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ALERA - whole series ... Holy F***ing Furies ...wherein Abyss reads the series at long last...

#1 User is offline   Abyss 

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Posted 11 July 2011 - 02:57 PM

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BLOCK ALL SPOILERS UNTIL THE THREAD TITLE REFLECTS THAT I HAVE COMPLETED A BOOK

Okay... i haven't read a whole series from book one in ages so i'm actually fairly psyched for Jim Butcher's CODEX ALERA series, which has been sitting, in its entirety, in my trp for almost a year.

That said...

View PostAbyss, on 10 July 2011 - 03:34 PM, said:

...
Started THE FURIES OF CALDERON - i figured out what was preventing me from getting on with this series for so long... 'start-up syndrome'. No matter how good i know a series is going to be, spending the time needed for an author, even a great author like Butcher, to start something from scratch with necessary farmboy antics and intro worldbuilding, is a bit... i'm going to use the word 'tedious' even if that's unfair. I know i'll enjoy this series, and even soon, but the first 50 pages so far are just that.



View PostQuickTidal, on 10 July 2011 - 05:25 PM, said:

Well into the dresdencrack as I was, I'll be honest. I put FURIES OF CALDERON down after 100pages and was annoyed...sold the book to a used bookstore. It was just so generic and wasn't blowing my mind yet...

a year later I re-bought it and finished it. While it was still kind of by-the-numbers, I liked a few things about it...enough to read Book2 which I am happy to say is SO much better.

so no matter how tedious FoC seems, just push on.



View PostBriar King, on 10 July 2011 - 06:01 PM, said:

Same here, I was hooked after Academ's Fury.


...and i'm duly encouraged and thank you ... because i'll tell you, 80-90 pages in and it's like ive read this all before...

Farmboy of unclear ancestry and a curious lack of powers everyone else has.
Evil barbarian threat from a dark mysterious end of the continent.
The bestest swordman ever who is also an honourable bad guy.
Elements based magic.
Plucky intrepid spy girl.
Evil chicken monsters.
Irritating local politics.

...gah.
If not for the Dresdencrack and genuine praise here at the Otherlit forum i'd be seriously doubtful.
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#2 User is offline   champ 

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Posted 11 July 2011 - 04:00 PM

View PostAbyss, on 11 July 2011 - 02:57 PM, said:

Okay... i haven't read a whole series from book one in ages so i'm actually fairly psyched for Jim Butcher's CODEX ALERA series, which has been sitting, in its entirety, in my trp for almost a year.

That said...

View PostAbyss, on 10 July 2011 - 03:34 PM, said:

...
Started THE FURIES OF CALDERON - i figured out what was preventing me from getting on with this series for so long... 'start-up syndrome'. No matter how good i know a series is going to be, spending the time needed for an author, even a great author like Butcher, to start something from scratch with necessary farmboy antics and intro worldbuilding, is a bit... i'm going to use the word 'tedious' even if that's unfair. I know i'll enjoy this series, and even soon, but the first 50 pages so far are just that.



View PostQuickTidal, on 10 July 2011 - 05:25 PM, said:

Well into the dresdencrack as I was, I'll be honest. I put FURIES OF CALDERON down after 100pages and was annoyed...sold the book to a used bookstore. It was just so generic and wasn't blowing my mind yet...

a year later I re-bought it and finished it. While it was still kind of by-the-numbers, I liked a few things about it...enough to read Book2 which I am happy to say is SO much better.

so no matter how tedious FoC seems, just push on.



View PostBriar King, on 10 July 2011 - 06:01 PM, said:

Same here, I was hooked after Academ's Fury.


...and i'm duly encouraged and thank you ... because i'll tell you, 80-90 pages in and it's like ive read this all before...

Farmboy of unclear ancestry and a curious lack of powers everyone else has.
Evil barbarian threat from a dark mysterious end of the continent.
The bestest swordman ever who is also an honourable bad guy.
Elements based magic.
Plucky intrepid spy girl.
Evil chicken monsters.
Irritating local politics.

...gah.
If not for the Dresdencrack and genuine praise here at the Otherlit forum i'd be seriously doubtful.


Imagine it like the Dresden series Abyss, whilst the first books were addiction, the series really didnt become true dresdencrack until the 4th book...

The first book is a typical Butcher introducer novel... the series just gets better and better after that...

Tehol said:

'Yet my heart breaks for a naked hen.'
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#3 User is offline   Chance 

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Posted 11 July 2011 - 05:54 PM

View PostAbyss, on 11 July 2011 - 02:57 PM, said:

...gah.
If not for the Dresdencrack and genuine praise here at the Otherlit forum i'd be seriously doubtful.


