Furies of Calderon - Jim Butcher

   2004; 502 pages.  Book 1 (out of 6) in the “Codex Alera” series.  New Author? : No, but the series is new to me.  Genres: Epic Fantasy; High Fantasy; Roman Empire Fantasy; Coming of Age.  Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

 

    Poor, poor, pitiful Tavi.  Fifteen years old and not a trace of furycrafting in him.  Such a disability.  Indeed, in the entire realm of Alera, you’ll not find one another adult without a trace of magical ability.

 

    At least Tavi has a good homelife: he lives with his Uncle Bernard on a steadholt, and spends most of his time herding the sheep.  If all goes well, someday Bernard will give him a flock of his own, and Tavi can settle down to a comfortable, if utterly prosaic, life of sheepherding.

 

    Right now, however, he's in a bit of a bind.  While minding the flock yesterday, his attention strayed to a local lass that Tavi’s sweet on.  And while he was focusing on his puppy love, some of the sheep wandered off.  Uncle Bernard won’t fail to notice that.  Perhaps if Tavi slips out of the house early this morning, he can go round them up, bring them home, with nobody the wiser.

 

    The worst-case scenario is if Tavi is unable to find the lost sheep.  His uncle will not be pleased, and Tavi will have to accept whatever punishment is meted out.  I beg to differ, Tavi, that’s not even close to being the worst that can happen.  You have no idea how bad things are going to get.

 

    But you’re about to find out.

 

What’s To Like...

    Furies of Calderon is the first book in a (completed) six-volume high fantasy series called The Codex Alera, published in the 2004-2009, one book each year, by Jim Butcher and alongside his bread-&-butter series, The Dresden Files.  Good grief, that’s a lot of writing.

 

    The magic system is not complex.  Every Aleran, Tavi excepted, can “craft” (invoke and control) “furies” (think “ethereal familiars”) from one of the six elemental realms: Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Metal, and Wood.  Most Alerans have just a single fury, although a few have two.  As with any wizardly system, summoning and controlling a fury takes it out of you: the longer you're wielding an active fury, the longer it will take you to recover.  The only other magical ability, at least thus far, is “truthfinding”, which is sort of a walking, talking human lie detector.

 

    In addition to the magic, there are a bunch of new creatures: (gargants, slives, Knights Aeries, herdbanes, wax spiders, and more), all of which to meet and flee from.  Don’t let that term “wax spider” fool you, they might be the most dangerous in the menagerie.

 

    The writing is superb, which is the norm for Jim Butcher: witty, exciting, and well-paced once the obligatory world-building has been accomplished.  The character development is phenomenally deep and fluid: Tavi, Doroga, Kitai, Isana, Bernard, Fidelias, Odiana, Fade, and quite a few others, both good guys and bad, are all three-dimensional, yet this doesn't bog down the storytelling.

 

    The ending is well-crafted and epically long (100+ pages!), although it's been used a lot before: hordes upon hordes of baddies are besieging our hopelessly outnumbered good guys, with seemingly only one outcome possible.  Shades of Helm’s Deep from Lord of the Rings.

 

    Yet here, despite the reader knowing that our heroes will prevail (elsewise, how could there be five more books in the series?), Jim Butcher somehow convinces you that all is lost.  Still, most of the baddies will live to fight and furycraft another day, and in another book in the series.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.6/5 based on 1,914 ratings.

    Goodreads: 4.10/5 based on 102,021 ratings and 4,263 reviews

 

Things That Sound Dirty, But Aren’t…

    “Bernard.  Why is there a girl in your bed?”  (pg. 181)

 

Excerpts...

    “How will Aquitaine react?”

    The big man pursed his lips.  “It depends.”

    “On what?”

    “On what he is doing when we interrupt him with bad news.”

    “Is it all that bad?”

    Aldrick smiled.  “Just hope he’s up drinking.  He’s usually in a pretty good mood.  Tends to forget his anger by the time the hangover has worn off.”

    “It was an idiot’s plan to begin with.”

    “Of course.  It was his.”  (pg. 81)

 

    “Trouble, Tavi,” Fade said, his tone serious.  “Trouble.”

    “I know,” Tavi said.  “Don’t worry.  We’ll figure a way out of this.”

    Fade nodded, eyes watching Tavi expectantly.

    “Well not right this minute,” Tavi said, after a flustered moment.  “You could at least try to help me come up with something, Fade.”

    Fade stared vacantly for a moment and then frowned.  “Marat eat Alerans.”

    Tavi swallowed.  “I know, I know.  But if they were going to eat us, they wouldn’t have given us blankets and a place to sleep.  Right?”

    “Maybe they like hot dinner,” Fade said, darkly.  “Raw dinner.”

    Tavi stared at him for a minute.  “That’s enough help, Fade.”  (pg. 257)

 

“She kissed me, and my brains melted and dribbled out my ears.”  (pg. 161)

    The quibbles are minor.  There were a couple of typos, which is a couple too many for a published book (mass market format, by Ace Fantasy): Aldrick/Aldrik; Aldrick/Aquitainus, tread/trod, and the ubiquitous lead/led boo-boo.

 

    Most of the occasions that called for cussing made clever use of the word “crow”.  Examples: “bloody crows” (bloody heck), “crow fodder” (BS), “crows and bloody furies”; yet on two occasions, “b*tch” snuck in.  There’s a lot of blood and gore, which I expected, but also rape, forcible assault (via a slave collar), and even cannibalism, all of which surprised me a bit.  It makes me wonder who the target audience is.  Perhaps it’s for readers like me: adults who still like to read fantasy novels.

 

    Finally, and most nitpicky, there were no maps, at least not here in the first book.  We'll see if that holds true throughout the series.

 

    The quibbles notwithstanding, overall, Furies of Calderon fully met the high expectations I have for anything written by Jim Butcher.  I’ll defer on whether The Dresden Files outshines The Codex Alera, or vice versa until I’ve read more of this series.  But I’m guessing my answer will be “they’re both fantastic”.

 

    8½ Stars.  One last bit of trivia.  According to the Wikipedia article, Jim Butcher penned The Codex Alera based on a bet that he couldn’t write a good story based on a lame idea.  Butcher responded that he could do so based on two of the challenger’s lame ideas.  The ones chosen?  “Lost Roman Legion” and “Pokemon”).  I’m not kidding; you can read about it here.