Sunday, August 29, 2010

Book 93: Academ's Fury

Academ's Fury by Jim Butcher

This is the second novel in Butcher's Codex Alera, and it takes place about two years after Furies of Calderon. As a result of events in the first novel, Tavi is now a student at the Academy in the capital, where he has made a few very close friends, and a few enemies amongst the children of the elite lords and nobels of the realm. As the one student without furies and special powers, he is naturally a target to bullies. Unknown to them, Tavi and three of his friends are actually in training to be cursors, spies for the empire like Amara.

Amara and Bernard have been together since the events of the last novel, and while Amara is visiting Bernard at the garrison he is now in charge of, they receive warning from Doroga of the Marat that an ancient evil is back and on the rise. In fact, it has already managed to take out a large part of their people. Bernard and Amara soon find themselves facing this threat in their lands. According to what is still known of the "vord," they are led by queens, and there are usually three of them, leaving one as a threat to the capital and Tavi (Tavi and Kitai were the ones that accidentally awakened the sleeping queen during the events of the first novel).

Butcher also uses this novel to introduce the Canim, a wolf-like species from across the ocean. There are also more hints about the past, and while Butcher doesn't come straight out and say it, he also isn't exactly hiding what he is going for as far as the past and its implications on the future.

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