Product Description

In the realm of Alera, where people bond with the furies-elementals of earth, air, fire, water, and metal-fifteen-year-old Tavi struggles with his lack of furycrafting. But when his homeland erupts in chaos-when rebels war with loyalists and furies clash with furies-Tavi's simple courage will turn the tides of war.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #951222 in Books
• Published on: 2004-10-01
• Format: Bargain Price
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 440 pages

From Publishers Weekly
At the start of Butcher's absorbing fantasy, the first in a new series, the barbarians are at the gates of the land of Alera, which has a distinct flavor of the Roman Empire (its ruler is named Quintus Sextus and its soldiers are organized in legions). Fortunately, Alera has magical defenses, involving the furies or elementals of water, earth, air, fire and metal, that protect against foes both internal and external. Amara, a young female spy, and her companion, Odiana, go into some of the land's remoter territories to discover if military commander Atticus Quentin is a traitor—another classic trope from ancient Rome. She encounters a troubled young man, Tavi, who has hitherto been concerned mostly with the vividly depicted predatory "herdbanes" that threaten his sheep as well as with his adolescent sexual urges (handled tastefully). Thinking that Amara is an escaping slave, Tavi decides to help her and is immediately sucked in over his head into a morass of intrigues, military, magical and otherwise. Butcher (Storm Front, etc.) does a thorough job of world building, to say nothing of developing his action scenes with an abundance of convincing detail. This page-turner bodes well for future volumes.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
This first book of a series, the Codex Aliera, is a real page-turner, with the classic plot of a kingdom threatened by both an outside invader and internal treachery enlivened by an abundance of original details and sheer storytelling gusto. For centuries, the ability of the people of Aliera to bond with furies--elemental spirits of earth, air, fire, water, and metal--has allowed them to defend their land against invaders. But the current lord is old and lacks an heir. So Aliera's traditional enemies plot with treacherous lords within the country to seize power. Far off in the mountains, the young lad Tavi struggles with his inability to attract and bond with a fury--and with sensual adolescent urges. He saves the life of a young girl he believes to be a slave, but who is actually an agent of the king, looking for traitors. Tavi is himself drawn into battle and war before he can say "lost sheep." A promising series launcher. Frieda Murray
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author
A martial arts enthusiast whose resumé includes a long list of skills rendered obsolete at least two hundred years ago, Jim Butcher turned to writing as a career because anything else probably would have driven him insane. He lives with his wife, his son, and a ferocious guard dog.

Customer Reviews

"Pokemon meets Lost Roman Legion"
According to a video interview Jim Butcher gave, he started writing the Codex Alera series on something of a dare: someone challenged him to write an epic sword-and-horse fantasy based on the two things the challenger found most annoying, those being "Pokemon and lost Roman legions". One would think this would be an awkward combination, but in Jim's hands, it's something new and original to bring to the genre. I love the modified Roman Empire milieu, and the concept of "fury-crafting", of working with elemental beings which can shape the substance of things around the crafter, fascinates me.

That said, I also approached this series on something of a dare: a rather strident teenaged fan of Jim's urban fantasy series, "The Dresden Files", came onto the forums on Jim's website, blasting the Codex Alera series and practically ordering Jim to stop writing it and focus his time and talent on more Dresden Files books. His reason: "Codex Alera sucks because it isn't the Dresden Files". I'd only at the time scanned a few sample chapters of Furies of Calderon and had found it a little hard to tune into (I'm a little leery of epic fantasy since, to me anyway, the bar got set so high by greats like J.R.R. Tolkien and Robert E. Howard), but I decided to give it another shot and see what the kerfuffle was all about.

I'm glad I rose to the challange set by this otherwise forum troll: In some ways, the book is a set-up for the series to come, but it is still a very worthwhile read. The characters are life-like, complex, and very sympathetic -- even the antagonists: the Marat might, at first glance, seem like mere barbarians who work closely with the totem animals of their tribes, but as the story unfolds, we find they are a complex community of individuals with their own psyches and ideas. Even Fidelias, the ironically named traitor, has his deep-set motives that are still unfolding.

But at the center, perhaps the most fascinating individual is Tavi, a young man who has not yet manifested any fury-crafting talents despite having close relatives who are strong fury-crafters, and who thus must rely on his wits and his courage to navigate a world on the brink of earth-shattering changes. His story and his journey are going to be incredible to watch and I'm already reaching for the second volume to see where his choices -- big and small, for better and worse -- take him...

Good, but gets better
First I should mention that I bought the first two books together with the third coming out a couple of weeks later. I read the first two straight through and that may be why I don't have many complaints. I've read all the books currently out and I like each one better than the last. It's difficult for me to rate them separately because I read the first three very close together.

A lot of the complaints I've read in other reviews aren't an issue later on. For example, I didn't like the 15 year old Tavi (main hero) all that much myself, but each book takes place a couple of years after the last one. This helps the characters grow a lot and have more depth and maturity. In fact, I actually had forgotten about some of my earlier annoyances until I read some of the negative reviews.

However, I also have to agree with other reviewers that if you're looking for another Harry Dresden then go somewhere else. This is not the same at all and you will be disappointed. I happen to have read Harry Dresden only because I read these books first and I was almost disappointed in the Dresden books (which I now love). I really wish Jim Butcher had decided to use a different pen names for the two series similar to Nora Roberts & J.D. Robb or Michelle West & Michelle Sagara (& sometimes Michelle Sagara West). This would have served as a good warning to expect something different.

Creative new world and a great first book
I'm a huge D&D fan and got introduced to Butcher through the Dresden Files series (I'm almost caught up on that series). When I saw Furies, I figured I like Butcher's writing but was skeptical of his ability to pull off his style of writing in a completely new fantasy setting. Boy was I wrong. With Furies of Calderon, he sets the stage for a world where different races rule parts of the world (ala Lord of the Rings). The barbarian Marats rule the plains, while the Fury wielding Alerans rule the valley and most of the continent, etc. What's interesting is that each race has subraces and the interplay between the lead characters makes for a fantastic storyline full of heroism, political intrigue, love, and frienships. The rules for the world are relatively straightforward, but in true Butcher style, his weaving of the tale is anything but. I'll admit, some of his characters (e.g., the ruthless Kord or the regal Emperor Gaius are stereotypical) but his use of them is not. Once I got warmed up to his new world and some of the lead characters, by the 20th page or so, this became a real page turner for me. I thoroughly enjoyed it.