Book 6), First Lord's Fury (Codex Alera

the development of the characters, in particular the main character over the series was truly well thought out! I will miss Tavi for his growth, strength, and hope that Jim Butcher created. How ironic that I didn't want to start reading this series after I was finished with the Dresden files!

I miss them BOTH now!

please, please bring them both back...

I'm sitting here, right now feeling like an addict without no stuff.

your a young man Jim. give it to me!

I have thoroughly enjoyed this entire series! Jim Butcher does not disappoint you in this world spanning coming of age epic fantasy. From the very beginning you see Tavi grow from a teenager without a Fury to his name all the way to the most powerful adult in the Realm of Alera, Gaius Octavian.

In this book, the final battle is fought with astounding failures and successes on multiple fronts. Jim Butcher's grasp on the military structure and tactics of battle keep you on the edge of your seat throughout with his phenomenal understanding that not all battles can be won completely; that each confrontation with the enemy is a constant struggle of give and take on the final road to saving Alera from the Vord Invasion.

I highly recommend this series to anyone who enjoys the epic fantasy genre in general. You will not be disappointed!

I very much enjoyed this novel. A long anticipated conclusion to this amazing series. The novel provided the same great characters, dialogue, and non-stop (desperate) action that I grew to love in the previous books.

I started reading this series with the first book. If you are a fan on this type fantasy, you will be happy if you have an e reader because you can order the next one right away. I would read additional books after this if they became available.

Fabulous culmination of an epic fantasy saga that's left me feeling like I've been put through the wringer. Really. Typically I read to escape from stress, but I found myself needing breaks just to chill before getting back in there for another go.

Addicting stuff.

Concluding Book in a great series. Jim Butcher manages to weave a commendable love story into a dramatic and violent situation. Lessons on tolerance and morality are there but not overdone or preachy. The challenge of the situation and the resolution of the multiple problems make for and exciting story with engaging heroes and villains you can hate. I enjoyed the book series.

The characters are as strong as ever, with all of your favorites coming back to make a final stand defending the realm against the unstoppable Vord army. Finally, it seems that the people of Alera have been able to put aside their petty political bickering (mostly) and band together for survival. While this is good for the characters, from a narrative perspective, it makes for a somewhat double-edged sword.

While this book features fewer infuriating bureaucrats that make you want to throw them off a cliff, it does mean that the vast bulk of the book is dedicated to lengthy battle scenes. If you like lots of battle scenes, you're in luck. But for fans like me who are more interested in the political intrigue and character development, this finale will be a little bit of a letdown.

That said, Jim Butcher does a splendid job of taking the characters that you've grown to love over the last five books and found a way to put nearly every single one of them in severe mortal jeopardy at some point in the book. I found myself gasping with concern for several of them at multiple points in the book. (One chapter ended with no less than five characters suffering potentially fatal injuries. I actually had to put aside the book for a few days just to reconcile myself with the fact that at least one of my favorites might not survive to the next chapter.)

There's redemption & betrayals. Destinies are fulfilled. Kitai continues to be her badass self. It's a thoroughly competent conclusion. I suppose I was expecting more but I'm not really sure what that would have been. Doesn't matter though. If you're a fan of the series, you pretty much have to read this book regardless.

The book wrapped things up nicely but also left things open for potential future volumes. I enjoyed the whole series and am happy and sad to see it end. Happy because it ended well and sad to see it go.

Butcher brings the conflict to a mind-bending climax. If you haven't read the previous books, don't start with this one. Each book is carefully crafted to build upon the previous books. Do yourself an immense favor and read them in order.

"Ahhhh the saga continues and gets more exciting with each book. I loved this series and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys sci fi especially if you love those with extraordinary talents! Now I can't wait to read another series by Jim Butcher. I think he has become my favourite sci fi writer."

These books fueled my imagination, constantly leaving a quirky smile on my face from beginning to end. I was captured by it, and for a time lived within Jim butcher's world. One of my favorite series of all times, even above the King Killer Chronicles and The Stormlight Archive

Ive read the book and listened to the audiobook. I definitely recommend both. If your looking at this book then I'm sure you've already read the first four so of course your going to purchase this one. You can never go wrong with Jim Butcher.

