daschaich: Although the tones and styles of the two series are quite different, Daniel Abraham's "Long Price" quartet shares some similar themes with the Codex Alera. Both depict a civilization stagnating from over-reliance on magic, and the magics share some similarities: while Butcher's Alerans control elementals of nature, Abraham's Khaiem can capture manifestations of ideas by perfectly and uniquely expressing those ideas. I might describe Abraham's writing as more introspective or melancholic than Butcher's, and I find Abraham's characters much more interesting on the whole: not so much heroic or villainous as they are "merely" human.… (mehr)