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A review by aggressive_nostalgia
Cursor's Fury by Jim Butcher
4.0
So, so, so. I’m assigning this book a rating of four stars, which is a compromise between how I feel this book performs technically (three stars…possibly three and a half) and the emotional experience of reading it (solid five stars). This isn’t a disclaimer I usually have to put in front of reviews—because normally books with these kinds of flaws aren’t fun for me to read. But Cursor’s Fury is a surprising exception.
(Fair warning: it’s been less than a day since I finished this book, so the review might ramble a bit, bathed as it is in the sheen of triumph and joy that descends on someone upon finishing an especially enjoyable book.)
The big “twists” in this book will be patently obvious to any moderately experienced reader of high fantasy. I can’t speak to the realism of the First Aleran’s military structure and the decisions made within it (but I’m skeptical). Occasionally, Butcher tries a little to hard to be loquacious and ends up writing a few flat-out confusing sentences. Exposition was maybe a little (read: definitely a lot) overused at times, generally when characters were recapping events to each other and explaining every single twist and turn of their thought processes.
Yet as unsurprising and potentially implausible as this story was, I loved every minute of reading it. I did not care about its flaws while I was reading it, and I don’t care (much) after finishing it. It was awesome. Even though the major twists fall a little flat, all the little moments in between were gripping and suspenseful and emotional in all the right places. There were a few good laugh-out-loud-funny moments. I was immersed with no regrets. I love (or hate, as necessary) the characters—almost all of them (Amara still grates on me a little), which doesn’t happen to me very often in books with a character roster this big and diverse. Almost every protagonist and many supporting characters undergo some extent of development, which again, given the size of the cast, I find pretty impressive.
(Speaking of characters: major shout-out to Tavi for keeping his angst about not being able to furycraft to a minimum throughout this series. I can’t overstate how refreshing it is that we the readers know that Tavi feels that emptiness and is frustrated and saddened by it, but don’t have it shoved in our faces every ten pages. He has brief, occasional moments of acknowledging how much it sucks for him that he can’t craft, and then gets on with the business of being awesome in spite of it. Well done.)
I also liked that Butcher didn’t go the route of “Oh no! His secret identity has been discovered! Trouble! Panic! Super awkwardness! Instant distrust! Major character regression!” which I thought might happen from when Tavi first went undercover. Not that that’s never a valid plot, but I personally hate reading that kind of thing and it would have been much less interesting than what actually did happen.
I couldn’t put the book down throughout the whole battle at the Elinarch—and I usually don’t even like massive, extended battle sequences in literature. Butcher’s imagery was quite clear and easy to follow without being simplistic, as was the actual strategy used by the characters. I was pleased to find that, in my opinion, Tavi’s touted genius isn’t too lofty a label: his synthesis of old Romanic engineering with others’ crafting is actually pretty brilliant, as well as unique. Go big or go home—but, unlike many attempts at this trope, which end up feeling contrived or underwhelming, Butcher actually succeeds in making his likable and empathetic main character a total badass.
One more small thing:
I have the fourth Codex Alera book on hold at the library. Now that we have what I feel are the biggest/most obvious reveals out of the way, I have high hopes that the later installments in the series will be less predictable and more technically excellent, while being just as much fun to read. Huzzah!
(Fair warning: it’s been less than a day since I finished this book, so the review might ramble a bit, bathed as it is in the sheen of triumph and joy that descends on someone upon finishing an especially enjoyable book.)
The big “twists” in this book will be patently obvious to any moderately experienced reader of high fantasy. I can’t speak to the realism of the First Aleran’s military structure and the decisions made within it (but I’m skeptical). Occasionally, Butcher tries a little to hard to be loquacious and ends up writing a few flat-out confusing sentences. Exposition was maybe a little (read: definitely a lot) overused at times, generally when characters were recapping events to each other and explaining every single twist and turn of their thought processes.
Yet as unsurprising and potentially implausible as this story was, I loved every minute of reading it. I did not care about its flaws while I was reading it, and I don’t care (much) after finishing it. It was awesome. Even though the major twists fall a little flat, all the little moments in between were gripping and suspenseful and emotional in all the right places. There were a few good laugh-out-loud-funny moments. I was immersed with no regrets. I love (or hate, as necessary) the characters—almost all of them (Amara still grates on me a little), which doesn’t happen to me very often in books with a character roster this big and diverse. Almost every protagonist and many supporting characters undergo some extent of development, which again, given the size of the cast, I find pretty impressive.
(Speaking of characters: major shout-out to Tavi for keeping his angst about not being able to furycraft to a minimum throughout this series. I can’t overstate how refreshing it is that we the readers know that Tavi feels that emptiness and is frustrated and saddened by it, but don’t have it shoved in our faces every ten pages. He has brief, occasional moments of acknowledging how much it sucks for him that he can’t craft, and then gets on with the business of being awesome in spite of it. Well done.)
I also liked that Butcher didn’t go the route of “Oh no! His secret identity has been discovered! Trouble! Panic! Super awkwardness! Instant distrust! Major character regression!” which I thought might happen from when Tavi first went undercover. Not that that’s never a valid plot, but I personally hate reading that kind of thing and it would have been much less interesting than what actually did happen.
I couldn’t put the book down throughout the whole battle at the Elinarch—and I usually don’t even like massive, extended battle sequences in literature. Butcher’s imagery was quite clear and easy to follow without being simplistic, as was the actual strategy used by the characters. I was pleased to find that, in my opinion, Tavi’s touted genius isn’t too lofty a label: his synthesis of old Romanic engineering with others’ crafting is actually pretty brilliant, as well as unique. Go big or go home—but, unlike many attempts at this trope, which end up feeling contrived or underwhelming, Butcher actually succeeds in making his likable and empathetic main character a total badass.
One more small thing:
Spoiler
I have to say I really enjoyed that Tavi’s first use of furycrafting was some minor thing that nobody (who would have been impressed) even saw, rather than a gigantic, conveniently day-saving event witnessed by an awed assemblage of key characters (which kind of revelation is, as a writer, sorely tempting). It kept the focus squarely on the interaction between the characters in the scene rather than milking the moment for spectacle and plot advancement (which we had plenty of int he previous several chapters). (It was also pretty humorous. “Off! On! Off! On! Off! Did you see it, Kitai?”) Very nicely done.I have the fourth Codex Alera book on hold at the library. Now that we have what I feel are the biggest/most obvious reveals out of the way, I have high hopes that the later installments in the series will be less predictable and more technically excellent, while being just as much fun to read. Huzzah!