Just Finished Reading Furies of Calderon by Jim Butcher

I'm a bit wary about starting a new fantasy series, especially with George R.R. Martin's series A Song of Ice and Fire...more popularly known as Game of Thrones...delayed so much that the HBO television adaptation finished the entire series before readers could even find out what happened to Jon Snow after his multiple stabbing at the end of the fifth of purportedly seven books.  So I resolved to only read series that have already concluded...Jim Butcher finished his six-volume Codex Alera series, of which Furies of Calderon was the opening novel, in 2009.  And I've just finished reading that opening book...here are my reactions...

Furies of Calderon, like most fantasy series, is heavily derivative, with humanity in a backward technological state while imbued with special magic that empowers them to perform well in what is almost always a state of war.  Here people can "craft" the elemental spirits from wind, water, earth, fire, wood, or metal, carrying with them entities from those elements that impart special powers.  Of the novel's two main characters, Amara...a young woman working for the land of Alera's ruler Gaius Sextus as a messenger/spy...crafts wind and can fly (by the way, many names here sound like they're from the Roman Empire).  And then there is Tavi, a boy living in the outlying Calderon Valley and who suffers the rare and humiliating condition of not being able to craft any elements...but his intelligence, family loyalty and courage more than make up for his lack of magical abilities. The story, into which I will not delve in detail for the sake of any potential readers out there, involves treachery, loyalty, codes of honor, a strongly divided society by class, and much cruelty and savagery.  There is little in it to inspire the reader to daydream about what place they would like to have in such an inhospitable world...and that to me was its main drawback: in Lord of the Rings you could look with fondness at the Shire or Rivendell while Harry Potter's Hogwarts Academy carried with it many attractions. I did like the way Butcher developed his characters, though, and there are some that I would refer to as "wild card", meaning that I never could truly be certain whether they were ultimately the good or bad guys...always a welcome, intriguing addition to an ongoing story...

So now I'm reading the next book in the series, titled Academ's Fury.  So far so good, and I can at least be certain of not having to be left hanging for years while the author (like George R.R. Martin) just sits around on his butt, refusing to write the next installment while I totally forget the series' story line and characters...