must have been on a diet whilst writting this book as it is filled with references to a thin person trapped in a fat guys body and how unhappy he is and if you took all the food references out of this book it would be about 400 pages slimmer, it is just awful ,just save your money and read the farseer triology again
Great story - stands out from the rest - Rated 
I have just recently been introduced to Robin Hobb but have managed to read all her books in the last year.
Unlike the Assassin books I had some empathy with the characters in this book and the story was very easy to read and gripping in places. If you liked any of Hobb's other books then this trilogy will not disappoint you.
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