The Codex Alera (Codex Alera, #1-6) (2024)

I'll need more time to let the series settle, but I think this may be my favorite fantasy series ever.

While some fantasy authors spend far too much time on world/history crafting for my taste, Jim Butcher keeps the engrossing story moving at a cracking pace, and fills the pages with constant battles, strong male and female character arcs, and a magic that is just damn fun. Without giving much away, the story centers around the life of Tavi and his place in the land of Alera. The inhabitants of Alera are able to master the elemental "furies" of the land and call on them to craft magic, which they use for everything from working the land to engaging in battle with the various hostile races bordering Alera.

The novels I read prior to these were the first two Kingkiller Chronicles from Patrick Rothfuss, and I find it an interesting exercise to contrast his series to The Codex Alera. While reading the writing of Rothfuss I found myself rereading passages and turns of phrase I found beautiful. With that said, I felt like large chunks of the story were indulgent and unnecessary. What I found most brilliant about Jim Butchers writing style was that rather than trying to use overly sophisticated prose he just got on with it, and let the story rather than the writing be the star...which I think is a talent lost on other authors who seem at times to get more caught up in writing than telling the story.

I loved everything about The Codex Alera, from the characters, to the different races, to the magic system. Most importantly I love the way Butcher was able to interplay all the above. I really, really hope he writes more novels set in this world as I have never read a book, let alone a series of six, that felt so perfectly aligned with what I enjoy that it felt like they were written specifically for me.

Plot: 7/10
Character sketch: 10/10
World creation: 10/10
Presentation: 10/10
Compelling: 8/10
Overall: 9/10

Opinion: Six books of pure awesomeness and solid characters. Must read.

Jim butcher once again proves himself to be the master of the craft with this series about “Lost roman legion” and “Pokemon” (Yeah, you read it right!). He completed this series as part of a challenge where he was challenged to write a good story out of a lame idea. For which he would say he can write a good story out of two lame ideas of the challenger’s choosing. Even though the individual ideas are not lame (how could they be, they are Roman legion and Pokemon!!), collectively they do appear lame!
Nevertheless, Jim butcher saves the day with his superpower – storytelling.
All six books in the series are filled with great storytelling interspersed with flashes of brilliance. Of course, Codex Alera comes nowhere near the epicness of his ‘Dresden files’ (an urban fantasy series by Jim Butcher) and yet it seems to grow equally good as the story progress. Jim has written the books in his own style with a lot of parallel actions, sarcasm, drama, awesome characters, plot twists, and grandness. Though if in some places the book does slow down with excruciating details, plowing through those sections is worth the effort.
The best part of the books is its characters, where we get to empathize and evolve with them constantly without losing the connect. Starting from the indomitable Tavi to the Vile Vord, each character is significant in their own right and imparts a sense of splendor to the story. Every character is inseparably intertwined with the plot making their quirks even more interesting. Especially, the part where Tavi grows from a small and powerless valley boy to a formidable veteran has been beautifully crafted without losing the essence of the story. There are too many awesome characters in this only single series to even pick one as a favorite.
I had to stop several times in between reading to go ‘WOW! How could one even think like this!’ For a fantasy novel, there seem to be too little quotes and it has worked in the favor of the books. The dialogues instead are a bombshell! Every dialogue has been meticulously crafted to further the plot and awe the readers.
The world is absolutely simple and beautifully crafted (even for an inspired idea), coupled with brilliantly presented plots. The story is nothing out of the ordinary; Good vs evil (epic fantasy), generously sprinkled with political drama. Nonetheless, Jim rests his case, showing ‘writing style’ trumps over ‘story idea’, with this series.
A must-read for every fantasy lover!

