Orbit recently announced that it was bring the six book series of The Codex Alera by Jim Butcher to the UK for the first time. Starting in June the first four books will be released at the rate of one a month with Princeps’ Fury (Book Five) coming in December.
The covers to The Codex Alera are stunning I have to say. I’m intrigued by what the symbols mean and how Jim Butcher turns his hand to a fantasy series.
Harry Dresden, professional wizard, has done his best to keep his nose clean where the White Council of Wizards is concerned. Even so, his past misdeeds have cast a constant shadow of suspicion over him in the eyes of the Wardens, those wizards responsible for enforcing the Laws of Magic. Now Dresden finds himself faced with a nightmarish dilemma: Morgan, formerly his chief persecutor among the Wardens, has been wrongly accused of treason against the White Council – and has come to Harry for help.
Dresden faces a daunting task: clear Morgan’s name while simultaneously hiding him from the Wardens and the supernatural bounty hunters sent to find him, discover the identity of the true turncoat and, of course, avoid accusations of treachery of his own. A single mistake may mean that heads – quite literally – will roll. And one of them could be his own …
Now I’m a big fan of The Dresden Files, though I’m on book 7 and Turn Coat is book 11 but it’s a brilliant series and I’m enjoying catching up!
I got a litte ways into Furies of Calderon and then lost interest, though I'll probably pick it up again at some point. The writing is certainly competent, as you'd expect from Butcher, but the series lacks the originality of the Dresden Files, from what little I've read so far. Now that the books are available on Audible.com I may delve back into them again.
I'm just starting off on Book 7 of the Dresden Files too. Great series.
The Codex Alera series is much like Dresden in that it gets better with each book. While I though the first book was merely ok, I was hooked by book 3 and like it as well as the Dresden series. Both of which I read the day after they come out.
@Seth Glad it's not just me whose a little behind with The Dresden Files – I am expecting something traditional in terms of fantasy and nothing like Dresden – will be interesting to see what he does with the characters. It reminds me of Charles Stross a little, as he has a fantasy series along with his other books.
@ K_P glad to hear that it builds – will have to remember that if I struggle with book 1!
I've got the old covers of these. Still unread though. They depict creatures at one with/coming directly out of air, fire, water etc. The new covers are still symbolic of elements; and even though they look much prettier and bold enough to stand out to grab a buyers attention, I still reckon the old covers convey more about elemental creatures/"fury" magic … even though they are old-school fantasy covers. Weird, because I've come to prefer the simplified boldness of many of todays covers – but for some reason, I like the old ones in this instance. Except the old "Academ's Fury" which has hands coming out of brick walls!?! which must be the earth fury, hence human hands. But AF does look creepy.
Okay. Now I've just reread the blurbs, I'll have to bung them on the TBR pile, especially since they're battered and falling apart (second-hand buy) and should have been read ages ago. But, now I'm intrigued.
I'm further behind with Dresden … having only read book one. But, soon to remedy that!
So far I read STORMFRONT and FOOL MOON. And to be honest this is good stuff.
The CODEX ALERA series is on my list. I read about it.
And the covers are promising…..
[...] shown off the first four cover before in case you like that sort of thing, which I [...]