In case you are wondering why I’m reviewing the second book in a series for which I reviewed the first book last week, if isn’t because I finished the second book in a week. It was more like 2 weeks. I just realized partway through the second book that I never wrote a review of the first. Now that I’m done with the second, I will share my thoughts on it with you.
In Academ’s Fury, the second book in the Codex Alera series, Jim Butcher jumps 2 years forward from the end of the first novel. In it we return to Tavi being 2 years into his training to become a Cursor, we find his uncle and former steadholder, Bernard, comfortable and confident in his new role as a count, and we find his aunt Isana artfully navigating the trappings of steadholding and citizenship. We also find some new enemy’s threatening these heroes, their ways of life, the First Lord, and the realm of Alera itself.
I have to say that within a chapter or two I found myself nearly incapable of putting this book down. I spent many nights reading later than I intended to and many spare moments stealing a page or two more. Butcher has an interesting style of writing in that every chapter manages to be a cliffhanger. I noticed this trend in the Dresden Files as well, but it nearly always paid off since those books were in the first person. These being in the omniscient third person, I often would read forward due to a suspenseful ending only to have to wait 2 or 3 chapters to be satisfied (and in the meantime have 2 or 3 more elements hanging that I’d want to read more about). To be clear, I say this as a compliment as it is very fitting and the story well structured. I commend his ability to pull it off so well so often. I also greatly enjoyed the author’s complete sense of the realm he has constructed – down to the details of having historical and theoretical discussions and debates.
After finishing this second tome, I am confident that I am going to need to continue the series – most likely to completion (assuming there is and end in sight). While the book certainly had a compelling set of arcs including riveting climaxes and satisfying denouements, there is clearly a longer arc at work here that one cannot simply abandon. And I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised to find that 2 of my hunches I’d formulated in the first book were revealed to be true by the end of the second (at least one very subtlely). I’m happy that Jim did not try to hide these revelations through to the end of the series – to do so would have been an underestimation of the audience. It is good to see that Butcher does not think so little of us, but rather gave us the gift of acknowledgement. I look forward to what will come in the next volume (once I find the time to purchase it).