Customer Reviews

Cursor's Fury (Codex Alera, Book 3)

5 star:		(70)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Return again to Alera Imperia, the Roman Empire inspired fantasy realm from Dresden Files author Jim Butcher. A world in which all of humanity share the ability to use elemental furies, everyone except Tavi. As a Cursor in service to the First Lord of Alera, Gaius Sextus, Tavi must survive using his wits and intelligence in a world where everyone can command these supernatural powers.

This is a continuation of the last book, in which Tavi is now a full fledged Cursor (spy, assassin and special forces operative), and is given an assignment to impersonate a Legion officer and sent to the furthest corner of the realm to avoid a potentially devastating civil uprising that could prove fatal to the young furyless Tavi. This does not work out well as the Legion is faced with an invasion force of Canim, a savage werewolf like race, many times the legions size. When a devastating first strike against the Aleran Legion destroys the chain of command, it leaves Tavi as the Legion commander with no experience as a Legionnaire or an officer. With no furies of his own, Tavi uses every bit of his wit and cunning and bravery to stop the Canim invasion.

Like previous Aleran Codex novels the books are divided into two stories. One is Tavi's and the other is of another cursor Amara. Amara is faced with saving hostages from the ruthless Kalare, who strikes at the First Lord to take the throne for himself. Amara must make an alliance with the Lady Aquitaine, the First Lords political enemy, and a traitor Cursor called Rook.

This book may very well be Butcher's finest work to date, and I say this as a long time fan that reads anything with his name on it. It hit every note correctly, it finally answers the mystery of why Tavi is furyless and confirms the identity of his parents (though Butcher gave it away in the most obvious hints in the first book). Like Harry Dresden, Tavi is a hero you WANT to see succeed at everything he does. IN this world furies are used to not just manipulate the elements but to augment physical prowess of a furycrafter. It's the practical applications of furycrafting that truly sets this series apart. Tavi being furyless doesn't mean he is a Fighter/rogue in a world of wizards, it means he is technically handicapped because furycrafting is used for EVERYTHING. It's like a man with no legs.

Yet Tavi overcomes this handicap and excels beyond anyone's expectations by showing intelligence, forethought, preparation, and quick wits, you can overcome anything.

The ending is everything you hope. You read each chapter wondering how Tavi is going to overcome the odds, and it's not just his mental skill that proves out, it's his ruthless focused mind that drives him to do the things he does.

In the end you know Tavi will rip through everything if ever gets furies on his own, because he is so devastating without them.

This is a must buy for Butcher fans, and anyone that is looking for a new series to get into, buy Furies of Calderon and get started.

The feeling to which I refer is probably familiar to readers around the world. You know the one - you're in the bookstore, all of your favorite authors are between installments, and then you choose something based on the back cover (paperback) or inside flap (hardcover). Who knows if this will be worth your time or end up in your next garage sale?

I am grateful for the day I discovered Jim Butcher and "The Dresden Files," because that is a well-written, enjoyable series in its own right. However, having been a sword-and-sorcery connoisseur for much of my life, I may be even more pleased with the Codex Alera. Mr. Butcher has created a world and society that are different enough to capture interest (the furies are an inventive twist on "magic") but familiar enough so that you don't spend all of your time trying to puzzle out different languages and unpronounceable names.

Almost all of the primary characters in these books are likable, or at the least, intriguing. As I tend to prefer, there are shades of gray and uneasy alliances. The reason I prefer this is because it injects some "real life" into the proceedings. I love the shifting political winds and the actions taken to adjust to them. But mostly I really enjoy Tavi, the protagonist, and his efforts to survive and excel while being possibly the only Aleran citizen with no ability at furycraft. His history and the hints that he may be more than he seems are handled masterfully, not too heavy-handed or too cryptic. I will continue to follow this series and I know I will enjoy Tavi's ascension to whatever fate awaits him. Thank you, Mr. Butcher, for a thoroughly enjoyable read.

I am a big fan of the Dresden Files series, and I occasionally like sword-and-sorcery books, so one day when I was waiting impatiently for the next Dresden book, I started the Codex Alera series. I picked up the first one in the series, Furies of Caderon, I read it, and I thought, "Well, what a good book, that Jim Butcher is a talented author." Then I went about my business for a while, without any burning desire to read book two. I checked bookstores when I passed the fantasy section, but for some reason bookstores never stock book two, and it was almost a year before I finally bothered to order it.

So I finally read book two, Academ's Fury. And by the time I was done, I was totally hooked on the series. The first thing I did after I finished the last page was order book three, Cursor's Fury, even though it was only available in hardback. I couldn't help it. I had to know what happened. Cursor's Fury was even better than Academ's Fury - Butcher has this truly incredible ability to get a series off to a good start and then make each book better as it goes along.

