Codex Alera

I don't believe we have any thread on Codex Alera, so here one is!

Is the cover of Academ's Fury supposed to represent a scene from the book? All the other covers do, but I can't place that one.

This is the most self-consciously awesome series I've ever read that wasn't Japanese. I'm not saying that as a bad thing, mind you—it's actually kind of exhilarating to see the author keep trying to top himself, and he mostly keeps the power levels low enough to avoid the kinds of issues that plague shonen manga. (Though I was a bit disappointed when the main character turned out to have magical powers after all—I think he was more awesome without them.)

Its alright, but its definitely doesn't match the standards Butcher sets with the Dresden Files.

Some wicked scenes thought. I love Tavi's duel after he reveals himself publicly.

The Vord as the main villains are a bit meh though.

I'm pretty sure Codex Alera is basically meant to be a shonen manga in print. A lot of Tavi's internal monologue in the early books reminds me of Naruto, Ichigo, etc. ("I can't back down because I'm fighting to protect people who are precious to me!")

I don't know, I'd argue that it's as good, if not better than, The Dresden Files, and I quite like the Vord as villains, especially the Vord Queen.

This is the kind of book I pick up when I'm feeling down and need to read something packed wall-to-wall with AWESOME.

Seriously, the badass quotient in this series just went through the roof and beyond the Earth's atmosphere. It was so much fun to read, and that's all I ask for from a series like this.

Oh, yeah. Tavi may have been the weakest person in all of Carna (for awhile), but he was, by far, the most dangerous.

Honestly, I think this series appealed to me so much because Jim obviously had fun while writing it. As soon as you open the book, especially the later ones, you can literally feel how much fun he had as a tangible force, and to me, it just made the book that much more enjoyable.

That's true. Even if the first books are kinda slow, JB obviously just asked himself, "What's the coolest thing that could happen here?", and built the story around it. What I like the most, though, is the setting. I stand that it'd make a great MMORTS.

It WOULD make for an awesome RTS.

The cover of Academ's Fury is the scene where Tavi takes on the school bullies.

I sort of want to see a prequel, something involving the initial expansion of the Alerans. After all, in the backstory they wiped out, what, FIVE other entire CIVILIZATIONS? That sounds ridiculous AND AWESOME, especially considering that they managed that before the discovery of furycrafting. Leave it to the Romans, am I right? There's also room for a sequel involving the inevitable invasion of the Canea Vordqueen, though as someone said, I think I've seen enough of the Vord and would rather explore some of the other aspects of the Alera verse. Not to say that I didn't like the Vord, there were pretty interesting (if a bit unoriginal), its just that after awhile you've seen enough.

I want to see more of the Icemen and Marat (Clans Fox and Lion, for starters). And what's the cover of Academ's Fury?

I thought this series was pretty good until a few books in when I lost interest. Tavi's characterization, to me anyway, came across as being too disjointed: He was very doubtful of his abilities outside of battles, proved himself to be super competent during them, only to regress after the fight was over. It was like he was two different characters. This probably changed in later books, but I got to the point where it became a deal breaker before I got there.

I also got the feeling that the universe seemed to bend over backwards for the main characters simply because they were the main characters at times. I remember in the second book where two of the main characters and a bunch of soldiers under their command were trapped in a cave surrounded by a swarm of Vord. The two main characters decide to get married and have their honeymoon and all the unnamed soldiers went out of their way to accommodate this while they are facing an imminent threat. And of course the Vord don't attack until after their marriage is consummated. I realize that scene was supposed to be romantic, but to this day, I can't help but remember how ridiculous the whole thing was.

edited 2nd Feb '12 11:35:27 PM by RedViking

I can't say that bothered me. I mean, the guys were gonna die anyway, no harm in enabling a couple to live out their last minutes happily. Still, been a while since I read Academ's Fury.

How I describe the difference between the Codex Alera and the Dresden Files: The Codex Alera books have the same amount of awesome but the events happen over the course of weeks/months, not days.

Another way to put it would be "Each Dresden Files book is a train-wreck: You can't stop looking till it's over (and the latter books have a second train running into the first one). The Codex Alera books have natural 'breather' moments where you can put the book down and go to the restroom/eat before continuing."

I have a hard time saying which series is "better," but I think the Codex Alera books are probably an easier read (I wouldn't personally know).

I personally find the DF books a faster read, but that doesn't mean they're superior. Another way of looking at it is the scale of the conflict, DF is always personal, with Harry taking on a few antagonists at a time, while CA deals with conspiracies, armies and nations.

