98 of 104 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Odi et Amo, November 28, 2009
This review is from: First Lord's Fury (Codex Alera, Book 6) (Hardcover)
It seems this is the year for both of Jim Butcher's fantasy series to come full circle. First it was Turn Coat, wrapping up the first half of the Dresden Files, and now it is First Lord's Fury resolving the story of Tavi of Calderon. Codex Alera began with a young shepherd boy losing his sheep and subsequently being caught up in the larger political machinations of a treasonous High Lord attempting to usurp power from the First Lord in the Calderon Valley. It is, therefore, only fitting that the Calderon Valley is the backdrop for the final act of the Codex Alera.
Eight years later, in Alera, and that shepherd boy has grown into an Academ, a Man, a Cursor, a Captain, a Princeps and finally The First Lord. However, one thing has not changed: the fate of Alera still rests on his shoulders.
Tavi, now known as Gaius Octavian, returns from his journey to Canea to find his land under siege from the deadly Vord. Already having conquered the Canim, the Vord Queen has now turned her attention towards Alera. In Princep's Fury we saw her armies march on Alera Imperia, causing Tavi's grandfather, Gaius Sextus, First Lord of Alera, to sacrifice himself and Alera Imperia to slow the march of the Vord Army. Sextus' sacrifice allowed the Aleran Legions breathing room, but was ultimately just a delaying tactic that made it possible to set up the dramatic last stand of Alera.
One of the more unique aspects of the Codex Alera series is that while it is told in 3rd person limited (which I failed to initially identify, thank you Christopher), it feels, to me, very much like a 1st person fantasy series told from several different character viewpoints. Unlike Dresden, where we are in Harry's head the whole time, we are privy to the thoughts of anywhere from four (Tavi, Isana, Amara and Fidelias) to six (+Ehren and Invidia) characters as Butcher tracks the progress of the story on several different fronts. After the first book, we have been spending more and more time tracking Tavi, which has been a great boon to the series. Gaius Octavian is every bit as interesting as Harry Dresden, and the more time dedicated to him, the better. With so much going on, and so many variant story-lines folding together across continents, it was inevitable that Butcher would have to dedicate more time to other characters in this final act. While this is somewhat disappointing, nearly every character is as or more interesting in this installment than they have ever been.
I really feel the addition of Ehren ex Cursori's viewpoint has been the best addition to the series since Cursor's Fury altered the character of Fidelias to Valiar Marcus. He has another fine role in this book, and as in Princep's Fury, Ehren allows us to be privy to the thoughts of a First Lord from an advisor's POV. We experienced more Gaius Sextus in PF via Ehren, and Sextus is easily the second best character in the series, and is a large part of why I like PF so much.
First Lord's Fury sees the addition of Invidia Aquitaine's POV , and she is well done, but I feel she would have been more interesting to explore before she was taken by the Vord. While her arc is pivotal and works well within the story, it would have been more effective if we had more of an insight into her mind in earlier books. She was always a good character, but seeing her fall from the inside could have been even more tragically satisfying.
Surprisingly, I would honestly consider that it is Attis Aquitaine who, in the end, proves to be the more interesting character. Butcher explores Attis in much more detail, and I honestly feel that of the ancillary characters, he has the most memorable character progression. I found myself honestly touched reading the last scene between he and Amara.
In the end though, the series begins and ends with Tavi. One of the brilliant strokes of the series is the relationship Butcher cultivates between Tavi and Fidelias, as it means that the two most interesting viewpoint characters now spend so much time together. Their interaction, and Fidelias's own dynamic character arc, is definitely among the high points of this final book. But the growing up that Octavian has done, the way he is forced to deal with politics, betrayal, betrothal and brotherhood while trying to carry the world upon his shoulders has just been well done from start to finish. I would very readily read more books told from the viewpoint of Octavian.
While I love First Lord's Fury quite a lot, I do feel it could have been a little better. Clocking in at 465 pages, it is still not as long as Academ's Fury, and I feel pushing it to 500 (or even the 480 Amazon lists) would have allowed Butcher to finish the series without it feeling quite as rushed. The book still works, and I would say it is comparable to Princep's Fury, but after PF's brevity (presumably penultimate syndrome) I really felt that FLF needed to be the longest book of the series. I am actually mostly disappointed by the fact that we never get to read Sextus' letter to Octavian that he gives to Ehren at the end of Princep's Fury! I was hoping for a nice five page letter full of wisdom, lamentation, approval and just all the things you wanted Sextus to say to Tavi (probably because we are in Tavi's head and we know HE wants it) but was never able to. Anything, really, to have Sextus be a presence in the book.
Still, the action is seriously top-notch. Octavian's interaction with Alera is very well done, as is his continuing relationship with Kitai. Thanks to both, Tavi's furycraft has finally grown to the extent that we are able to see just how potent it can be, as well as how creatively it can be utilized. The Ice Ships at the end of PF were just the beginning! Once he sets his "damned clever little mind" to a task, now accompanied by powerful furycraft to compliment it, the magical action is finally as exciting as Dresden, especially coupled with the fine swordplay.
First Lord's Fury has nearly everything a fan of the series could want, and complaining that you want more (guilty!) is not the most compelling of arguments to claim the book was "disappointing". So I will not! It was a book I could not wait to read, a book I could scarcely put down while I was reading it, and one that I was thinking about or wishing I was reading when I was not. The addition, finally!, of a Map of Alera also squashes one of my major complaints about the packaging of the series. I re-read the Codex Alera prior to FLF coming out, and at this time I know that it is both good enough, and satisfying enough, to re-read it again in the future. Overall I would rate First Lord's Fury comparable to Princep's Fury, slightly better than Captain's Fury and Academ's Fury, but still not better than Cursor's Fury. A fine end to a stellar series so well done I eagerly anticipate anything Jim Butcher has in store for us, even if it is not about Gaius Octavian or Harry Dresden.
