{"id":11800,"date":"2008-01-30T15:54:31","date_gmt":"2008-01-30T22:54:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2008\/01\/30\/book-review-cursors-fury.html"},"modified":"2008-01-30T15:54:31","modified_gmt":"2008-01-30T22:54:31","slug":"book_review_cursors_fury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/01\/30\/book_review_cursors_fury.html","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Cursor’s Fury<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jim Butcher is better known to me as the writer of The Dresden Files, but his Codex Alera high fantasy series is also proceeding successfully.  This is a review of its third installment, following Furies of Calderon <\/em>and Academ’s Fury <\/em>(which I just discovered I never reviewed).<\/p>\n

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<\/a><\/div>\n

Cursor’s Fury<\/strong><\/a><\/i> by Jim Butcher<\/strong> (2007)<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Overall<\/strong><\/td>\n <\/td>\n Story<\/td>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Re-Readability<\/td>\n <\/td>\n Characters<\/td>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n

Story<\/strong>:  This is a return to Butcher’s fantasy world, populated by apparent descendents of Ancient Rome (a mystery still only brushed against), and where magic manifests as bound \/ familiar elemental spirits, or furies.  Furies can not only manifest themselves as elemental creatures. but also give to their controllers great power — strength for Earth, speed for Air, endurance for Metal, etc.  Everyone in the realm of Alera has access to fury-based power — everyone except Tavi, who has only his wits and reflexes to save him from various dangers, the prime protagonist of the series.  Ostensibly an orphan from the boondocks, Tavi has already come under the watchful eye of First Lord Gaius Sextus, ruler (and most powerful furycrafter) of the empire, and has gone from farmboy to student to, in this volume, one of the First Lord’s Cursors, or secret service agents. <\/p>\n

In that role, he ends up undercover in a newly-formed Legion — which finds itself, unexpectedly in the middle of both a civil war and an invasion.  Can Tavi balance soldierly loyalty with loyalty to the First Lord?  Can he rise to the occasion as battles thrust him to the forefront of dealing with the invasion?  Can he overcome yet again his lack of furycrafting?<\/p>\n

Well, yeah, of course he can, it being that sort of fantasy novel — but not without a lot of hard work, heartache, and danger. <\/p>\n

But the book would only be half its 544 pages if that’s all there were to it.  Instead, Butcher, following the pattern of the second book, runs at least another half-dozen major characters through their own separate tales, dealing with politics, magic, old loyalties, and devil’s bargains made and broken.  Butcher manages to do this pretty successfully, even if some characters get a slightly short shrift.  And he does it all with wheels-within-wheels conspiracies, secrets both hidden and (to some) revealed, plots, counter-plots, soap opera, and plenty of unexpected twists and turns (some of which are payoffs from earlier volumes, others of which hold plenty of interest for future books).  The good guys win, mostly, but never easily, and always at a cost.<\/p>\n

There’s probably three novels worth of material here, but Butcher does a good job of keeping it managed and coherent — and entertaining.<\/p>\n

Characters<\/strong>:  As noted above, the book has several primary, and several more secondary, characters, most of whom we’ve met in earlier volumes, all of whom are involved in an elaborately woven series of plots and circumstances.  The characters tend to be well-written, if not terribly complex, falling into fairly standard fantasy\/adventure roles.  The story holds some surprises, but not many of the characters do.  The impressiveness is that Butcher keeps all of the balls in the air, rather than that any of the balls themselves are works of art. <\/p>\n

That’s not to say the characters are badly written, by any means — they’re just not all that uniquely <\/em>written.  The fun is in the plots that Butcher runs them through, and how they react to it.<\/p>\n

Re-Readability<\/strong>:  Though I haven’t gone back to them yet, the series feels eminently re-readable.  Indeed, as more secrets are revealed, I’m sure that an eventual re-read will be even more interesting.<\/p>\n

Overall<\/strong>:  Another solid, successful effort by Butcher. The next volume of the series — Captain’s Fury<\/em><\/a> <\/em>— is already out, and despite it only being in hardcover, I’m sorely tempted to pick it up.  Hard to ask much of an author than that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jim Butcher is better known to me as the writer of The Dresden Files, but his Codex Alera high fantasy series is also proceeding successfully.  This is a review of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-books"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":33726,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/13\/my-favorite-kind-of-butchery.html","url_meta":{"origin":11800,"position":0},"title":"My favorite kind of Butchery","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 13-May-13 6:55pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Neat interview with Jim Butcher (of Dresden Files and Codex Alera fame), including notes on his new series (which sounds like it's going to be nicely awesome). My Interview with Jim Butcher Last weekend at Ad Astra, a convention here in Toronto, I had the opportunity to meet and interview\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13236,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/02\/09\/four_quick_reviews.html","url_meta":{"origin":11800,"position":1},"title":"Four quick reviews","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 9-Feb-09 10:05pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Captain's Fury\u00a0by Jim Butcher (2008).\u00a0Book 4 of the \"Codex Alera\" series, Butcher's Roman-styled high fantasy, sees various secrets revealed and, by the end of the book, a bit of...","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-books"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/stars4.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10998,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/04\/30\/the_dresden_files_book_se.html","url_meta":{"origin":11800,"position":2},"title":"The Dresden Files book series","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 30-Apr-07 9:37am","format":false,"excerpt":"The Dresden Files (series) by Jim Butcher (2002-present) Overall Story Re-Readability Characters I got into the\u00a0books via the SciFi channel TV series based on it.\u00a0 I've reviewed the first...","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-books"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/stars4.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":30545,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/10\/07\/cold-days-in-hell.html","url_meta":{"origin":11800,"position":3},"title":"Cold Days (in Hell)","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 7-Oct-12 1:43pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Dear Penguin: You are not doing yourself, nor your bestselling author Jim Butcher, any favors by setting the hardcover and Kindle price for the newest Dresden novel at $27.95. \u00a0Even \"discounted\" the h\/c is at $16.77 and the Kindle at $14.99.So I'll wait. I suspect others will not, but will\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":21824,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/08\/01\/book-review-ghost-story-by-jim-butcher-2011.html","url_meta":{"origin":11800,"position":4},"title":"Book Review: “Ghost Story” by Jim Butcher (2011)","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 1-Aug-11 6:36am","format":false,"excerpt":"Ghost Story by Jim Butcher My rating: 4 of 5 stars Jim Butcher does precisely what the Harry Dresden series needed -- he gives it a good shaking up, resetting alliances, ratcheting back the power levels, and freeing (in some, but not all ways) Harry from the ever-spiraling series of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-books"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":137284,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2018\/10\/09\/the-dresden-files-is-returning-to-tv.html","url_meta":{"origin":11800,"position":5},"title":""The Dresden Files" is returning to TV","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 9-Oct-18 7:25am","format":false,"excerpt":"I was actually introduced to the books by the TV series, and was bitterly disappointing when the show didn't succeed (I still pull out that season disc and rewatch it now and again). In retrospect, I think it was constrained by budget and state-of-the-FX in (was it only) 2007. There\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11800\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}