Well, added this to watch.

I sort of hope JB comes back to this eventually. It's a good series, and it had a LOT of unexplored areas to look at.

Ugh, this comment is slightly making me worry about reading this series... nah, I'm sure Butcher is good enough to pull it off.

Anyway, I recently finished the entire Dresden Files series, now I'm giving this one a try. So far I'm 5 chapters in, where Tavi has just dispatched his first horrible murder-bird. The series strikes me as very different from the Dresden Files so far, as it doesn't really focus much on any particular character (Tavi is the protagonist apparently, but so far he's been out of focus), and in general it doesn't seem to focus on the characters as much. I get the feeling that this series focuses more on the world than on the characters. But hey, if the world is interesting enough it can carry a story as long as the characters are at least decent, so that's fine, I'm all for Butcher trying different styles.

I definitely like the idea of the Furies so far, and the few I've seen have been pretty cool. Also the villains (if villains they are, I don't really know yet) seem very competent and intriguing.

Anyway, gonna be posting my thoughts on the series as I read if anyone is interested.

Good series. It amuses the heck out of me that it's essencially a crossover between Roman Legions, Pokemon and the Zerg, written as a DARE.

Actually, the Zerg part wasn't a part of the original dare, that was essentially just filler in the first book, then Butcher took it, and ran with it.

So I just picked the series up about a month ago, half way through Academ's Fury. Damn good series so far. I read scatterd bits of Dresden, so this is my first real exposure to Jim Butcher. The man is a great author. Furies of Calderon feels very much in the Star Wars/Eragon farm boy journey niche, yet it does this cliched story right. Academ's Fury is the same way. It takes the sort of cliched "go to school save the world plot" and actually makes it entertaining and very compelling.

Also Kitai is hilariously awesome and I can't yet decide if I like her and Tavi or if their relationship tastes like diabetes. Their fighting and bickering is just so darn cute!

Wait this series was written on a dare? Wow...that sort of reminds me of a fanfic I was suckered into writing. Well sort of, except that mine will never be published and is just more or less me writing for the hell of it.

edited 3rd Jun '12 7:47:12 AM by syvaris

Yup. IIRC, someone bet Butcher that he couldn't write a good story by combining Pokemon and the Roman Empire.

As the story goes, when JB was a young man, he was on the internet having an argument. The type of argument which you immediately hit the Caps Lock key, and insult the other person's mother. The argument was over whether good ideas, or good writing was more important, with JB arguing that a good writer could write something great from bad ideas, and the other person was saying that no matter how good the writing, if you have a bad idea, the book would be bad. Eventually, the guy was like, ok, how about I give you a bad idea, and I'd like to see you make something good from it. JB said no... Give me two bad ideas. So the other person was like ok. The Lost Roman Legion.... and Pokemon. Now, JB was like, ok. He took those, and started with the LRL bit, and thought to himself how they would set up their society, and, after a bit of research, he found that they were accompanied by some germanic mercenaries, so he set it up with a bunch of big romantic cities surrounded by germanic holdfasts, with the Romans on top of the power structure. Then he went and thought about the Pokemon aspect. Now, again after some research, he found that it was essentially a mash-up of the Shinto religion, in which everything has a spirit tied to it, from the rocks to the plants to the animals to the clouds, and Professional Wrestling. So he made different spirits, which he called furies after a single line from a movie that was playing in the background which he took out of context, and made them be one of 6 elements. So he's writing this, and he finishes up the first book, the Furies of Calderon. Now, he sits down and reads it over. Now, as he's reading it, he realizes that it's really good, so he decides that he can't put this on the internet, he has to wait until he can get a publisher, and make some money off of it. Of course, the person he was arguing with took this as a forfeit, and won the bet.

Not the Roman Empire, the Lost Roman Legion.

edited 3rd Jun '12 8:02:40 PM by deathpigeon

Hmm interesting story. I never really got the "pokemon" part of it so much, probably because I saw them more as spirit bonds then anything.

Also am I the only who thinks a film series of Codex Alera could be really great?

edited 3rd Jun '12 4:35:33 PM by syvaris

The Pokemon part of it is far more prominent in the first one when most, if not all, of the characters manifest their furies externally, rather than internally, and, as I mentioned, what he did was research Pokemon and find that it was essentially Professional Wrestling meets the Shinto religion, and based Furies mostly off of the Shinto religion part.

That would be amazing.