Butcher somewhat recovers his form after a dreadful last effort (with the exception of the ice ships). The problem here is similar to what he has experienced in the Dresden files. There Harry was much more interesting as a novice wizard and has become boring as an all powerful mostly p-oed one. Here Tavi was a wonderful character in his journey of self discovery. The conflicts and resolution with the traditional enemies - the Marat, the Icemen and the Cane - showed Butcher's genius. The problem with the last novel and with this one is that the enemy is the vord, whose advance is made by mold and whose evil queen is 9 years old and who obviously needs a hug. I thought that since the queen was defective as evidenced by her children queens trying to kill her and from her conversations with Isana, that Butcher was going to get Tavi to find some mediation with this monster (albeit a 9 year old monster). No. All those pages were just filler as Tavi and the queen fight to the (queen's) death and Tavi and all the previous enemies go off into the sunset holding hands. But not to worry, since the vord took over Canim - land of the Cane - and it will take them 10 years to consolidate their power there, we can expect yet another novel featuring this truly dreadfully boring creation. What is even worse is that Tavi has matured into an all powerful fury-master. That is a real shame. I thought that at least he would work in tandem with Katai. But no, he needs no help to work his craft. Alas, Butcher has demonstrated an innovative and creative imagination. He can give us better than this.

Everything laid out to the last. A mosaic of characters all connected and valued. Enjoyed every bit of it as nail biting and frustrating as it could be sometimes. Thank you Mr. Butcher...a Canim nod to your writing.

Excellent book and excellent climax to a great series. As some have indicated, I would like to have seen certain things examined more closely, but it did not detract or prevent me from giving this and the entire series top stars. Jim is an extraordinary writer that rarely if ever disatisfies. Not to give any spoilers, I will simply say buy this book and read the rest of the series if you have not. The only thing I will say is that I hope Jim plans on doing more Alera novels, but I would like to see them. Of course, I am also looking forward to Changes, the next Dresden Files book, but I hope he has other universes to explore to keep him fresh in whatever he chooses to write. I will read it.

The book is the conclusion of the Codex: Alera series and I will be the first to admit the series had me riveted throughout. This book while VERY good did not. It was a fitting end but like most fantasy series that reach a conclusion-it is all too predictable. There are some great moments within the book and it does a nice job of tidying up everything at the end. Jim Butcher's strengths are clearly evidenced throughout the book-fantastic characters that make you feel real emotion, great world building, and tense action. Jim Butcher has grown as a writer throughout the series and his books are more and more polished. In the end through all the polish you can still see an author that geniunely cares about penning a great story. I HIGHLY recommend the series, this book being the end is a must read. I would honestly say that this is a sit down with a cup of your favorite beverage and savor the ending of a great tale sort of book. Enjoy it-I did.

Great ending (?) to a great series. I hope that after a short recess Mr Butcher will return us to Alera. This can't be the end.
In the meantime I'll just have to see what kind of trouble Harry Dresten has run into.
Gerald Majors, DVM

I have enjoyed every book in this series and this book was great way to end it. Or maybe it will be the start of another series? It was written to go either way which is why I like it so much. If you are a fan of the Codex Alera books you will enjoy this one.

This was everything you would expect from the final book of this series, Octavian wins out against all odds. Not very imaginative or humorous, but if you have read the other 5 books this book does not disappoint another strong book from Jim Butcher.

Incredibly creative, multi-layered, well-balanced final book to bring an end to what is arguably one of my favorite series ever. Rife with interesting, intertwining sub-plots and sub-text that culminated in a full-circle finish. A triumph in intelligently planned writing that is sure to interest anyone.

Caution: spoilers ahead!!--

As usual with Jim Butcher, this is a compulsive page turner, but it seems the author lost interest in this exciting and original series in the final two books. He certainly stopped committing himself to the themes and arc he'd so beautifully developed in the first four. Maybe he got weighted down by too many characters, plot lines and too many enemies.