465 HC pages 4.5 out of 5 stars
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48 of 58 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
lots of battle scenes, little surprise, December 2, 2009
This review is from: First Lord's Fury (Codex Alera, Book 6) (Hardcover)
As usual with Jim Butcher, this is a compulsive page turner, but it seems the author lost interest in this exciting and original series in the final two books. He certainly stopped committing himself to the themes and arc he'd so beautifully developed in the first four. Maybe he got weighted down by too many characters, plot lines and too many enemies. The vord are way bad but when they appeared in the series and then took center stage as the big bad, the emphasis shifted from being an adventurous and exciting story of a boy who is true to himself as he learns to realize his potential in a politically and socially dangerous world to being a 6 book long monster battle movie.
In the first books, Tavi's growing maturity and moral education, and his and Isana's slowly awakening powers are handled with intelligence and with a great, mounting dramatic build. The final two books, though, are mostly just one big battle scene after another. Few unexpected plot twists, no particularly surprising cleverness from Tavi, and sadly, we don't get to see his fury-crafting power as it grows. In Princeps, he's pretty much stagnant fury-wise. In First Lord, there's one scene showing him being clumsy with Alera as his flying tutor, and then suddenly he's super-fury-man. After such a delightfully slow dramatic build-up to Tavi first discovering his potential for fury-craft in first four books, the development of his powers feels ignored, rushed and phoned-in. We never see him manifest his water fury, fire fury, air fury, etc. We never get to see him experiment with them and their potential. He barely continues to find creative new uses for furies in the final two books. His only fury was Alera, who felt like a kind of a short-hand 'trick' so Jim Butcher could end the series faster.
Also, in the final book plot developments crop up for no reason other than to keep things moving. Things spin out of Tavi's and Isana's control and at the end of too many chapters they are reduced to vowing victory or vengeance or determination to vanquish their enemies. Unlike in the earlier books, the plot is not moved forward by Tavi's plans or deviousness. For the most part, he reacts rather than acts. And things just seem to happen for no reason - I'm thinking right now of the vord queen's gratuitous attack on the encampment at Riva. And the way the vord queen is finally defeated feels anticlimactic. Tavi neither outsmarts her nor outmaneuvers her nor even overpowers her. It was confusing to me that on the spur of the moment Tavi awakens the great furies Garados and his wife, and we are told that if they are left unbound or unclaimed they will devastate nearly all of the continent. Then Tavi kills the vord queen simply because she inexplicably flies away into a storm of wind-manes and lands wounded, while Tavi, after pursuing her, somehow remains unharmed. And the unleashed Garados and his wind-fury wife are never mentioned again. What did I miss?
Jim Butcher is talented and capable of so much. As eagerly as I look forward to his books I wish he'd write fewer and take more time to make each one more special, with lucid characters and compelling themes instead of relying so heavily on fight scenes and action. (Not that I mind fight scenes and action! Love 'em! But without something to say about the human condition, action scenes that make your adrenaline flow are just so much porn - you enjoy them while you're reading them but then feel sort like you wasted your time at the end.) Sometimes prolific artists seem to enjoy writing (or they enjoy paycheck? no idea - tho that's certainly anyone's right) so much it's almost like they get high on the volume of their output. So maybe Jim Butcher is happy writing as he does - more power to him, we need happiness in the world. But as someone who appreciates genre fiction that is a cut above the rest - I have to point out that there are some prolific writers - Terry Pratchett and P.G. Wodehouse come to mind - who manage to make nearly every one of their books something special.
Butcher writes page turners, he understands that conflict=drama. The first books in this series are among my favorites in fantasy. They were about something. In Furies of Calderon, when at the end Tavi didn't show up to receive his reward from Gaius Sextus because he was gathering his sheep on the mountainside - something he'd promised to do in the first chapter of the book - I knew I was reading more than just a book about battles of magic and swords. It resonated. I felt there was something Butcher was getting at about the human condition, about growing up - something with emotional power. It's sad that the last two books didn't fulfill the promise of the first four. I look forward to Jim Butcher one day writing a truly outstanding book or series in which the whole is even greater than the sum of its parts.
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26 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Breathtaking series end, November 26, 2009
This review is from: First Lord's Fury (Codex Alera, Book 6) (Hardcover)
I was disappointed in the previous book in this series, "Princeps Fury", but, as it felt like a 'bridge', I suspected this one would be much better. I wasn't wrong. It ends the series with a major bang. Not a moment of down time.
No, it's not a perfect story. The ending leaves questions and the epilogue feels like a hasty wrap-up. But the rest of this book is one gorgeous, bloody, exciting, suspenseful, heart-wrenching moment after another.
Characters who should die, do. Characters who should die, don't. And other characters that we've come to love aren't safe at all. There is some genuine heartache along with the fast-paced action. And, even in the darkest moments of the book, it never feels bogged down by tedious hopelessness. Yes, I find hopelessness in fiction to be tedious. Heads up to many fantasy/sci fi writers who think it's hip and challenging to go bleak. It's not. Jim Butcher can rip your heart out, but you never feel like you won't get some satisfaction out of the story, and that's a rare talent when exploring such incredibly dark tales.
Again, my only complaint is that a few things might have been wrapped up better at the end. I don't know if Butcher is planning to revisit this world at all, but there are plenty of questions he could answer for the readers.
I'm trying so hard not to give any spoilers that I think this might be the most cryptic review I've ever written. I guess I should just recommend the whole series and be done with it. I'm very thrilled to have been taken on this ride. Thanks Jim. :D
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