Storyline (Spoilers):
Furies of Calderon (Book 1): Young Tavi, of Calderon, is furyless and lives with his aunt Isana and her brother Bernard. Alera (the nation) once again faces the threat of the Marats (barbarian horde) after 10 years, who have allied themselves with one of the power-hungry lords of Alera, who plans to overthrow the princeless throne. Tavi, who is inadvertently caught amidst the power struggle, manage to strike a peace between Marat and Alerans, while Bernard leads the legion in the valley’s defense. Incidentally, in the course of events an ancient evil is awoken, which if not stopped, will be the end of Alera.
Academ’s Fury (Book 2): Tavi is granted his wish to train as a cursor, thanks to his heroic act which forged a permanent peace between the Marat and Alera. Being the only one without fury in the whole of Alera, he has to manage in the academy with only his wits. In the post-war calm, the Vord are turning the emissaries of the Canim warriors, wolf-like sentient beings, into their puppets to strike at the first lord. At the same time, the First lord, the most powerful furycrafter in Alera, is taken out of the game due to his ill-health. Will Tavi be able to spoil the plans of the Vord and save Alera?
Cursor’s fury (Book 3): Tavi has become the cursor (an open secret) and is sent to the First Aleran legion undercover as a tribune logistica by the First Lord. Alera once again faces an invasion from the canim wolf warriors. But this time they are here to stay! They have come ashore with the largest force Alera has ever seen. In one single fatal blow, they eliminate every higher ranking officer of the First Aleran legion. Tavi ends up becoming the captain of the legion which has never been in a battle before. First Lord and the other experienced legion of Alera are occupied in defending the realm against Kalare, one of the rebellious high lords and will be unable to assist Tavi and the First Aleran legion. Will Tavi succeed in defending the enemy who outnumbers them many to one with no help in the near future?
Captain’s Fury (Book 4): The canim horde is still in Alera and is making Alerans pay dearly in every battle. Tavi has come into his fury crafting and also comes to know that he’s the long-lost son of the most revered prince of the realm. Meanwhile, the Vord queen who had escaped the Alerans had been to Canea and invading it. Tavi wants to make an alliance with the fierce Canim against the common enemy, Vord. But, Aleran politics and infighting does not bode well for him and is arrested in the process. In the meantime, the Canim will not stop fighting till Tavi delivers on the promise of freeing the Canim warlord from the Aleran prison. Even when arrested and no help to come his way, Tavi cannot back down now when there is hope of peace on the horizon.
Princep’s Fury (Book 5): Kalare has been stopped and peace forged with the Canim. But, the threat of Vord has been as deadly as forewarned by Tavi and his uncle Bernard. Alera is paying dearly for ignoring their warnings. As a part of the peace forged with the Canim, Tavi is escorting the Canim safely across the ocean to Canea. They reach Canea only to find it overrun by the Vord. But, Vord is one enemy who could not be reasoned with. Tavi now has to safeguard his troops in Canea from the Vord and get back to Alera. In the interim, the Vord queen who had fled from Alera, is back and wants to make it her own. So starts the final war to get Alera rid of the cancerous vord.
First Lord’s fury (Book 6): Tavi returns to a war-ravaged alera along with the Canim since canea is no more habitable due to Vord. The first lord dead, Aquitaine adopted into house Gaius to lead the people in absence of Tavi, Vord getting stronger every passing moment and Tavi not sure about how to defeat the Vord queen. Alera has never faced such a formidable foe ever in its history and they are totally not prepared for it. Alerans, Canim and marat have no other option than to stand together against their common enemy. Tavi once again has to rely on his intellect to overcome the impossible. Or has the game been lost already?

2.5

Thank God it's over. I did it. It's done. I never have to read it again.

In all fairness, I know it's a better series than that. I rounded up a half point because I actually approached enjoyment during the second one, where Tavi still didn't have powers, he was a student and uncertain of everything. His friends were a lot of fun, and he didn't solve everything with a sword.

But on to the series as a whole. Big props for the aliens, they were very well done. The Vord, which was the big bad enemy in the series, but the other races we met too. We heard enough about the cultures where they seemed real, and the intricacies were fascinating. The Vord queen particularly had layers that were contradictory and almost complex. The way the Vord could adapt to whoever they were fighting was unique, though I thought it made them overpowered. Why had they not wiped out everything long ago? The Marat (another alien race, but an ally) ran from them hundreds of years before. What had the Vord been DOING all that time?

