Shaman's Crossing (Soldier's Son #1) by Robin Hobb

I know that you're all real tired of me talking about how I loved The Realm of the Elderlings (ROTE) and I've been trying to find something to fill the hole in my heart left by that series. I think it's kind of like how Harry Potter fans want something else like Harry Potter, but there really isn't anything like it?  Anyway, I decided to just go back to Robin Hobb well and start reading some of her other works. Soldier's Son is very polarizing among the Hobb fandom, so I thought I'd dig in. The first book in this trilogy is Shaman's Crossing. 

We meet Nevare Burvelle, who is the second son of a newly minted noble. As his status as second son is ordained, he is to become a soldier and eventually makes his way to the King's Cavella Academy.  But things don't go well for Nevare at the Academy. There are tensions between the "new" and "old" nobles, things with his family are strange, and let's not even start talking about his dreams. Is he really sleepwalking or is more happening? And then he goes to a carnival on Dark Night and the real story starts.

Look, I'm going to be honest with you. While I found Fitz's self-righteousness somewhat endearing in ROTE, I'm befuddled by Nevare in this series. He's dim, unquestioning, and not very nice. He's incurious about anything that doesn't directly relate to his future as a soldier and his unflinching obedience is just inexplicable. He's a teenage boy - where's the rebellion? The book is so slow and plodding and I expect that from Hobb, I really do, but when we're meandering along with the most boring character who has ever charactered, it's a struggle. There's not a lot of magic in the book and I want magic in my fantasy books and plenty of it!

This book also doesn't have the sly humor that is present in ROTE or the innumerable lines of note that I mark to write in this space. It's as if the prose that Hobb used in ROTE was written by a completely different person. The only sentence I noted in the whole book was the following:

When we returned to our dormitories after our evening soup, our uniforms would steam and stink until the air of our rooms seemed thick with memories of sheep. (page 305)

I thought that sentence was descriptive and evocative and reminiscent of the Hobb that I want to read. There was much too little of it in the whole novel.

And then there's the treatment of the indigenous people in the narrative. The fantasy world resembles the US and the "Specks" are stand-ins for Native Americans and the treatment of the indigenous populations is not the most sensitive portrayal. 

And it turns out that this is a plague book, too, and I'm just not up for that right now. 

I was not impressed. What a bummer. 2.5/5 stars