I think it's only now, at the end of the third book, that this series is really ready to begin. All of the characters are on the brink of major changes, all of them are well developed, there are incredibly complex relationships between them, conflicts between personal and political goals, between feeling and principle. Characters must choose between good and evil, but they must make even more difficult choices between different goods, which cannot both be obtained, and different evils, which cannot both be prevented. We know who the (many) main characters are, what they're up to, and how it came to be so.

I love the character of Tavi, and I really love that Butcher has written against the genre and created a character who can be a hero in a magical world without ever using magic. And I absolutely cannot wait for the next installment of the series to appear.

I've been reading science fiction and fantasy all my life, like many of you. You know when you find a good writer. Jim Butcher is a rare talent, and seems to be getting better with each book he writes. He also seems to write new books fairly quickly, which is obviously important to us readers (How long has the Wheel of Time been turning?). Each book in the Codex Alera is superb, and Cursor's Fury is no exception.

So what? Lots of writers do that. But how many series have you read where the author starts out great, then after a couple of books the story starts wandering across an overly descriptive landscape with characters that do nothing but talk? For example, I loved the first books from Jordan, Eddings, and Goodkind.

Well, enough of that. Jim Buther creates great characters on both sides - not just the good guys. Every plot line he opens he brings to a logical conclusion. Yes, the major story ends with a teaser, but we want that. You can actually finish the book satisfied, but still wanting more. If you've read Modesitt, you'll understand what I mean, although Modesitt's books are a little more standalone.

Many other great reviewers have described the storyline very well here, so I won't bore you with details. The bottom line, as others have noted, is that this is a excellent book in a great new series. Get it now.

In the Codex Alera, Jim Butcher is proving himself to be a master at world-building. He's put together an alternate universe that's built on a Rome which turned in another direction -- when people apparently found that they could master water, earth, fire and air furies -- and then somehow found itself in a place where other non-human races reside. The "technology" that Rome had developed (such as road-building) has become irrelevant and is now myth. I still haven't figured out how this came about, but I want to know.

I loved the two earlier books in this series, so I was excited to read the third novel. (Which, since it doesn't _completely_ have closure, implies that another is to follow.) I liked the characters, especially the boy-without-furies Tavi and the Cursor Amara, and I wanted to see what happened to them.

Unfortunately -- and disputing the opinion of other fans here -- the author stumbles. It isn't that the storyline is unbelievable but that I found I didn't care about the events quite as much as I expected to. The major weakness is that Butcher lost each character's unique voice. Tavi is now a young man, but he most of the time he has less personality than he did in the earlier books, and when he does express himself he sounds entirely too much like Harry Dresden. Amara and her husband have a more realistic relationship, but they're both busy being so heroic that, so to speak, you rarely hear them talk when they're comfortably at home with one another.

I'm not quite sure how Butcher faltered in this way; it kept feeling to me as though he was distracted with another project, and the result is like listening to a radio station that's *almost* tuned in. I wanted to know what happened enough that I finished the entire book, but the static got in the way of me completely enjoying it.

It does earn its four stars, though, because the book does continue a story that I want to hear. But the uneven voice makes Cursor's Fury depend on the worldbuilding a little more than it should have to.

I can slap down two to three books a week and it wouldn't be unheard of for me to finish a book the size of Cursor's Fury in two nights. As a matter of fact, that is about how long I finished the first two in this series. Yet, it took me three weeks to complete this book. I would pick it up, become discouraged or distracted, put it down, finish another book, then pick this one up again to continue the cycle. It wasn't that Butcher didn't create a great book and continuation of the Cursor series, it was just too much war for me.

The book follows two battles, a second battle of the metaphysical sense, and one rescue attempt covering four different area and three different set of people. Basically the book was battle after battle being fought. The scenes were great and the discription of each battle was some of the best written that I have ever encountered. There was even this one paragraph on page 409 (I can't believe I can remember the page number--goes to show) that was fantastic writing; I even got a bit teary-eyed. I'm so looking forward to the next in the series. So why four stars instead of five? I guess its the woman in me. I didn't find that Butcher did much with his characters. There was no further character development in the story whatsoever. The characters in this story had become so life-like to me from the previous novel that I was looking forward to see them grow. There was no growth. I definitely liked the shocker at the end. Forget it, I'm not even going to hint!