I wish I could say the same thing about the good guys. They were SO straightforward. Well, except for the gaffe in the first book where Tavi's aunt, Isana, is introduced. She is watching the domestic bustle of a steadhold around her, wistfully regretting she never had children. A couple books later, it turns out she's really Tavi's mom in hiding. Huh?

Tavi, of course, is the shepherd who would be king. He lacks the magic that literally everyone else has, which provides a nice flaw for awhile, but then of course he gets the magic. After that, you can pretty much tick his attributes off a list for the ultimate hero: charismatic, a skilled warrior , a visionary planner, a good listener, a strong magic user, a quick thinker, caring, responsible, and bright....if there are some I left out, I bet they fit him perfectly too. His love life doesn't even have the slightest bit of tension, in the first book he bonded to one of the Marat. Period. No jealousy, no serious fights, no argument, no chafing at the bonds of fate. I like Kitai but it's all very A leads to B without a single surprise.

The meat of the books are the battles. And we're talking never-ending fights, especially in the last two books where the enemy attacked our stalwart heroes in every freaking way an enemy can. Where was the witty banter, the nuance of Harry Dresden and his foes that made the prolonged fights bearable in the Harry Dresden Files? Absent. We're also missing the overarching plot, flush with strife and political intrigue as Harry makes his way between volatile sets of antagonists. Here, everything except the blows exchanged in battle was shoehorned in between epic descriptions of fighting. This is why I think the series was a little better than how I personally liked it. I find battles boring in books. You can't not have them, because all quiet, character stuff makes for a very claustrophobic novel that usually lacks plot. But they should act as punctuation to the actual meat of the story. There are readers, a lot of readers, who adore fight scenes and could care about character bits; or either offering is fine and the balance one way or the other doesn't matter as long as the plot is solid. I was warned that the last two books were one big fight, but the interesting races and a couple of the characters I liked kept me reading. And it's hard to read four books into a six book series and call it quits. I wasn't lied to, though. It was basically one fight with any deviation acting like the slender sinew binding vast swathes of violence together. And so many of the "good" characters were SOOO boring! Even the ones that showed promise in the early books were unexplored and untended in the later ones. The ones that remained interesting were all of alien species.

So, if you love a good fight, go for it. All the fights were well described and innovative. For fights. If you love Harry Dresden but find the fights the least appealing thing about those books, give this a miss. Trust me. Between this series and the mess that was The Aeronaut's Windlass, I think I might be done with Jim Butcher books that don't involve Harry.

This was my first foray into Jim Butcher's portfolio. And I immensely enjoyed it! At a glance: take Avatar the Last Airbender, Lord of the Rings, and a dose of the Riyria Chronicles and mix them all up, and you have this series. It's a perfect blend of epic battle, political intrigue, and magic- with a perfect salting of romance.

Some of the criticism I've seen for this series addresses that it's sometimes difficult to keep up with the number of characters involved, and that it can be a bit dense. I would say both of those are sometimes true. The second book in particular was a little slow at times, as it's mostly setting up the rest of the series. I personally didn't have much trouble keeping the characters straight. All of the main characters were very fully developed, and I enjoyed the spice that the side characters brought in.

I enjoyed that one of the traits valued the most in this book is the intelligence of the characters. I also enjoyed the moral issues explored, and the presence of strong, capable female characters. I found that the combination of somewhat gory battles with sneaky political moves was very entertaining. I was definitely hooked on the characters.

Overall, I would highly recommend reading this!

I have read all six of these novels in chronological order from the very first page of book #1 to the very last page of book #6!This entire series kept my full attention to the point of sleep deprivation from being unable to put them down!! Jim Butcher's characters are simply amazing. each one with their own distinct personality and undeniable traits that makes each one unique and seem life like to the extreme. there's no doubt which character is being referred to at any point in time. For them being fantasy,you would feel that any supernatural strength or power possesed by an individual was real. you would never know they were make believe! I must say, these are six of the greatest novels in history! each installment (book)is so full of action and detail it will blow your mind! when you finally tear yourself from the pages there will be a noticeable transition back to the real world. I was actually bummed out to be out of Aleta and back on earth!

