I'm killing myself over here trying to save it for the road trip to the cousins' place for Thanksgiving. It's been on my desk for about 24 hours now, and I've been itching to open it. BUT I WILL STAY STRONG!!!

 

The fact that she was weaker then them is the whole point. She was weaker then then; some holder the First Lords son loved. Not a High Lady. And yet, suddenly, she's standing a lot closer to them. For no reason whatsoever.

 

Someone want to describe the series for me? I'm hesitant to go back to Old World type fantasy.

I'm really enjoying Urban stories.

 

Spoiler

I'd have to say that while I found the events that happened during Princeps' Fury pretty awesome and enrapturing.. there were some disappointments as well, as well as some annoyances.

For example, I found the continued detailing of the cultures and everything awesome.. I found Isana's self-righteousness rather disturbing, and pretty irritating. I swear, when she "felt the need to slap" Garius, I had to put the book down for a minute because I kept going back and rereading the line. The fact that despite her being built up as someone who can put herself in other people's shoes, she simply refused to understand their situation, and their feelings. Then, there at the end of the book, she bitched about Attis being responsible for the deaths of her friends and holders.

It felt pretty out of character, and I find myself disliking the lack of focus on many characters who have been prominent in the past.

In fact, it honestly felt like no one really got much development at all.

Ah yes, development. That reminds me of the fact that Tavi hasn't really shown any development of his Furycraft, either. I understand that it's likely largely due to his not being in Alera and shit, but.. man, I was hoping for it, instead of some slight foreshadowing of it at the very, very end.

Despite all of the things I disliked, it was worth looking forward to it half a year, and there were plenty of good things about it, like the revealing of Attis as being a quasi-good guy, why Max and Crassus' dad was such a dick and allowed his wife to torture his bastard child, and other such shit.

However, I will say that I really wasn't all too impressed by the various High Lord's show of strength, even though there was mentions of how awed and terrified many characters were by it. Though, I will say that Sextus' last stand was quite awesome.

I kind of wish that the book had ended with the revealing of Attis as the new First Lord, without his conversation with Isana.

All in all, it was a good read, and I'm looking forward to the next, and final, book.

 

Jesus FUCK. I HATE the ending of this book. I swear to fucking god there is no redeeming this shit. God.

Rage.

 

Lol. For some reason, I received the book nine days ago. (I had pre-ordered it months back, and I guess the online store made a mistake or something. Not that I complained.)

It was an interesting read. Definitely felt cheated out, though.

Spoiler

The entire plot was... disappointing. I expected more awesomeness to happen from Tavi. But I'm just glad that the entire mess of this situation will mean that the next book will offer quite a lot of chances for Tavi to show his brilliance. And I can't wait to read some cool furycrafting.

All in all, it wasn't as great as the past two books--but certainly worth reading.

 

Just found an Ebook. I have a test tomorrow evening. Damn.

 

Spoiler

Octavian's life is irreplaceable," Magnus stated. "If every single life in this expedition had to be sacrificed to see him safely back to Alera again, it would be our duty to do everything in our power to make sure that it happened as rapidly and efficiently as possible. We are expendable, gentlemen. He is not."

"I am neither a gentleman nor expendable," the young Marat woman interjected. "Nor do I see how the deaths of all of your people could possibly get my

​

PRINCEPS' FURY 121


Aleran safely home again. You've seen him on the open water. Do you honestly think he could manage a ship on his own?"


There was a beat of startled silence, then Magnus said, his tone sour, "I was speaking in hypothetical terms, Ambassador."


"Ah," Kitai said, her tone wry. "Explain again to me the difference between hypothesis and make-believe"

Kitai-Mary Sue? Hell yes. Still makes me chuckle though. (Spoiler isn't very spoilerish, but I don't want to be killed/skullfucked)

 

I didnt bother me too bad. Beyond the fact that I cant stand Amara I enjoyed the book. But it stopped the trend that had I had seen earlier. With each book Butcher was doing better, this applied to Dresden aswell, the first two books were average but in Cursors Fury the quality picked up tremendously. Captain's Fury is in my opinion Butcher's best work in either Codex or Dresden. However this book took a couple of steps back but was still on par with Cursor's Fury.

 

Yeah. The writing seems a bit rushed doesn't it? Like he's packing too much in too few words.

 

I haven't read it yet, but it wouldn't surprise me if the writing isn't as good as it has been. I mean, look at everything he's wrote this year. He's got the new DF book in April, Backup, numerous short stories, and then this book. That's a lot of projects.

 

Not surprising really, Butcher is used to writing epics. Really think about it, DF is going to be 23 novels long. Since when have you ever read a 23 novel series? When you're used to working with such a long time to reveal secrets, lay down plot, and advance character growth. It's not surprising that he may feel rushed when writing in a rather constraining six novels.

 

I'm pretty sure there has been some thing in the previous books that hinted at her having 'inherited' powers from her husband. Yesh, using them expertly in her first fight is still strange... but the reason for all that power being availablele to her exists.

 

I'm also upset about her hypocritical behavior.

Spoiler

First she's being a bitch to the Highlord, telling him to see past the fact that the Icemen have killed thousands of his boys for the betterment of Alera, and then she's being a bitch to the new First Lord, and not seeing past the fact that he's killed (in directly, but killed none the less) a scant few dozen at most of the people she was more or less acquainted with, and a few friends mixed in, even if seeing past it would be for the betterment of Alera.

