I'm giving this book 5 stars, and yet I'm also giving up on this book a third of the way through. I loved the writing, and the characters and the culture, but the story is all about the messes people make for themselves, and it just...makes me flinch so hard I can't keep up with it. It is not graphic or gory, just the intensely human faults that lead me to stop watching some movies because I can envision all too well what it would feel like to be in their shoes. My failure to finish this book is entirely my own failure and no fault of either the book or the author. Well worth the read if you're made of sterner stuff than I.

***

Okay, so I went back, skipped a few chapters, and kept going. And finished it. A good read, ripe with the follies of man and the pain it brings. Definitely worth the read, but could have been better served by being a bit shorter.. ( )

Leuk plot, leuke karakters, een held met karakterfoutjes en een slechterik waar je medelijden mee hebt. Dan maken een paar ongeloofwaardigheidjes niet meer uit. Zeer lekker leesvoer. ( )

Good fun, but a loooong time getting to anything approaching a plot. Huge time gap in the middle. Lots of movement and action in the latter half. I nearly chucked this one halfway through but persevered. ( )

This book is nearly 800 pages. I told myself I'd give it till at least 200 pages, so I could say I gave it a fair shake. However, I'm at page 158, and I've found myself reading passages out loud for their amusement value.

For example:
"Cassandra felt herself flush from the heat of their fires and her growing apprehension. The wine worked on her brain, making it swim. Akeela was beyond those fabulous doors, waiting for her. And she knew that she would not emerge intact, and that a piece of her would be left behind, never to be reclaimed."

Uh, may I share with the author that when a virgin has sex for the first time, she doesn't actually leave any body parts behind, lying amongst the sheets. She's not about to be dismembered. (Although, if she were, this book might have been marginally more interesting.)

Another:
"His touch was warm, like the coming sun. Cassandra felt the stirrings in her body, dreading them yet following their lead. She lowered her head in offering.
"What are we doing?" she asked. "We will be damned for this."
"No. Lukien leaned in closer. "no one will ever know. Not ever."
"Just this once then."
He didn't answer. She was glad he didn't. Once, she knew, could never be enough."

No. Once could be far too much. Enough already!
In addition to this overblown, Harlequin-romance style writing, there are also tons of actual grammatical errors and tons of, let's say, peculiar word choices.
The characters are flat and stereotypical. Nothing very interesting has yet happened in the plot. I even find the librarian character offensive, and turning me against a librarian is hard to do - I love librarians on principle. Did I even mention the magical 'midget'? Sigh.

I leave you with one more quote:
"But it's dreadful to be clever," she thought. It was like a revelation suddenly, as clear as any of the moonbeams. To be clever was to be a bitch... Akeela wasn't clever. He was moral, and moral men were never clever. It was why they were better than everyone else..."

Ooooookay. On to the next book! ( )

The first question that I asked myself when I finished this book was "Why did I wait so long to read this?"

Well, with the recent release of The Forever Knight, the fourth installment in the series, I decided that I would read the other three even though the new one is can be read as a stand-alone. I have read several other John Marco books and own all of this series, but for some reason I just never started this one. I don't know why I waited so long. This is a great novel and a wonderful intro into the world of Lukien, The Bronze Knight.

As usual, John's strengths lie in a well-developed and detail-oriented storyline with very strong character development and outstanding military battle scenes. The Eyes of God is no exception and the care that John takes in breathing life into these particular characters is exceptional. The thing that I like most about the majority of his works is that no good character is without flaws and most evil characters are not truly evil, but more misguided or validated in their view of their own motives. I like that there is really not a true black and white except in a few rare cases here and there and that the reader actually can find themselves both feeling sympathy for the antagonists and also occasionally not liking the protagonist too much.

A lot of people have said that they really didn't like Lukien as a man all that much, and I can see that. I however grew to like him quite a bit over the course of this novel (which is a large one, however I felt that it moved along at a fairly swift pace.) I feel for the guy and the mistakes that he has made during his journey that have led to a lot of unfortunate things happening to him and those around him. I look forward to seeing what happens in his subsequent adventures. ( )