I've been waiting for this book for awhile, and I was not disappointed. For everyone out there who has been waiting, don't wait run to the nearest bookstore and buy this book! For those of you who haven't discovered this excellent series, run to the nearest bookstore and buy all three books! Jim Butcher has proved he's and excellent writer with his Dresden Files books, but this series shows he knows fantasy as well! This series has it all, a rich and complex political system, intrigue, and seriously nasty monsters. This third book shows our protagonist, Tavi all grown up and out on his first assignment as a Cursor. Of course, his assignment is to hold off an entire invading army with only a small force under his command. As usual, Jim Butcher does as excellent job of writing out very well fleshed secondary characters which support the main cast. This book was a page turner from start to finish, with a surprising twist at the end that had me screaming for the fourth book. I can't wait to see where this series goes from here. Highly recommend this book to anyone who loves fantasy, and any other Harry Dresden fans out there, if you haven't bought these books you should.

For a fantasy adventure to work it has to have a believable world with characters involved in situations where you can understand and believe in enough that you care what happens to them.

You can believe in the world of Alera. Here the forces that make up the world: Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Wood and Metal, take physical form. It's not the way it works here, but you can believe in it. After all, it's not to far from what our western culture believed in the past.

You can also believe in the corruption, manipulations, short sightedness and incompetence of the people in charge. We certainly have a lot of evidence for those conditions. You wonder how the got in charge in the first place, but that's unfortunately not too uncommon here either.

This is the third book in the series, so there was dlearly enough interest on the part of readers and the publisher to produce this volume.

Conclusion: I liked it, a lot of other people liked it. And I've found a new author whose future books I intend to read.

This is the third book in the Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher. This series is quite different from Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series but it is just as good. I started reading these books a bit reluctantly since the epic fantasy genre is very different from the paranormal alternate reality genre of the Dresden Files. This series proves that Jim Butcher is just all around a great writer.

The only problem I have with these books is that in the previous books I didn't personally find any of the main characters extremely likable or engaging. They are all okay and fun to read about but none of them really "spoke" to me.

This book changed some of that. Tavi is sent off to join a newly formed legion where he is supposed to be spying for High Lord Gaius. A tragedy kills off all of the leaders of the legion and Tavi is suddenly the ranking officer of the legion. This proves interesting considering Tavi's lack of military background. Amara is sent to do a daring rescue of some captured nobles and is forced to rely on the morally questionable Lady Aquitaine for assistance.

I like Tavi a lot more in this book. I also really like Kitai's part in the book. Kitai is probably one of my favorite characters; I love her wit and daring.

This book was a fun read. It is very fast paced with a lot of action. Tavi takes some great steps toward growing up and becoming a true legendary hero. The book kept me interested and kept me up late at night. Still when all is said and done though I feel like something is lacking in this series in general.

I am not sure what that thing is. I don't know if it's my lack of being able to relate to the characters or if it's just that I keep hearing Harry Dresden in the back of my head while I read these.

Anyway, it's a good book and if you've been reading the series, you have got to read this book. If you haven't been reading the series I would highly recommend it. It is well-written and entertaining. For some reason though I just don't get extremely jumping-for-joy excited about these books and this book is no exception.

[...]

While I was a fan of Butcher's Dresden books, I wasn't sure about starting his fantasy series. I wasn't sure how well he would make the switch, and I was worried that we might end up with a recycled version of Harry in a more fantasy-type setting.

All my misgivings were false.

Jim Butcher is rapidly growing into one of the best writers I've encountered. He's currently maintaining two active series that are different in pretty much every way. One is first person, the other is third. One if contemporary urban fantasy, the other is high fantasy. One focuses entirely on one central character, the other follows around several characters all engaged in different activities in different locations. And, most amazing of all, he does both very well.

In his Alera books, Butcher switches the perspective around to keep you up to date with what several different characters, or groups of characters, are busy with. And, he weaves this together to tell a central story about what's going on. He shows how these seperate activities in different sections of the empire effect everyone.

This series, and especially this book, is filled with excitement, intrigue, and plot twists. Many things come as a surprise, and even those that don't are told in such a way that it is still exciting when they happen.

Tavi, one of the hero's of the series, has pogressed from a simple farm boy to an agent of the emperor, and now into the commander of one of the empire's legions. He must defend a vital passage leading into the heart of the empire.

While this is going on, a foreign invasion by a hostile race is landing near his position. And, that's occuring as one of the high nobles betrays the crown and makes a bid for power. While Tavi must work to keep his legion together, others are on a mission to rescue hostages from a dangerous rebel. That mission includes not only loyal subjects, but others believed to be conspiring against the emperor themselves.

The way Jim Butcher writes it, it's a thrilling joy to watch these events play out. Will they all be successful, or will some of them fail? And, win or lose, in what shape will the empire be after all the dust settles?