If I didn't know the name of the author, I would never place this author as the same one who writes the Harry Dresden books. This first book in the Codex Alera series is a completely different type of story. It is extremely well-written and the world that Butcher has created is amazing. My only issue is that the world is so fully developed that it took a while to really understand how this world worked - I think I spent at least the first half of the book trying to figure it all out (and there are still many questions that I have), which took away a bit from the story itself. The characters might not have the same place in my heart that Harry and Bob and their crew have, but I did enjoy reading this book very much.

This isn't a half bad book. I'm anxious to read the rest of the series. Jim Butcher went a completely different way than his Dresden files series. In this series he develops a new world and a new way of doing "magic". This book drags you into the author's world and keeps you there until you finish the book and surface for air.

The ideas behind the book were great; I enjoyed the ideas of the furies a lot. The book was okay, but I did not immensely enjoy it-- the style was just not quite my cup of tea.

I picked this book up on the strength of Jim Butcher's interview on The Dragon Page: Cover to Cover show #260. Of course, Butcher is famous for The Dresden Files, an urban fantasy/mystery series in which the protagonist sleuth is a freelance wizard. It is popular enough to have been turned into a television series by the same name. I'm not a huge fan of urban fantasy; almost every time I've tried to pick one up, I've never finished the book. Also, the TV series didn't wow me at all. So I was definitely intrigued when Evo Terra practically gushed about the Codex Alera, Butcher's epic fantasy series. I wanted to give the guy a chance.

Mr. Butcher stated that the Codex Alera series came about from a challenge of a friend. They had been discussing the concept of taking bad ideas and making them into good novels through presentation and writing. This individual challenged Butcher to write a good novel from a bad idea. Butcher upped the ante and asked for two bad ideas, and these were the results:

-- Lost Roman Legion
-- Pokemon

Taking these two ideas, Butcher crafted _Furies of Calderon._ Which is unfortunately a pretty bad book. There are two areas in which this book is particularly unsavory: plotting and writing style.

**PLOTTING**

The plot of _Furies of Calderon_ is pretty cliche ridden. There is the boy: a young character with mysterious origins living on a small farmstead. This particular boy, Tavi, cannot use any of the elemental forces (the Pokemon influence) that fill his homeland. He wants to go to the capital city to study at university so he can make a name for himself as a scholar. Cue John Williams score and wonder who this boy's parents are.

The other overly familiar plot points are rife. There is the female spy who uncovers the plot to overthrow the monarch. That's probably one of the most common plots of any fantasy novel. There is a "Judas" character. There is a group of invading savages. There's a dark, scary forest full of overgrown spiders. Tavi is able to point out flaws in the savages' legal system. The female spy is quite conveniently also nobility, even though it had never been mentioned until just the "right" moment. It continues ad nauseam.



**WRITING**

The writing style that Butcher uses here is pretty tedious. A lot the time, it is overly wordy. A lot of information is included parenthetically and can be repetitive. A great example of this appears on page 480:

"She lifted her arm, gasping, and blocked the Marat's forearm with her own, halting the blade a scant inch from her throat."

And then just one sentence later:

"Isana twisted, gasping, calling for Rill once again, hoping that the first Marat would remain incapacitated when she called Rill from him."

Both of these sentences are clunky. They could be streamlined easily. As it is, the reader has quite a bit to wade through. The parenthetical verbs especially could be cut. Much more interesting words than "gasping" could be used to provide action. Stricter editing would have been really beneficial.

There's also some confusion about whether or not a certain character is a Citizen. On page 33, Tavi reminds his Uncle Bernard that he could have challenged for full Citizenship. On page 220, another character says that Bernard can't kill a Citizen on that Citizen's property. Bernard replies that he can on his own land, which implies some sort of Citizenship status. On page 363, yet another character reminds Bernard that he isn't a Citizen off of his own property. It would be so much easier to understand, at least in my opinion, if Butcher had made clear how the Citizenship system worked in this world.

In conclusion, this book completely fails in what it was trying to accomplish. The ideas were hokey, the delivery was schlocky, and the story just doesn't deliver anything remarkable or original. There's a lot out there that is better on every count, and I intend to read that instead.

Interesting story concept, but I had a hard time getting into this book. It's an 'all right' story but rather predictable. By the third (or maybe it was the fourth?) Big Battle Scene, I found myself wondering, "When is it going to end?"

Jim Butcher should stick with the Harry Dresden series and leave the High Fantasy genre alone.

If you like Jim's Harry Dresden books, your sure to like this one!

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I loved the Dresden books that I've read so far, so I thought I'd give this series a try since it is by the same author. I'm really glad I did! While it is extremely different from the other series Butcher still can tell a fast-paced, intense story that never lets up. The end of the book was a little disappointing, but I can't really go into why because I don't want to spoil it. Still, I put this book down and immediately started reading the next book in the series. Good stuff!

Read All Book Reviews of "Furies of Calderon Codex Alera Bk 1"