I just finished reading the 6 books of the Codex Alera fantasy fiction series by Jim Butcher, the last three were a bit of a blur as I read them back to back, I wrote brief notes about them on Goodreads, and here I thought I'd write an overall review of the series, avoiding spoilers.
First I'm biased, I read and love all 17 novels in The Dresden Files series by the same author. And I suppose I'm biased as a regular reader of fantasy and science-fiction in general.
Jim Butcher described the idea at the origin of the Codex Alera as the Roman Empire with Pokemon mashed up as two concepts. The first as a bit of a different vibe from the more frequent medieval setting, here is a more antique Roman style setting. The second because the people in this vast empire have abilities to adopt and control elemental style creatures and powers that go along with them. In case it concerns you (it did for me when I first heard that ideas), the Pokemon idea is not carried out much further. Catching them all is not particularly at the heard of the plot, and they're called furies, hence the book titles.
It starts out as all traditional epic fantasy series: with a nobody boy hitting puberty somewhere lost in the middle of nowhere countryside, and of course with enough winks to the knowledgeable fantasy reader that one realises the protagonist is likely hidden royalty or some such.
There are enough nods to other fantasy works to what you're dealing with and having it set in some genre tropes and traditions, enough new elements of setting to make it interesting, and enough small and larger twists to raise eyebrows in usually good surprises.
An obvious one from the start is that in a world where everyone has some kind of special magical powers with elements like water or fire, the young hero doesn't and has to rely on wits alone to get himself out of trouble.
The big bad guys seem coming straight out of science-fiction tropes rather than fantasy ones, which is pretty cool. Think of the Zerg in StarCraft or the Arachnid bugs in the Starship Troopers movie, if ever those ring bells.
Where I feel Jim Butcher particularly shines, to some extent as in The Dresden Files, is the wild action-packed scenes and outrageous scale of events.
He's also funny, and I highlighted a number of turns of phrases I've enjoyed throughout the series.
Even in the first book there are excellent page-turning unexpected turns of events and crazy-paced action. Fun characters, enough hints of secrets, backstory elements and foreshadowing to want to read the rest of the series.
I also enjoyed that the first book, and I'd say up to the third, have satisfying arcs, beginnings, middles, and ends, setups for the sequels without too much of cliffhangers.
I left a pause and read another book or two between those, compared to the fourth book. I happened to be on holidays so that may have played into it, but it felt like events massively accelerate from the fourth book onwards, and I read the rest of the series back to back. So it's a bit of a blur.
In Goodreads, I only wrote short comments, my overall impression in a few words for each book in the series goes this way:
- Furies of Calderon: Setup and big events on a local scale
- Academ's Fury: Character growth and development.
- Cursor's Fury: Problems and successes against massive odds. Probably my favourite book in the series.
- Captain's Fury: Events accelerate.
- Princeps' Fury: The scale, scope and stakes of events dramatically expands.
- First Lord's Fury: A breathtaking race to the end line and resolution.
Suffice to say I recommend them, and also a good choice even if you're not in love with fantasy style novels, there's enough action and fun page turning for most if not all readers I think.
