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Title: First Lord's Fury
Series:
Codex Alera #7
Author: Jim Butcher
Rating:
5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages:
758
Words: 202K
From Wikipedia
Returning
from the ruined continent of Canea, Gaius Octavian, his girlfriend
Kitai, the Canim warmaster Varg, and their legions find that most of
the Aleran Empire has been destroyed or besieged by the insect-like
Vord, a monstrous race led by a single sentient Queen that consumes
everything they come across. Most of the Aleran resistance is based
in the city of Riva, on the far eastern end of the continent.
Octavian and his troops have landed on the northern edge and need to
find a way to meet up with the other Aleran nobles in Riva.
Meanwhile, Aquitainus Attis, who has been named First Lord in
Octavian's absence, has given the order to salt the earth between
Riva and the Vord, slowing the insect's approach.
After
making landfall outside of the city of Antillus, Octavian begins
preparations for his march to Riva. However, the Vord queen makes an
appearance via watercraft projection, making essentially a hologram
of herself out of every pool of water large enough to hold it, all
across the continent. She states that her victory is inevitable and
that she will accept any Aleran that wishes to surrender and allow
them to live out the remainder of their life in peace provided they
do not have any children. Octavian then uses the same watercrafting
tactic to announce his arrival on the Aleran continent and give a
morale boosting speech. Meanwhile, his aircrafting knights use their
abilities to fly in and evacuate an occupied village from under the
Queen's nose. In retribution, the Queen kidnaps Octavian's mother,
Isana, as well as Araris Valerian, Isana's lover and the most skilled
swordsman in the realm.
To
make the march across the continent, Octavian receives help from the
great fury Alera and the northern icemen to coat the north in a thick
layer of ice, as well as cause hurricane strength winds that
constantly blow east. He has his engineers rig their ships with steel
keels and support struts, so that they can sail across the ice like
giant sleighs. While Octavian's forces are on the march, Riva falls
to the Queen's onslaught. Her vast number of troops are bolstered by
the feral furies of all the Alerans the Vord have slain, and
Aquitainus is forced to retreat and evacuate civilians to the
Calderon valley, where Bernard and Amara, Octavian's uncle and his
wife, have been fortifying the valley in preparation for the Vord.
During the assault, Aquitainus makes a show of claiming new furies to
bolster his power in an attempt to draw out his wife Invidia, who had
betrayed Alera and joined the Vord Queen and become the Queen's right
hand. He succeeds but loses the ensuing fight, and is mortally
wounded while Invidia escapes.
During
Octavian's march, one of his military advisers, Marcus, is revealed
to be Fidelias, one of Octavian's grandfather's spies who had been a
double agent for Invidia and caused a lot of deaths in previous
books. Fidelias, who as Marcus had come to redeem himself somewhat,
is condemned to death by Octavian. However, instead of immediate
execution, Fidelias is allowed to die in Octavian's service, as his
skills are too great to waste with the Vord threat. Afterwards,
Octavian's force reaches Riva and decides to assault the
Vord-occupied city. Octavian uses his strength in furycrafting to
bring down the cities walls, and after the battle his firecrafters
burn the Vord larders, cutting their supply lines to the Calderon
valley. Octavian's force then moves to the valley to pin the Vord
force between his own legions and the valley's defenders. While
marching to the valley, the Queen herself makes an appearance and
attacks Octavian's camp. She kills many and wounds Octavian.
Meanwhile
the Vord have begun to assault the valley. Invidia goes to Amara in
an attempt to betray the Vord Queen, and gives Amara enemy troop
compositions and the time of the next attack as proof of her
intentions. Later, the remaining High Lords and Ladies gather to
assault the Queen with their combined strength, using Invidia's
information. However, the Queen expected Invidia's betrayal and
prepared for it, and begins slaughtering the attackers. Invidia again
turns to the Vord as the Queen forgives Invidia, but Amara manages to
assassinate Invidia before she can turn on her fellow Alerans again.
The Queen retreats, leading to Isana and Araris' freedom.
Octavian's
forces have arrived at this point, and the Queen takes to the air off
towards the mountains in an attempt to take control of the colossal
great furies there. Octavian and Kitai pursue the Queen and duel her
while she is simultaneously claiming the extraordinarily powerful
furies there. Meanwhile, the defenders of the valley are fighting
against the endless Vord, and slowly losing. After a protracted
battle and managing to interrupt the Queen's attempt to claim the
furies, Octavian and Kitai manage to kill the Queen, causing the Vord
to become feral without her guidance. The Vord break, and the
survivors of the battle rejoice.
After
the Vord's defeat, Octavian becomes the First Lord of the realm and
marries Kitai, while both of them as well as Octavian's advisers
begin rebuilding. The series ends with an opening for sequels, as on
the continent of Canea there are several lesser Vord queens to be
dealt with, as well as the consequences of some of the
climate-changing furycrafting Octavian had to perform in order to
defeat the primary Queen and save Alera.
Just as good as before. Which allayed my main worry that this whole
series wouldn't be as good and that I was remembering it through a
lense of “good times” instead of it actually being a fantastic
story. Have no fear, Bookstooge, this WAS a great story.
I also found it to be the story that made me the most emotional out
of the 6 books. I do suspect that life conditions when reading this
(super stress, physical stuff, etc, etc) played a very large part of
that. I was needing some emotional outlet and choking up on obviously
manipulative writing on Butcher's part allowed me to get rid of some
of the internal emotions without having to mentally acknowledge the
basis for my even needing to vent like that. Just like opening the
flood gates on a dam. Doesn't matter if the extra water behind the
dam came from a huge rainstorm, or 10,000 hoboes pissing in the lake
all at once, all that mattered was opening the gate to bring the
waterlevel back to normal levels. Now with that wonderful image in
your minds....
I would say this was the weakest of the series. The action is hot and
heavy but the lack of indepth characterization really shows. For this
series, that didn't bother me. In another series, maybe it would.
Either way, it was something I noticed and it might bother others, so
it is something to be aware of.
One thing that was really well done, in my opinion, was Butcher
making his characters realize that their current actions would have
lasting affects for the next several generations. From the death of
the Fury of Alera (while she chose to give up herself to help Tavi
against the vord, she still is dead as an entity), to possible
alliances with the both the Canim and the Icemen (on top of the
already cemented alliance with the Marat), to the future
repercussions of creating storms and awakening Great Furies liked
Galadros the Mountain, Butcher has enough of his characters cognizant
that the world doesn't begin and end with them. It was really a small
part but it was nice to see it included.
When I read this for the first time back in '10, I wanted more Alera,
a lot more. Then when it became evident that Butcher wasn't going to
write more Alera, I was despondent. Now, at this point in life, I'm
satisfied with where the series has ended and I don't want Butcher to
write any more in this world. After watching what Dresden fans are
going through, I don't want any part of that. No amount of Alera is
worth that to me.
To wit, I enjoyed this book and this series, just as much as before
but with this re-read am more than satisfied with how and where the
series ended. Consider me a very happy customer.
★★★★★
