Timewaster's Guide Archive
Departments => Books => Topic started by: Nessa on October 27, 2008, 06:39:52 PM
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read it here: http://www.timewastersguide.com/review/1678/Furies-of-Calderon
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That was a very nice review Nessa. I think it gave us a really good view of the book. When I had read through it, the first half seemed impossible to get past. The story overall felt clunky, a lot of the characters were very hard to care about, and a lot of the tension felt too cursory. Once I got to the halfway point, I finally felt drawn into the story. I was intrigued at what was actually going on and all the complexities become very endearing to me. I liked how he ended just the current story, but left his overarcing story still unfinished.
I am really exited to continue reading the series. I have high hoped for it, and It is really nice to see people progress both in skill and their careers. His other series, The Dresden Files, definitely improved dramatically once he started writing this series. I think he got a much better idea of how to bring us into deeper contact with the characters and how to make us feel there is actually more that is going on.
The last thing I want to metion is the reason I started reading Furies. I was intrigued why he started writing it. It was so bizarre a situation I couldn't help but be curious how it would unravel. I am not sure if people know the story or are interested. I can find links and briefly explain if others want, but I don't want to start getting into this everyone here already knows the story or isn't interested.
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I don't know the story about why he wrote it. Please tell!
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I can no longer find any links to the original forum where this all started. From what I am able tell, Jim himself doesn't even remember where it is. It is lost in the abyss somewhere. I will retell the best I can from memory.
About three years ago, Jim was heavily involved in a writing/geek forum. His identity was masked, so nobody knew that it was him they were talking to. There was an extremely controversial thread started up around the time we are talking about. I don't believe he started the discussion, but he definitely became the main voice for his side of the discussion.
The whole thread was based on a single premise; is good writing an entity in and of itself. Specifically, can a bad writer bring a great story to ruin? And conversely, can a good writer turn a horrible story into a classic? Jim argued that it was the talents of the writer that shaped the story. The story was not an independent party that somehow could resist or foil attempts to hinder it.
His main opposition was rather vehement about his views, and so they decided to test the argument. Jim's opponent proposed that he would give him the worst story idea he could come up with and see if Jim could craft a good story from it. Jim's only rebuttal was that he wanted two ideas and he would combine them.
Those two ideas were Pokemon, and the Missing Roman Legion.
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ROFLMAO.
I love it.
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Did some researching, and found out there will only be six books in this series. I am glad there is a purposeful and final end to whatever conflict is actually going on in these books. I like having a goal to get to, and not just some sort of whimsical "We'll figure it out as we go along."
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This is a really fun series of books even though they aren't exactly changing the world. I am currently reading Princep's Fury (book 5) which just came out so won't spoil anything but I do encourage you to stick with it. As a general rule I find the beginings of these books a little to exposition heavy with a ton of action coming in around the midway point and from there they just fly.
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Who is the author?
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Jim Butcher
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OK thanks.