Tag: book review

Ill Wind

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I learned two things I didn’t expect while reading this book:  (1) I learned a whole bunch of facts about weather patterns I hadn’t fully appreciated, and (2) I realized that I’ve read very few books written by women.

After finishing the Dresden Files series (at least what has been written so far) and being left with a penchant to read more, I came across this series by Rachel Caine called the Weather Warden series.  A friend mentioned it to me as Jim Butcher actually endorsed the series.  Given I haven’t read anything by him that I haven’t liked, I figured his recommendation was worthy of consideration.  So I picked up book one from my local Barnes & Noble and dug in.  I have to say that I enjoyed it more than I expected to.

The book follows Joanne Baldwin, a powerful Weather Warden, on her quest to clear her name of murder charges and free herself of the demon mark that was forced upon her.  The setting is modern day United States and posits a secret group of people with elemental abilities that are self-governing in the use of these abilities to guide earthly phenomena such as hurricanes, wild fires, earthquakes, etc.  This version of our world also includes the existence of genies (referred to as Djinn) as powerful and immortal being that can be bonded to a host and their power used to enhance these elemental forces.

Rachel Caine builds an interesting and believable world and set of characters.  While the story starts in the midst of action and tension, Rachel eloquently weaves in back story elements that help give Joanne and the other characters she interacts with greater substance.  She also manages to paint a vivid picture of the events as they unfold.

While I have read plenty of books where part or all of the story was from a woman’s perspective, it seems that a story written about a woman BY a woman yields a perspective that I haven’t previously experienced.  Perhaps it is a bit cliché, but as a man it is inherently difficult to fully understand how certain experiences are perceived from a feminine perspective.  In that respect, this book was rather educational and inspires me to possibly explore this perspective further (though I don’t necessarily see myself running out to purchase Sense and Sensibility).  In the least, perhaps my wife will consider reading something that I liked and we can share that.  I gave her the book – that is all I can really do without being a nuisance.

Anyway, the bottom line here is that I did enjoy this book and I am giving serious consideration to continuing the series.  If you like the contemporary fantasy genre (à la Dresden Files, etc.), then you may enjoy this series as well.  If you do, let me know.  If you didn’t like it, I’d like to hear why.  If you’d like to just discuss the Coriolis Effect, I’m open to that too.

Academ’s Fury

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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).

Furies of Calderon

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After receiving pressure from numerous sources and finding myself in a mood to read more but without anything of interest to read, I finally relented to read the first book in Jim Butcher’s The Codex Alera series.  I have not typically been a huge fan of the traditional fantasy genre – usually preferring contemporary sci-fi/fantasy or near-future sci-fi.  But I hve to say that this experience has turned me around on that stance.

For me, the introductory segment kicked off a bit slow – though this may be due to some of my own ambivalence rather than the writing.  And to be fair, most novels that are part of a series can seem to start slow in order to thoroughly build the environment and character-base (both of which are inherently larger when a longer series arc is to be expected).  But once events started moving along, I was hooked.

The realm that Jim Butcher creates in this series is an interesting one:  one which exhibits a human populace with technology on par with the Roman Empire, but where some more modern conveniences are enjoyed via an interesting form of sorcery; one where each member of this society has the ability to wield some forms of magic by way of ethereal companions known as furies; and one where the main commonwealth is in a tenuous peace with various volatile forces from every direction – many of these groups being very similar to human themselves.  In the course of this first volume, the tenuity of this equilibrium is challenged from a few angles, and an unlikely protagonist in the middle of these events is a 15-year-old boy named Tavi who is unique in his complete lack of ability to wield any furycrafting.

To elaborate on the nature of the fury magic in the series, it seems that there are 6 types of furies that one can wield:  fire, water, air, earth, wood, and metal.  Each of these types includes the ability to manipulate objects of that element as well as other abilities related to it.  For instance, a watercrafter can not only manipulate water (change its state, move it at will, manipulate it within other things), but also can feel the emotions of others around him/her and heal wounds with this craft.  Woodcrafters have the ability to camouflage themselves, aircrafters the ability of flight as well as the ability to use air to buffer sound around them or magnify distant objects.  And many people have the ability to wield more than one type of furycraft.  Though most types also come with weaknesses (e.g., aircrafting can be damped by earth such as mud or salt, earthcrafting requires access to the ground).

Among the contending forces to their realm are a group of human-ish people to the east called the Marat (which seem very much like albino Native Americans).  The Marat have no ability to wield furies, but instead bond to animals and align themselves in tribes related to the animals to which they are bound.  And while these people are largely enigmatic and most know of them mainly by reputation due their involvement in a major battle a generation prior, they are not the worst enemy the realm of Alera seems to be facing.

