
Forest Mage
core novel 2006 The Soldier Son Trilogy
Record
| First published | 2006 |
|---|---|
| Original language | |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 3.48 (20,044 ratings, collected 2026-09-11) |
| Page count | 718 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780007196159 |
| Internal chronology | 2 |
Synopsis
Forest Mage picks up after a devastating plague, tied to Speck magic, sweeps through the King's Cavalla Academy where Nevare Burvelle has been training. Nevare survives, but with an unusual side effect: rather than wasting away like other victims, he gains substantial weight, which his father interprets as a moral failing rather than the magical consequence Nevare insists it is, and disowns and banishes him as a result. Nevare travels east to the remote outpost of Gettys, taking humble work as a cemetery guard, a steep fall from his earlier ambitions as an officer, and there comes under the continued influence of Speck magic, aided by a young Speck woman named Olikea. Torn between his Gernian upbringing and the pull of the Specks' forest magic, and further complicated by lingering feelings for his former fiancée, Nevare finds himself caught between two worlds that increasingly refuse to let him belong fully to either.
Where it sits
- Universe: The Soldier Son Trilogy
- Series: The Soldier Son Trilogy core; position 2 of 3 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Robin Hobb
Notes
- From the series record (The Soldier Son Trilogy): A distinct continuity from Robin Hobb's Realm of the Elderlings -- shares no characters, setting, or continuity.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings, but they resolve to the exact same sequence for this book, so one combined line is shown instead of two identical ones.
- Reading order, within the series The Soldier Son Trilogy: position 2 of 3: previous Shaman's Crossing (2005) · next Renegade's Magic (2007)
Sources
- Wikipedia: Soldier Son trilogy
- Wikipedia: Shaman's Crossing
- Wikipedia: Forest Mage
- Wikipedia: Renegade's Magic
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Hobb
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