In the first books, Tavi's growing maturity and moral education, and his and Isana's slowly awakening powers are handled with intelligence and with a great, mounting dramatic build. The final two books, though, are mostly just one big battle scene after another. Few unexpected plot twists, no particularly surprising cleverness from Tavi, and sadly, we don't get to see his fury-crafting power as it grows. In Princeps, he's pretty much stagnant fury-wise. In First Lord, there's one scene showing him being clumsy with Alera as his flying tutor, and then suddenly he's super-fury-man. After such a delightfully slow dramatic build-up to Tavi first discovering his potential for fury-craft in first four books, the development of his powers feels ignored, rushed and phoned-in. We never see him manifest his water fury, fire fury, air fury, etc. We never get to see him experiment with them and their potential. He barely continues to find creative new uses for furies in the final two books. His only fury was Alera, who felt like a kind of a short-hand 'trick' so Jim Butcher could end the series faster.

Also, in the final book plot developments crop up for no reason other than to keep things moving. Things spin out of Tavi's and Isana's control and at the end of too many chapters they are reduced to vowing victory or vengeance or determination to vanquish their enemies. Unlike in the earlier books, the plot is not moved forward by Tavi's plans or deviousness. For the most part, he reacts rather than acts. And things just seem to happen for no reason - I'm thinking right now of the vord queen's gratuitous attack on the encampment at Riva. And the way the vord queen is finally defeated feels anticlimactic. Tavi neither outsmarts her nor outmaneuvers her nor even overpowers her. It was confusing to me that on the spur of the moment Tavi awakens the great furies Garados and his wife, and we are told that if they are left unbound or unclaimed they will devastate nearly all of the continent. Then Tavi kills the vord queen simply because she inexplicably flies away into a storm of wind-manes and lands wounded, while Tavi, after pursuing her, somehow remains unharmed. And the unleashed Garados and his wind-fury wife are never mentioned again. What did I miss?

Jim Butcher is talented and capable of so much. As eagerly as I look forward to his books I wish he'd write fewer and take more time to make each one more special, with lucid characters and compelling themes instead of relying so heavily on fight scenes and action. (Not that I mind fight scenes and action! Love 'em! But without something to say about the human condition, action scenes that make your adrenaline flow are just so much porn - you enjoy them while you're reading them but then feel sort like you wasted your time at the end.) Sometimes prolific artists seem to enjoy writing (or they enjoy paycheck? no idea - tho that's certainly anyone's right) so much it's almost like they get high on the volume of their output. So maybe Jim Butcher is happy writing as he does - more power to him, we need happiness in the world. But as someone who appreciates genre fiction that is a cut above the rest - I have to point out that there are some prolific writers - Terry Pratchett and P.G. Wodehouse come to mind - who manage to make nearly every one of their books something special.

Butcher writes page turners, he understands that conflict=drama. The first books in this series are among my favorites in fantasy. They were about something. In Furies of Calderon, when at the end Tavi didn't show up to receive his reward from Gaius Sextus because he was gathering his sheep on the mountainside - something he'd promised to do in the first chapter of the book - I knew I was reading more than just a book about battles of magic and swords. It resonated. I felt there was something Butcher was getting at about the human condition, about growing up - something with emotional power. It's sad that the last two books didn't fulfill the promise of the first four. I look forward to Jim Butcher one day writing a truly outstanding book or series in which the whole is even greater than the sum of its parts.

I was quite pleased when this book finally arrived, for I wanted to see how this series would conclude. Normally, I read books on the commuter train to and from work; but in this case, I also found myself devouring additional pages after getting home from work. In all, Book 6 of the Codex Alera was a good read, but not outstanding.

The vast majority of the book was devoted to the preparation and final showdown between Tavi and his arch nemeses, the Vord queen. With this being said, I felt that the story overall was not well-balanced with the ending receiving too much of the "short end of the stick."

Some early "loose ends" or key character and relationship questions I had were addressed; the story was entertaining, but not memorable; and yes in my opinion, this book extended the "commercial" foundation for a Book 7.... I just hope that Book 7 has significantly more literally value (first, before commercial).

A wonderful series. Excellent character developement and discriptive enough to imagine being in this world without being bogged down with excessive prose. A fantastic job to the author and I cannot wait to see if there will be more in this series.