This series' strengths are its broad cast of enemies, political maneuvering and diplomacy (turning many enemies into assets), and interesting world. I found myself very invested by book four, though the character writing was never very good for most of the cast. In the last two books, I thought the series stopped playing to its strengths and left middling, quippy dialogue and overly-long action scenes that lacked momentum.
I would say the first few books are worth a read for the magic system and the battle scenes; the maneuvers of commanders and armies are very well-realized and I learned a lot by reading them. After the fourth book, feel free to skip the rest and daydream about what happened next.

Every bibliophile should have at least one book or series that they re-read whenever they need a comfort read. I have several series that fit this description. One of them is the Codex Alera by Jim Butcher.

Author’s Series includes:
Furies of Calderon
Academ’s Fury
Cursor’s Fury
Captain’s Fury
Princep’s Fury
First Lord’s Fury

The Codex Alera is the story of a young orphan being thrust onto the stage of conflict within his world. As the nations surrounding his valley of Calderon begin to battle over land and old blood fueds, Tavi is in the right place at the right time to make the most difference.

Like most epic fantasies, we discover that Tavi isn’t quite the lonely orphan he thought he was. We discover he has much more influence and power than anyone suspected of him. And we watch him grow from an unknown boy to the ruler of a great nation. It definitely hits every single epic fantasy trope. So why do I love Codex Alera so much? Why does it stand head and shoulders above so many other excellent epic fantasies?

To be perfectly honest, I’m not 100% sure. It’s not like the lessons taught in it are so drastically different from the lessons taught in all of the other epic fantasies I’ve read. It’s not like I love the author personally so much more than any other author (though, there is a bit of an element of that). It’s not like it was my first epic fantasy to come across, and would therefore always be special. None of the things I would normally point at and say, “This is why this is so special to me” apply. And yet, Codex Alera is not just in my top five favorite comfort read series. It’s in the top two. The other one is a space opera, very different from Codex Alera. Maybe it’s because I identify with a primary antagonist so much. Whatever it is, I must shrug and say, “I don’t know why. But I love it very much.”

I do have to say, though, that Kate Reading IS one of my favorite narrators of all times, so relistening to the Codex Alera over and over again is simply awesome because of Kate, if not because of Tavi or Jim Butcher.

I'm a big fan of the genre, but I'm not a fan of this particular series.

I've read all six novels last year. I don't remember the kid-protagonist at all, I don't remember the girl-sidekick's name. Or the name of the villain. I know there was an evil-roman since it was roman theme and that half of the series is mega-alternate-lifeform problem, but it was all completely forgettable to me.

It's something unique to the series. It's been even longer since Vin from Mistborn and I remember her. Or Jorge from Prince of Thorns. Or Logan the Bloody-Nine from kingkiller chronicles. Or Kip/Gavin from the Blind Prism stuff.

Codex Alera just came off as someone trying to make formulaic paint-by-numbers fantasy with 5/10 results to me. If it was a challenge, I'd have called it a failed challenge personally.

He started with two extremely simple concepts, not lame ideas, roman legion = A military (there's ZERO difficulty to incorporate a military in a fantasy series. They're in basically half of all fantasy by default) and the second "lame idea" (yeah right) that he had to include was Magical Creatures (again, in basically half of all fantasy, ZERO difficulty.)

He took two of the most common genre devices that are already combined in hundreds of other books and pumped out a just-average filler series. Not an even slightly impressive feat to be perfectly frank.

When I hear someone recommend it and instead of talking about it having well-written characters or it having a good plot progression or satisfying end or something, instead it's just "guy wrote this book for a bet" as the selling point, red flags go up for me.

I'm not arguing it's a disaster. It isn't horrible, it's just definitely not at all "turning a bad idea into gold", it's simply "turning a completely ordinary fantasy novel idea into a completely ordinary fantasy novel."

