Were Furies of Calderon introduced us to the world and the Marat and Academ's Fury gave us a taste of the politics of Alera along with the threat of the Vord, it’s Cursor's Fury where we really shift to the military focus that defines the rest of the series.
A civil war in Alera plus an invasion by the Canim? Oy.
Norse and Hindu mythology (on top of what all we’ve had before)! Magical gladiator fights TO THE DEATH! Giant fight scenes! ACTUALLY LEARNING WHAT’S UP WITH KATE’S BACKSTORY!
That’s quite a book.
“The vampire stared at me, his mouth slack as Ghastek assessed his options. I took a couple of forms from my desk, put them into the vamp’s mouth, and pulled them up by their edges.
“What are you doing?” Ghastek asked.
“My hole puncher broke.”
“You have no respect for the undead.”
Furies of Calderon felt like fairly standard high fantasy. It had a Roman theme rather than the more common (in what I’ve read) Medieval European and elemental spirits for a magical theme, but it still had a fairly standard ‘farmboy saves the day through strength of character and good triumphs over evil’ sort of theme. There were hints of a wider world, but for the most part, it was a fairly self contained book.
Academ's Fury takes all that and really starts to dig into the world building and expand the scope of the conflict. Where we only had the hints of ‘weird’ in the Wax Forest, now we have a fully developed and quite frankly terrifying threat in the Vord. While it’s not the most original concept (the Borg among many many others), it’s well done here. You really get a sense for how alien the Vord are and–worst–how smart. They learn and they won’t stop until everything is Vord. Also, the Canim. Warrior wolf people. Pretty cool.
On one hand, Magic Bites was pretty much what I expected. Urban Fantasy with a strong female lead (this time a mostly stock standard human mercenary albeit with some sort of so far unspecified magical bloodline) finds some trouble, things go badly, things get better, lead saves the day.
On the other hand, Kate Daniels is a solid character to read. Despite not knowing whatever it is that gives her a bit of extra oomph, it doesn’t really matter. She has a cool sword, a lot of training, and can handle herself even in the presence of some big bads. That’s more than enough for me.
Another year, another reading list.
This time around, I’m aiming for 120 books. 10 per month. One every 3 days. It’s more than I’ve ever done. Probably won’t make it. But it’s worth trying, no?