Furies of Calderon

The Codex Alera, Book 1

By: Jim Butcher

Narrated by: Kate Reading

For 1000 years, the people of Alera have united against the aggressive races that inhabit the world, using their unique bond with the furies - elementals of earth, air, fire, water and metal. But now, Gaius Sextus, First Lord of Alera, grows old and lacks an heir. Ambitious Lords manoeuvre to place their Houses in positions of power, and a war of succession looms on the horizon.

Far from city politics in the Calderon Valley, young Tavi struggles with his lack of fury crafting. At 15, he has no wind fury to help him fly, no fire fury to light his lamps. Yet as the Alerans' most savage enemy - the Marat - return to the Valley, his world will change.

Caught in a storm of deadly wind furies, Tavi saves the life of a runaway slave. But Amara is actually a spy, seeking intelligence on possible Marat traitors to the Crown. And when the Valley erupts into chaos - when rebels war with loyalists and furies clash with furies - Amara will find Tavi invaluable. His talents will outweigh any fury-born power - and could even turn the tides of war.

©2016 Jim Butcher (P)2016 Hachette Audio UK

Great Start

I bought this audiobook because Kate is reading it and I just love her. The story is also very interestingly, captivating and there's an lot if new fantasy elements that I enjoyed. Fury crafting is very interesting. I have yet to figure out exactly what the limits and possibilities are.

The audiobook production is the only thing lacking. There's rather a lot of cut off sentences. It's really annoying when listening as it feels skipped and weird. It really seems like someone did a bad job with that.

What a surprise!

At first I thought this novel would be the usual sword and sorcery story. Fun and exciting but nothing out of the ordinary. Well, what a wonderful surprise! Although based on the Roman civilization, especially its military structure, Jim Butcher put a refreshing twist to the barbarian hordes and the weak Garrison compound, unprepared to effectively defend the realm. Then there was the "magic", almost de reguer for a fantasy novel. I really enjoyed the use of elemental spirits and the strong bond between them and their human companions. A great touch was giving the elementals names.

The characters, both protagonists and antagonists were well crafted and so realistic that I could empathize (or hate) them with enthusiasm.

I could write an essay but I think prospective readers would die of boredom. so, this is my advice. Buy, read, keep and read again. Fun and thought provoking, rolled into one. By the way, the denouement is perfect.

Great book, decent narrator, sub-par production

This review will focus more on the technical side of things rather than the story as that is top notch in my opinion.

As some other reviews that I read prior to getting this audiobook point out, the edits in this (and at least the following book) are a bit poorly done. There are noticeable skips where it's clear that they have made a cut in the audio-track with words stopping suddenly or beginning suddenly. Personally this didn't bother me that much (it isn't all the time, just often enough to be noticeable), but it needs to be mentioned. I personally would probably have preferred a male narrator I think, but Kate does a decent job with different voices (though quite a few gravelly gruff male voices sounded a bit the same). I'm guessing she's at least partially to blame for the amount of edits, but ultimately I blame the production team. If you (like me) come from listening to Jim's other series The Dresden Files you will really notice the difference and possibly be more annoyed by how comparatively poorly done this is.

For the reasons above I'm deducting one star overall and 2 stars from the performance.

Fast Paced!

Kate Reading amazing as ever, Story a rollercoaster beginning to end... 👌 Hope to know the characters a bit more as the series progresses

Decent book. Audio suboptimal.

Good book. Good narrator. Poor sound editing in various places. It will from time to time very abruptly jump to the next sentence, leaving you feeling like you missed the last part of the previous one.

Good story, decent narrator, horrible production

I liked the story, nothing that's going to surprise anyone but I found it entertaining and the pace was good, the narrator did a decent job but some of the male voices was off, I question why they choose a female narrator. The production and editing was absolutely horrible, sentences cut midway, disrupted the immersion.

Recording skips a bunch of times

Excellent story and narration but poor recording. It skips a lot which is seriously infuriating

Badly edited / produced

This is another great story from Jim Butcher and, as always, a great performance from Kate Reading. Sadly all their hard work is ruined by bad editing and production.
The story pulls you in and you feel immersed into a detail narrative and spellbound by Kate's every word. Then you're yanked out by a sudden change of tone mid-sentence, where two sentences were spliced together punctuation be damned, or find a sentence has been cut too soon leaving dead air that makes you think the app stopped.
In any case, your enjoyment is constantly interrupted by bad editing.
I really hope they produce another version of this audio book, it is a shame to let Kate's performance go to waste.
I'm hoping the other books in this series have better quality control.