Like many fantasy series I feel that if the word count was halved the books would be so much better and then I'd enjoy reading a trilogy rather than slogging through 6 books. There was much I liked about this series and the protagonist was definitely one of them, but I have to admit that while I wanted Tavi to develop and grown in power, it was when he used his intelligence and ingenuity that I felt the most satisfied. I liked the other characters we were introduced to, particularly Kitai and Max, it was a clever way of enlarging the focus and as well as viewing Tavi from differing perspectives. The fremenies were well depicted, certainly not human's in disguise while the Vord and its Queen was gross, somehow the thought of large bugs makes me feel very ill! A well depicted empire and good world building, just a bit too wordy for me.

An excellent series! A lot of action and a little bit of love. The details are binge worthy. I stayed up late many nights reading this series. I love the main character and the way his strength grows through out the books. In a world where furycraft ability is considered people's strength he proves real strength lies in determination and strategy. Tavi, the main character, always thinks outside the box and finds a way in a hopeless situation. This series has become one of my favorites! :)

Kept my interest throughout all 6 books. Hate to see it end.

Several years ago, I started with the final book and I felt, well, the following:

"In general I don’t like books having too many points of view, or books centered on war (Even with the current big thing in this genre, Song of Ice & Fire, I initially just managed to get through all the Arya & Sansa chapters, before going back and reading the rest.). So this book had some obstacles to overcome for; the main reason I picked it up is Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files. But First Lord’s Fury is no Dresden File, and I do not feel tempted to read another in the Codex Alera series. For one thing, the plot, world, and writing feel largely like they could have been plucked from any old high fantasy, and the tone is on the self-serious side. I mean, yes, a war to save the land is a serious matter, but a book about it need not feel boring. There are some attempts at levity and humor, but they didn’t seem particularly effective to me.

The main factor against the book’s quality, though, is the cast of characters. Putting aside the boring side characters who unnecessarily take up a lot of pages with their boring actions and dialogue, I really dislike our protagonist Tavi. He’s dull, self-righteous, hypocritical, condescending, and co*cky, and it feels like the reader’s supposed to sympathize with him because of his totally typical True Love with his petty, annoying “Kickass” Mary Sue girlfriend. It did not take long for me to root for the “evil” vord queen and her traitorous human sidekick Invidia, the only characters in the book who feel real, complex, and growing as the book progresses. Layers only hinted at or only starting to be uncovered have nowhere to go, though, as obviously in this kind of series the bad guys get killed by the good guys. This sucks especially because none of the characters that the hero really cares about dies – presumably these are the characters the reader is supposed to root for, and it feels all too simple to try to feed the line that those who “deserve” to live persevere no matter how high the stakes are. Bleh."

I finally caught up and read the rest and my opinion is pretty much the same. At least the first two books aren't endless military campaigning, and Tavi starts out somewhat likable and sympathetic. It's mainly Fidelias who improves after seeing his whole story though, especially given that Invidia and especially the Vord Queen are underutilized before the final book. Grey morality is a nice change of pace from...pretty much all of our main characters, who can be quite tedious, though special shoutout to Bernard/Amara who are ~never worth the pagetime they get. But ultimately, still probably better than The Aeronaut's Windlass.

Pallet Cleansers, that's the best way I can describe this series.

If you are expecting best selling Tolkien level world building and characters or the level of writing the new world has come to expect from the likes of Brandon Sanderson then maybe this isnt for you, but If you want a fun light hearted story that grips you well enough and keeps moving at a nice pace (especially in between books), then this is for you. Pallet Cleanser as I said...

I enjoyed these books, they get a little silly in places but the easy flow of the story, the likable characters made is an easy enjoyable read. I wasn't the biggest fan of the last book personally but I like that things took different and some unexpected turns throughout (obviously some were obvious, but arent some aspects of stories like that these days?).

All in all I would recommend these books and I think i might give the Dresden Files a try by Jim and see what that's like.