I have to say that this book, much like Jim Butcher’s other works, has piqued my interest to continue reading.  The story was often riveting and in the end well encapsulated, but with all the makings of a continuing saga that one would want to follow.  And it has definitely changed my view of the traditional fantasy genre.

Changes

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I will try my best not to spoil anything with this review, but it will be difficult.  I am going to assume, though, that if you are reading this review you already read the previous books.  So if you haven’t I apologize if I spoil anything from one of them.

When we left Harry last, the wizarding world was still deeply entrenched in a war with the vampire Red Court, he had helped bring the existence of the Black Council into the light, and had the White Council, some of his close friends, and himself from grave peril.  But it was not without costs and consequences – Thomas (Harry’s half-brother and ally in the vampire White Court) ended up embracing his demonic nature, Murphy ended up in even thinner ice than usual in the CPD, many White Council members died including the warden that Harry had committed to exonerate, and Harry and McCoy set out to start a Gray Council (a secret subset of the White Council that acknowledges the Black Council as a force to be reckoned with).

Now in the midst of the maelstrom that follows the previous events, something comes up that drags Harry away from all of it for something even more personal (spoiler here:   a daughter that Susan had kept secret from him who is now being held by the Red Court – not much of a spoiler since it is revealed in the first few sentences of the book).  And Harry goes to all lengths to deal with this threat – calling on every ally and asset, calling in every favor, and even makes personal sacrifices he wouldn’t otherwise have considered.  He also ends up making an array of sacrifices that he would rather have avoided.

As I read this and as I’m now reading the second book in Jim Butcher’s other series, The Codex Alera, I can’t help but be increasingly impressed and enamored with this author.  In this series, he has a great and subtle way of peppering in a few pop culture references that only readers of my generation are likely to pick up on (which you have to pick up on them or you’ll miss them as they are not at all explained).  And with both series’ Butcher shows as they progress that he had clear long-term plans in each, yet neither include volumes that are too incomplete to enjoy on their own or too reliant on past story to follow without pretext.

In a word, this latest book was brilliant.  I enjoyed every sentence of it from start to finish (even the ending that left me in shock and ready to cry).  I really hope that there will be more in this series.  I know that Jim is releasing a collection of all of the Dresden short stories that he has written over the years (including a new one related to this latest volume) which I will definitely be purchasing and reading when it hits the shelves in November.  But I cannot except that this story might be over – especially with so much still unresolved (e.g., the Black Council still at large, some of the swords still unallocated).  There has to be more in store for Harry and his intrepid companions.  So I will be waiting patiently, Mr. Butcher.  The ball is in your court.

Turn Coat

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In a world where magic is secretly all around us and an entire kingdom of dark, supernatural elements live in realms both parallel and beneath Chicago, one man is fool enough to stand against his allies to defend his foes … wait, what?  It seems that that turns out to be the plotline of the latest volume in The Dresden Files series.  In Turn Coat, Harry finds a battered version of his long-time antagonist, the Warden Morgan, at his door looking for help and asylum.  It turns out that the White Council is hunting him down for the murder of one of their senior members.  Hmm, turn the man in who spent years trying to have him killed and be a hero, or hide him away and undertake the task of proving Morgan innocent without getting his own head lain on the chopping block (literally).  Tough decision.

It turns out that despite Morgan having been found standing over the victim holding the murder weapon and having recently gotten a bank deposit of several million dollars into his account, Dresden opts to give him the benefit of the doubt.  And in the process of trying to gather evidence in Morgan’s favor, Harry finds himself facing off with White Court vampires, White Council wizards, an army of men in gray suits, a skinwalker (one hell of a powerful and scary immortal creature, believe you me), and an island (you’ll have to read it to understand it).  In the scuffles that ensue, there are no shortage of casualties on the home team – both physical and otherwise.  But the prize at the end of the day is the posibility of revealing the identity of one of the members of the “Black Council”.

As usual, Harry manages to pull a lot of aces from the deck from which he is dealt (which is generally stacked against him) and manages to shake up the status quo with his own personal flare.  But I have to say the Jim Butcher went above bar with this one.  Turn Coat is one of the most exciting volumes of this series I’ve read to date – I got it for Father’s Day and finished it last night (that may not seem like much, but for me it is – I don’t read fast).  I don’t know what I’m going to read now that I’m up to date on the series.  I may have to see how Butcher fairs with his pure fantasy series.