Book two, Forest Mage, concerns Nevare's trip in disgrace to a town near Gettys, and his time at this farthest outpost in the King's Road construction.

The third and final book, Renegade's Magic, details Nevare's sojourn with the Specks in their extensive forest near the Barrier Mountains.

The Soldier Son trilogy is set in a post-colonial secondary world that has drawn resemblance to the nineteenth century American frontier.

[1] A civilised and warlike nation, Gernia, has taken to expanding its boundaries inland as a result of its coastal lands being lost to a neighbour's vastly superior naval force.

Writing in The Times, critic Amanda Craig stated that the Soldier Son trilogy was filled with believable characters, and commended the series as "the kind of fantasy that Anthony Trollope would have written if he lived now".

Craig described Hobb's writing as having a "gloriously original touch", and viewed the series' themes as a critique of military aggression in the wake of the Iraq War.

[4][5] The Guardian likewise felt the Soldier Son novels were "intelligent and deep", but critiqued them for lacking "the heart and page-turning spark" of Hobb's Elderlings series.