I love a good fantasy series and Jim Butcher so this combo does not disappoint. This is a more traditional fantasy series - world building, "magic", saving the world, a young man on several quests with several of his trusty friends.... it also has the large & small battle scope, military strategy, political intrigue, etc. I also love the character building that Jim Butcher does in Codex Alera. I'm not sure how this author does it but the "voice" of each of his series is different and the voice in this series matches a more traditional fantasy than than the voice of his long term contemporary fantasy (Dresden Files) or steampunk series (Cinder Spires) that he has started.

One of my all time favorite epic fantasy adventures. That Jim Butcher was able to whip these up while simultaneously working on the Dresden Files is really amazing. A second writer could have hung his laurels on the Codex series alone. I know the Dresden Files are usually everyone's favorites, and I love those books, but the Codex Alera is really special with it's scope and fantastic scenery, these books are simply a must read.

I cannot recommend this series. The plot lines of books two through six are so similar that I burnt out on it and even after the final book came out, I debated whether or not to buy it for six months. There are things about the series that are good—the magic system is very interesting and unique. The world is large enough to provide new settings in each book. And the main characters are well-written. The the author’s credit, he really makes his main character struggle and earn it in every book. But the rest was too repetitive for me to rightfully recommend.

I don't read as much fantasy as I used to--for some reason it's harder for me to care about the characters or a new world, but this story grabbed me. I loved the world with it's variety of talents and kinds of people. The story starts more intimately with one family and gradually builds to include the larger kingdom and politics between nations which probably helped to draw me in. Highly recommended.

Another really good series by Jim Butcher.
The worldbuilding is a absurd combination of romans and pokemon, but it works.
It starts slow, but really gains steam and develops in an awesome story.
I really like the main protagonist, his struggles and development.
I also really liked the worldbuiling and its quirks.
A thing I disliked were the Vords as kind of unbeatable uber enemy and them reemerging so often as antagonists.
In the end it's a fun, unique and really interesting read.

Pros: Great fantasy series that held my interest. You get invested in the characters really quickly and want to see what happens to them. The universe is well detailed and thought out from beginning to end. Fun aspects of elemental control, mixed with pokemon like wild creatures that our main characters "tame".

Cons: Somewhat predictable and though I enjoyed all 6 books, each one ended up feeling pretty one-note with the same pattern, arc, and character to each one.

This series, which I've heard was something of a dare on Jim Butcher's part to see if he could write a good story with the elements of Pokemon and the Ninth Roman Legion, has incredible character development, excellent pacing, and is one of my favorites that I always conne back to once our twice a year, like visiting old friends who live far away.

A good book series that combine fantasy with Roman culture. It hits a niche for famtasy readers and historical Roman readers. There is even a small detail that connects our world with the story. In the final book, it was mentions that the original people were a lost legend that came to the land. (Implying the Legio XI Hispana)

Borrowed the series from a friend, and could not put it down. I read all six in less than 2 weeks they were so good. Intrigue, characters, growth, a world threat that you see from start to end, inheritance struggles, secret identities, friendship, love, and magic everywhere! As someone, probably my roommate, put it, "Pokemon meets the roman legion", and Butcher pulls it off amazingly.

This was the first fantasy book(s) I ever read that I loved. Jim Butcher created a world and characters that are believable despite the furies, magic, etc. I am reading this series for the second time and have not been disappointed. I love every single book.

Tavi takes us on a truly epic journey exploring war, espionage, magic, politics and heroism. From the time he is a young boy, to when he becomes a man and a leader. This series will have you laughing, crying, and pacing around as you read waiting for the next impossible escape!

One of my favorite series ever. You really invest in all the characters which is saying something because there are so many. Each book is fantastic in its own right, but flow seamlessly from one to the next. Must-read for all fantasy lovers.

One of my all time favorite series. Hands down.

The best high fantasy serious ever.

Heavy on the rise and fall of the roman empire but an enjoyable read.

4.5 star, fast paced action adventure that reads well as a series with only a bit of repetition towards the end.

The series as a whole is well handled and thus made it enjoyable to read.