Pokemon Pokémon and the Roman Legion

TuxedoBlack

TuxedoBlack

Old School Player
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For those of you who enjoy reading fantasy (especially the sword and sorcery sub-genre) books, You might want to check out a small series (just 6) of "Codex Alera" books by Jim Butcher. This author, a gamer too, was supposedly challenge by his friend(s) to write something that combined elements of Pokémon and the Roman Empire.

Interestingly enough, this series of books is one of the BEST I've ever read (and I've read all 6 books at lest twice)! The central story line is great filled with very cool twists; most main characters are fantastic; each book natually builds upon the former; and you'll find that, unlike some other book series, there is not any significant "literary fodder" (my term for "useless text" that don't serve any real story purpose except to fill-out pages) in any of the books.

The first book in the series is titled "Furies of Calderon." Although I would think these books are 14+ age-appropriate, adults who enjoy reading these particular types of books would find them quite enjoyable too. Warning: be prepared to devour each book; they are that good, IMO!

I hope you enjoy them.
 
RE: Pokémon and the Roman Legion?

Thanks for the recommendation! Funnily enough, I was just looking for some new books to get for my Kindle before I leave on holiday to the States, so this was perfect timing. :)
 
RE: Pokémon and the Roman Legion?

Is there paper copies or is it only online? I prefer paper but I'll definitely give this a read.
 
I finished reading these books over the past weekend, and I must say I found them quite enjoyable! It was a fun and entertaining plot with fast-paced storytelling that encouraged me to practically devour the series. I love the world building that Butcher did, and I hope that someday he will revisit the series again (not to imply that the series doesn't have a proper ending, which it does, but it's also setup in some ways for a possible sequel set in the future).

I did have two complaints about the series, though they're both fairly minor. The first is that, as exciting and dangerous and tense as the story was, I never really got the feeling that any of the "main" (or even important secondary) characters were ever actually in serious danger of death or anything. After someone survives one event that should easily have caused his demise and manages to survive by the skin of his/her teeth, and then does it a second time, you're not surprised anymore when they do it a third time, and a fourth time, etc. and so forth. Maybe I have unrealistic expectations of this sort of thing because the most recent high fantasy novels that I read before these were A Song of Ice and Fire (a series notorious for killing off important characters), but I think it adds a lot of necessary tension when I'm not actually certain that all of the heroes are going to make it out alive and unscathed, and I think that seeing main characters go through the grief of losing someone close to them can be a wonderful character-building experience (and heart-wrenching experience for readers, especially if they're actually meaningful characters that aren't just killed off in the first 50 pages) that isn't used as much in fantasy as it should be.

The second thing is, honestly, that I didn't feel Alera's Furies were very much like Pokémon. :p Some of the characters having personal, named Furies that manifested as specific types of animals made it kind of close, but the fact of the matter is that the majority of the time, the Furies were an impersonal force that acted more like any other standard elemental-based fantasy magic than the living creatures of Pokémon. If I hadn't known ahead of time that Pokémon were the inspiration for the Furies, I never would have been able to guess it. Something that actually involved catching monsters or whatever would have been closer to the source material, but probably a weaker story. That said, I actually like how Butcher handled Alera's great Furies more than how Pokémon treats their Legendary Pokémon! Legendaries in-game feel like little more than plot MacGuffins most of the time, and they capitulate to humans much too easily and swiftly. I'd love to see a Pokémon Trainer try and take down a Pokémon that acted like Garados! :D
 
I'm glad you liked the series; I found the series very enjoyable. My main "beef" was that the Vord seemed over-powering far too quickly. I do agree that the main series, main character did escape harm/death a bit too often. But, I've in those situations too during games when I pulled that last card needed to barely win a game... Lol.

The furies themselves, portrayed as elementals, do come close to representing different Poké types. However, I thought that the portrayal can only get "so close" before attorneys get involved with potential copyright infringement issue.

I do hope Butcher write a few more books, unlike Martin (I really enjoyed the first 3; was completely disappointed with the 4th (literary fodder, IMO); and was not impressed at all with the 5th...)
 
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