The first book ain't very remarkable but neither is Stormfront.

Sadly there are two unremarkable books in this alera...first and last.

The books in between are well worth it however.

This post has been edited by Chance: 11 July 2011 - 05:58 PM

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#4 User is offline   Obdigore 

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Posted 11 July 2011 - 06:04 PM

View PostAbyss, on 11 July 2011 - 02:57 PM, said:



...and i'm duly encouraged and thank you ... because i'll tell you, 80-90 pages in and it's like ive read this all before...

Farmboy of unclear ancestry and a curious lack of powers everyone else has.
Evil barbarian threat from a dark mysterious end of the continent.
The bestest swordman ever who is also an honourable bad guy.
Elements based magic.
Plucky intrepid spy girl.
Evil chicken monsters.
Irritating local politics.




Yes
No/Yes
No
Yes
Not what you think
Nope
Yes.
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#5 User is offline   QuickTidal 

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Posted 11 July 2011 - 06:12 PM

View PostObdigore, on 11 July 2011 - 06:04 PM, said:

View PostAbyss, on 11 July 2011 - 02:57 PM, said:



...and i'm duly encouraged and thank you ... because i'll tell you, 80-90 pages in and it's like ive read this all before...

Farmboy of unclear ancestry and a curious lack of powers everyone else has.
Evil barbarian threat from a dark mysterious end of the continent.
The bestest swordman ever who is also an honourable bad guy.
Elements based magic.
Plucky intrepid spy girl.
Evil chicken monsters.
Irritating local politics.




Yes
No/Yes
No
Yes
Not what you think
Nope
Yes.



^^This.

Also...

Butcher-style CHOCOBO's!

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#6 User is offline   Abyss 

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Posted 11 July 2011 - 06:17 PM

I'm prepared to be convinced on most points, but herdbanes are totally chicken monsters.
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#7 User is offline   QuickTidal 

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Posted 11 July 2011 - 06:22 PM

View PostAbyss, on 11 July 2011 - 06:17 PM, said:

I'm prepared to be convinced on most points, but herdbanes are totally chicken monsters.


The most official visual representation of them (sanctioned by Jim himself) is on the side of the Alera Map that Priscillie did....located here:

http://www.jim-butch...virtual-signing

Looks like a chocobo to me. ;)

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 11 July 2011 - 06:23 PM

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#8 User is offline   acesn8s 

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Posted 11 July 2011 - 06:22 PM

View PostAbyss, on 11 July 2011 - 06:17 PM, said:

I'm prepared to be convinced on most points, but herdbanes are totally chicken monsters.


;)

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#9 User is offline   Obdigore 

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Posted 11 July 2011 - 07:37 PM

View PostAbyss, on 11 July 2011 - 06:17 PM, said:

I'm prepared to be convinced on most points, but herdbanes are totally chicken monsters.


Yes but they aren't evil pecking chicken monsters. They are either wild and going after food, or trained. EVIL CHICKENS.

Sir, your allusion to tairy makes my eyes prepare to bleed.
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#10 User is offline   Abyss 

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Posted 11 July 2011 - 07:46 PM

You're confusing Tairy's Chicken As Fowl Embodiment of All Evil with chicken monsters such as Stackpole's temeryx (which, conveniently, the lead chracter fought in the first few pages of the first book in his Dragoncrown cyle...), among others.
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Posted 11 July 2011 - 07:51 PM

Anyway, that chicken was not a chicken. That chicken was evil incarnate.

Tread carefully, Abyss, or you will make Obdi's "thing" rise...
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Posted 11 July 2011 - 07:58 PM

Oh Abyss, have you checked out the ghost story preview chapters yet?

First book is pretty good, but not the best. Second book is much better. The
Spoiler
had me thinking of Tairy honestly, and it was all sorts of messed up.

This post has been edited by Abyss: 11 July 2011 - 09:38 PM

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Posted 11 July 2011 - 09:11 PM

TBQH, Chocobo hens aside, I'm yet to finish Alera, still got the final book to go and have done for a while. I will do at some point, but it's not the must-read Dresden is for me. Part of it is pacing issues that I won't go into to heavily now, but partly because for all Butcher's skill, it really is just an improved-model early Eddings in a lot of ways. Which is fun, but flawed.

It is definitely worth your time, though.
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Posted 12 July 2011 - 04:03 AM

As always, stick with it Abyss. The first book is meh, the first half of the second book is slightly better and then it kicks in for the rest of the series. Especially with the epic books like 3,4,5. The final book was still good, better than the first two, imo, but once you get to the point where it gets awesome, the rest of the books will be hard to put down.
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#15 User is offline   Abyss 

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Posted 12 July 2011 - 01:39 PM

Noted.

