Book Reviews of Furies of Calderon (Codex Alera, Bk 1) (Unabridged Audio CD)

#1 in the Codex Alera fantasy series, a much more 'traditional' fantasy than Butcher's other modern-day "urban" fantasy Harry Dresden series. The land of Alera is about to be besieged by war, with the barbarians at the gates. While Alera itself seems based in Roman history, it's odd because the barbarians (the Marat) sound like the marauding American Indians of tomahawk and scalping fame with their various tribes and clans. Alerans use magic by bonding with furies, which are elementals based in air, earth, fire, water and metal.

Like many fantasies, this story switches point of view several times to tell the various storylines of the main characters. Tavi, a fifteen-year-old boy living in Bernardhold, nephew to the steadholder, has not yet bonded with any furies, and thus is known as a freak and Amara, a young Cursor (messenger/spy) who is a windcrafter sent by the First Lord to the Calderon Valley (Tavi's home) to seek out information about the invasion, and who finds a traitor very close to hand, are the main characters. Tavi's uncle and aunt and Amara's tutor and traitor Fidelius as well as several other secondary characters also figure heavily in the story. As they trek along, sometimes together and sometimes not, they meet a fairly predictable set of adversarial situations.

I did enjoy the book, but something about it failed to fully engage my interest. Good, but not great, in other words. It was a rather slow starter, and Butcher does a good job of building the world of Alera, although all the various magical rules and the governmental setup were a little confusing for awhile. The tone of the book was completely different than Butcher's Dresden Files series also, missing the wry humor and smart-alecky main character, but if anything it shows that the author is not a one-dimensional writer but can easily expand his horizons, and has done so. I'm hoping that subsequent books in the series will be a tad easier to get through now that I'm familiar with the world of Alera. The reader for this one was good, but not a favorite.

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