Book #91

Academ's Fury
by Jim Butcher

The second installment in Jim Butcher's epic fantasy series was, if it is possible, even more exciting and even more complicated -- and thus even more impressive -- than the first. Furies of Calderon set up the world, and spent much of its length doing that; Academ's Fury follows a taut, thrilling storyline all the way through, keeping up the suspense for over 500 pages. But because Jim Butcher is a truly talented and capable writer, it is never tiring or tiresome; I never lost interest in it, and I had as much trouble putting this down as I do with the Dresden books, which are some of my favorites. This series is well on the way to making the Best list, too.

The story picks up largely where the last one left off, though two years have gone by; the two years have taken care of the recovery from the first book's chaos and devastation, and now all of the characters are established in their new roles -- Bernard as the Count Calderon, Isana as the Holder of Bernard's former steadholt, Tavi as a student and secret Cursor candidate in the capital. This book picks up just as the fit hits the shan, as the old joke goes. I particularly liked that this book continues the redefinition of the villains from the first book: just as Furies moved the Marat from evil, bloodthirsty savages to real people with different ways, so this book moves the traitor Cursor Fidelias and the Aquitaines to -- well, not good guys, but they are no longer the arch-nemeses. The book also moves Isana into a less heroic role, but it does it without taking anything away from her character or altering her basic personality, which is just impressive.

That role goes to the Vord, the insectile race that was formerly trapped in the Wax Forest and which Tavi freed unknowingly during his race with Kitai in Furies -- thus continuing a recurrent theme in Butcher's books, the law of unintended consequences (For every action, there is one result that you expect, and two you could never have dreamed of), e.g., Harry picking up the blackened Denarius to save it from Michael's child in the Dresden Files. The vord are nasty things, highly adaptable and extremely dangerous, combining the fighting force of giant scorpion/spider insects with the insidious horror of mind-controlling bugs a la "Night of the Creeps." The best part about the vord is that they are true villains: they are just as smart as the heroes, and for every time the heroes get a step on the vord, the vord get a step on the heroes, and terrible things happen as a result. In addition to the vord, there are political intrigues as several of the nobles of Calderon try to supplant Gaius Sextus as First Lord and Tavi and friends try to stop them; this has something of the feel of a manufactured plot device, as it removes the most powerful of Tavi's allies from the scene and leaves the others vulnerable, but it is done in a perfectly reasonable way, so it isn't bad or silly. There is also a great bully, who is shown to be the genuine threat such a bully would be, rather than the cardboard cutout that so often appears in novels that have young people being bullied at school -- he's closer to Draco Malfoy than Scott Farkas from "A Christmas Story," though I must say I love that movie dearly.

There is also the Canim, the warlike dog people who made brief appearances in the first book; they are not actually the villain of this piece, acting more as allies and fellow victims, but there is a wonderful moment when the Canim ambassador, who has been helping Tavi against a common foe, turns and tells Tavi why he is helping despite still being the enemy of the humans. He says, in essence, that he plans to destroy the entire human race himself, and have fun doing it -- but he'll do it with honor, and without letting his own people be made complicit in underhanded tactics. It's a great speech, the kind of thing I've come to expect and appreciate from Butcher's writing.

The last third of the book is a constant cliffhanger, going back and forth between two very deadly, very well-written and exciting fights; this was when the book was hardest to put down. The first book was much the same, with an enormous and complicated, but still exciting, climactic fight sequence; I'm just hoping that this is part of all of the books, as I can't think of another author that can do huge fights in quite the way Butcher can. I love it, and I loved this book.