So... THIS must be how all those people feel when they can't get past the GotM200 and we all keep telling them to suck it up and keep reading...

- Abyss, ...now with more irony...
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#16 User is offline   Cluracan AbSylvas 

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Posted 14 July 2011 - 04:47 PM

View PostAbyss, on 12 July 2011 - 01:39 PM, said:

Noted.

So... THIS must be how all those people feel when they can't get past the GotM200 and we all keep telling them to suck it up and keep reading...

- Abyss, ...now with more irony...


I dunno...

I read the first four Alera books while on summer vacation for vacation fodder.

IMHO your first impressions of book 1 were spot on, and frankly the series doesn't diverge much from the tropes you'd expect in a series based around a character who trades his pitchfork in for fame/fortune/power. For me, Alera was a fun look at a classic archetypal fantasy series. This being said, I did read the entire series, but I read all the books from the library and don't wish they were on my shelves.

It will be fun to see what does or doesn't tweak your interest as the series and your read goes on.

Clu

This post has been edited by Cluracan AbSylvas: 14 July 2011 - 04:53 PM

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Posted 14 July 2011 - 05:31 PM

So 200 pages in and things have started picking up somewhat.

Which has also led me to the conclusion that most of the first 200 pages of this book could have been cut down to maybe 20.

Butcher, as always, writes a solid action scene - the fight between Amara/Brenden/Tavi, Kord & sons and Fidelias' group at the river was great ("My river!" = pure win for sheer badass line in the midst of magic smackdown) , but most of the action scenes before this consisted of people running away from things. The book basically could have started with Tavi and Uncle meeting the Marat, skipped straight to Amara and Fidelias' group arriving at the steadhold and moved along from there with everything before that worked in via brief flashback and reference.

Tavi is also doing little to engender any 'like' from me thus far. He's basically the standard 'immature farmboy with mysterious past and good instincts' trope, and those are one of the things i've outgrown after a few years of SE, ICE, Bakker, Mieville, Abercrombie and others.

Anyhow, this read is about to be paused, as i broke like a twig and bought ADWD and Robopocalypse, and Ghost Story is due in about a week or 2.

More when i get back to it (i will i promise) and thanks all for your input so far.
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Posted 14 July 2011 - 06:06 PM

View PostAbyss, on 14 July 2011 - 05:31 PM, said:

So 200 pages in and things have started picking up somewhat.

Which has also led me to the conclusion that most of the first 200 pages of this book could have been cut down to maybe 20.

Butcher, as always, writes a solid action scene - the fight between Amara/Brenden/Tavi, Kord & sons and Fidelias' group at the river was great ("My river!" = pure win for sheer badass line in the midst of magic smackdown) , but most of the action scenes before this consisted of people running away from things. The book basically could have started with Tavi and Uncle meeting the Marat, skipped straight to Amara and Fidelias' group arriving at the steadhold and moved along from there with everything before that worked in via brief flashback and reference.

Tavi is also doing little to engender any 'like' from me thus far. He's basically the standard 'immature farmboy with mysterious past and good instincts' trope, and those are one of the things i've outgrown after a few years of SE, ICE, Bakker, Mieville, Abercrombie and others.


You seem to be firing on all the proper cylinders so far (AKA on par with the rest of us) as to what you notice about this book. No worries.
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#19 User is offline   Use Of Weapons 

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Posted 15 July 2011 - 10:07 AM

Abyss -- don't expect to like the first book. It's in the second that Alera really gets into gear. I was completely meh about the first, and took a year and a half to pick up the second, thanks to the continued recs on here. After the second, I raced through the rest. _Academ's Fury_ is Alera's _Summer Knight_. But I would say that FoC, while an acceptable intro to the world, is not as readable as _Storm Front_, precisely because Tavi is not as engaging a protagonist until he matures (or maturity is thrust upon him), and also because of the distancing effect of the 3rd person perspective vs. 1st person in Dresden.
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Posted 15 July 2011 - 10:59 AM

View PostUseOfWeapons, on 15 July 2011 - 10:07 AM, said:

But I would say that FoC, while an acceptable intro to the world, is not as readable as _Storm Front_, precisely because Tavi is not as engaging a protagonist until he matures (or maturity is thrust upon him)


This ^^

By the 3rd book Tavi was fast becoming one of my fav characters in any series... 4th & 5th sealed it!

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