*** Contains Spoilers - Read at your own risk! ***
Alright, where do I begin? I'll start by saying something nice; Marco does a fairly good job describing scenarios. That said, I didn't like these books at all. At over 1600 pages between the two books, I feel my time was completely wasted reading them.
I enjoyed "The Eyes of God" at first, but within the first chapter or two it became glaringly obvious that it was going to be a story of betrayed love and friendship. In this area, I don't think it succeeded. The characters just didn't seem realistic to me, and as time went on I felt this more and more. It seems that Marco just makes his characters act "out of character" to further the plot, and it's annoying.
Another thing that I didn't like is the logistics. Throughout the first book, the "Mad King" Akeela gathers a massiv 2,000 man army. This army is the biggest in all the lands. I was rather disappointed that it was such a small army, as I would expect kingdoms with several major cities to be able to rally more men. Marco did a good job of making us believe that a 2,000 man army was just massively impressive. However, in the second book, Akeela's army is scattered after his death, and the new antagonist is on the warpath. Guess how many men are in her army... yeah, 2,000. Most of them are paid mercenaries, bought with her "inexhaustable" riches coming from her diamond mines. She wins control of her country, then decides to move on to her neighbor solely because her old lover left her to help his friend, the protaganist from the first book. He wasn't going to leave for good, just to help out, but she got angry and spurned him and they left on bad terms. So, she is moving on the good guy's home country with her 2,000 man army. She loses nearly half of them taking the first city, and stays there. Her old lover finds this magic armor (inhabited by an evil spirit). He dons the armor to protect his country from her, and goes to kill her. However, when he sees her, the spirit has to have her, and they have sex. This solidifies the spirit's control over the old lover, and now he teams up with her, deciding to become the new ruler of his country. What's amusing, is how the "Diamond Queen" had 1,000 soldiers left, but by the time she and her lover, Baron Glass, reach Koth(the capital city of Glass' country), they have more than 10,000 men. The book doesn't say where they come from, but after reading the first, one would think that there aren't even 10,000 soldiers combined in all the world. Of course, they easily defeat the defenders of Koth, who only had 1,000 men, and the book ends with the main protaganist from the first book (who is also the hero of the second book) embarking on a quest to find a magic sword, the only one capable of defeating Baron Glass in his evil, indestructible armor. If you are a glutton for punishment, by all means, read these books. But if you like yourself, save yourself some pain.
Alright, where do I begin? I'll start by saying something nice; Marco does a fairly good job describing scenarios. That said, I didn't like these books at all. At over 1600 pages between the two books, I feel my time was completely wasted reading them.
I enjoyed "The Eyes of God" at first, but within the first chapter or two it became glaringly obvious that it was going to be a story of betrayed love and friendship. In this area, I don't think it succeeded. The characters just didn't seem realistic to me, and as time went on I felt this more and more. It seems that Marco just makes his characters act "out of character" to further the plot, and it's annoying.
Another thing that I didn't like is the logistics. Throughout the first book, the "Mad King" Akeela gathers a massiv 2,000 man army. This army is the biggest in all the lands. I was rather disappointed that it was such a small army, as I would expect kingdoms with several major cities to be able to rally more men. Marco did a good job of making us believe that a 2,000 man army was just massively impressive. However, in the second book, Akeela's army is scattered after his death, and the new antagonist is on the warpath. Guess how many men are in her army... yeah, 2,000. Most of them are paid mercenaries, bought with her "inexhaustable" riches coming from her diamond mines. She wins control of her country, then decides to move on to her neighbor solely because her old lover left her to help his friend, the protaganist from the first book. He wasn't going to leave for good, just to help out, but she got angry and spurned him and they left on bad terms. So, she is moving on the good guy's home country with her 2,000 man army. She loses nearly half of them taking the first city, and stays there. Her old lover finds this magic armor (inhabited by an evil spirit). He dons the armor to protect his country from her, and goes to kill her. However, when he sees her, the spirit has to have her, and they have sex. This solidifies the spirit's control over the old lover, and now he teams up with her, deciding to become the new ruler of his country. What's amusing, is how the "Diamond Queen" had 1,000 soldiers left, but by the time she and her lover, Baron Glass, reach Koth(the capital city of Glass' country), they have more than 10,000 men. The book doesn't say where they come from, but after reading the first, one would think that there aren't even 10,000 soldiers combined in all the world. Of course, they easily defeat the defenders of Koth, who only had 1,000 men, and the book ends with the main protaganist from the first book (who is also the hero of the second book) embarking on a quest to find a magic sword, the only one capable of defeating Baron Glass in his evil, indestructible armor. If you are a glutton for punishment, by all means, read these books. But if you like yourself, save yourself some pain.