That's understandable, but also hypocritical, and it doesn't do much for my opinion of her.

Also, while Isana may have gotten stronger because of whatever her husbands had done, she shouldn't be anywhere near this strong. She only got a water fury if memory serves, and hasn't had it for that long. Meanwhile, the Highlord has all six types of furies, has trained with them from childhood, and has honed them in war. Even if for some reason he can't, say, beat her in a battle of water furies, he should still have OMGWTFPWN'ed her via:

1. Carpet Bombing (fire)

2. Ripping the air from her lungs, or using ridiculous speed (air)

3. Using the ground to crush every bone in her body or superstrength to do the same (earth)

4. Cut her to pieces with a diamond hard blade and l33t sword skillz (metal)

5. Sniping her bitch ass, or strangling the life out of her with plants (wood)

 

Regarding Isana:

Spoiler

I'm not too fussed about her lasting longer than 5 seconds against a High Lord. It has been made clear previously that she has the equivalent of a High Lord's power at watercrafting,so it stands to reason that she wouldn't be completely defenceless. Its her complete lack of other furies that is her weakness. And he still beat her fairly quickly/easily.

The book overall:

Spoiler

It was okay, I guess. An enjoyable read. But it was kinda a non-entity. There was pretty much zero character progression. Tavi is still where he was at at the end of Cursor's Fury, and I'm not just talking about his Furycrafting.

The two main attractions of this series are A) Tavi's character and B) The Quasi-Roman magical nature of Aleran society. This book offered nothing on A and the destruction of B. The Vord don't interest me much as bad guys, and the Canim society also bores me.

Another problem with the book is that, like CF, it seemed to be set-up for the last story. That next book better be damn good.

I was expecting Tavi to get Gaius' furies when he died. Instead we got nothing. Just communication with one of the (and likely the queen of) Great Furies. Which he can't control. Which means he still can't manifest.

The apocalyptic nature of the story was also slightly disappointing. I don't think apocalyptic stories work very well. Firstly, the best stories take place within a structure, and a big part of this is a social structure. Apocalyptic stories lack that. Secondly, fighting to "save the world" isn't very interesting. You get lots of special effects, sure, but it's fairly straightforward. Human struggles are much more interesting.

So all in all I was fairly disappointed by this book. It wasn't bad by any stretch, but it didn't match up to my expectations.

Edit: Oh also, what happened to the thousands of gargoyles ready to spring up and defend Alera Imperia at the First Lord's command?

 

My question exactly! I kept waiting for them to come, and there was not a single mention of them.

 

Spoiler

I also found the appearance of "Alera" at the end of the book interesting. Possibly the most interesting part of the book. What do you think she is?

Unfortunately I don't think she'll be much help with regards to Tavi's manifestation problems.

I don't think she's just another Great Fury. I think that she's some kind of pantheistic world spirit, like The Fury from which all other Furies derive (or are parts of), but the shape of her relationship with humanity is more debatable I think.

It may be that she doesn't actually do anything with/for the First Lord, other than maintain the "alliance" between humanity and the Furies. Like the alliance between the First Lord and Alera means that there is an alliance between all humanity and all Furies.

It's possible that the thing which has never happened before (when we glimpse Gaius and her talking she says something like "it's never been done like that before") is Gaius asking her to not only maintain the alliance with Tavi, but also to be his Fury, since he has no manifest ones. But then it might be something simpler like the fact that she's being passed on to someone with no manifest Furies.

I also like the idea that the Furies (aka Alera) came into the world just like all the other races in the world. It's clear that Furies appeared after the Roman legion(s) arrived, and why not have them be aliens too, rather than spirits of the world?

Another thing I find interesting is her name. Many are kind of assuming that the first First Lord named her after the world, but what if it's the other way around? What if the nation of Alera derives its name from her?

And since we have an understanding now of what Alera is, what is the "codex"? I'm thinking the codex is the treaty between humanity and Furies. Assuming there is one, of course.

This may present a way to get rid of a lot of the Vord's power - get Alera to revoke the Vord's power to use it. Though even without Furycrafting, the Vord are mighty enemies. Beyond somehow setting the entire Croach on fire, I can't see a way to defeat them. But that's getting off topic.

 

Spoiler

I was under the impression that the "Alera" Fury was merely the Great Fury of the land that is Alera. If I recall, she talks about how she doesn't care who lives on the land and shit, after all, and the land, the mountains, the rivers really don't care if humans pass out of existence. In fact, I was pretty sure I was dead on in thinking that when I read Sextus' quote there at the beginning of the Epilogue, as he pretty much said the same thing.

Anyway, if I recall, isn't the Codex mentioned during the very beginning of Furies of Calderon? I forget what was said and where it was, though.

And yeah, I was kind of wondering wher in the hell the gargoyles were, myself, and all of the other Furycrafted defenses that are so talked about in Academ's Fury and elsewhere.

 

The codex is mentioned in FoC in reference to the Cursor's Codex. This may not be the Codex of the title though.

Spoiler

"I was under the impression that the "Alera" Fury was merely the Great Fury of the land that is Alera."

The problem with this is that the land of Alera has other Great Furies in. Kalare, and the one under Alera Imperia (though it's possible that Alera is merely the Great Fury from under Alera Imperia) are two examples. I think Alera is something greater than the Great Furies, personally.