Is is just me...

[Stevef]

Is it just me, or am I the only one who kept thinking they were reading another Codex Alera book?  It really started me thinking that this book is really set in Alera a couple of 1000 years after FLF?  Alera herself said that her and Tavi's workings in book 6 were going to cause drastic changes to the weather of the world over the next few centuries.  The builders could have been the last great fury crafters after the major climatic changes, and built the spires to escape the weather and the Vord.  The Etherialists could be the next progression of Fury Crafters.  The web-weavers sound a lot like the Vord spiders, and the big bad in the deeps sounds a lot like the last Vord queen with all the mind mojo, etc.   

Just the rambling musings from an overactive imagination

[spikespiegel82]

In some ways it could be argued that it's a possibility.  Changes in climate don't really account for all the major differences though.  For one thing if Etherealists were just Fury Crafters, than everyone would be a Fury Crafter.  All humans had access to Fury Crafting, Etherrealists are unique among other humans.  Plus it doesn't even seem to work the same way as Fury Crafting did, on top of that the insanity that comes with being an Etherrealist is of course not shared by Fury Crafters.

[cornyphil]

My gut reaction is that this is a different universe.  Jim has said we might revisit Alera at some point, but this doesn't feel like that.

[PlatinaD]

I believe Jim said definitively that The Cinder Spires is not set in Alera either past or future.