Customer Reviews

Eyes of Silver

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

First off - I am a really huge fan of Michael Stackpole. I've read all of his long SF/Fantasy, and have even delved into the Battletech (tm) books (though I really don't read gaming-linked books, since I'm not a gamer). However, this is not Stackpole's best effort.

Unlike the typical M-S novel, which has a prodigy-hero and shifts back and forth between the past and the present, ultimately linking up in the final few chapters (e.g., Talion: Revenant, Once a Hero), Eyes of Silver has many different threads going, and it's hard to say which character is the true focus of the story.

In the acknowledgements, M-S refers to Peter Hopkin's "The Great Game" which is a seminal work on the political and military events of the middle of the 19th century in Northern India and more importantly, Afganistan, where England and Russia vied for control of the area around the Kyber Pass. England had extensive colonial and imperial interests in India, and the knew that the Russian Tsar wanted a piece of that. Who ever controlled the Kyber Pass (the only fully usable passage from the Asian steppes through the Himalyas, would hold the key to the entire Indian subcontinent (the Russians wanted in and the British wanted to keep them out). The native Afgans were lead by a man called Dost Mohammed - a rather brilliant military leader who roundly defeated the British is the 1840's, but at the same time, managed to keep the Russians out. The political and military maneuvering of the two greatest empires - Britain and Russia, became known as the "Great Game" - a series of advances and retreats, diplomatic forays and imperial posturing, much like a good game of chess.

Eyes of Silver is clearly indebted to the events of the mid-1800s (even to borrowing place and people names) - but the story fails to fully capture the reader (or at least this one).

I applaud Michael Stackpole for his audacity - not many fantasy/sf writers would endeavour to recreate actual complex political events as the basis for a story. Perhaps, if there were fewer characters, and others were more fully developed, the novel would have worked better.

If you're like me - working your way through Stackpole's booklist - leave this one for last.

Like most of Stackpole's books, this book has characters that leap off the page and a world that really seems real. Stackpole has a way of paying homage to real-world events without it reading as satire or theft. This book was on the slow-side in terms of pace -- not as slow as Jordan or Goodkind, though. The depth of the world more than makes up for it.

Yes, it is a bit hard to get familiar with the many characters and countries in this novel. But for those that stick with it for the first 100 pages or so, the pay off is BIG. It is a wonderful tale, with interesting characters and many great truths that we all need to hear.

For the reader who said it was full of typos, it was made very clear to me that Robin and Robert are the same person, Robin is his nickname, much like Mike is to Michael. If you read the whole book and not just the first chapter, I don't see how this mistake could have been made. If you are an intelligent, person who likes a good, well woven story, try this book and you won't be disappointed.

Despite featuring cheesy cover artwork that would make Fabio proud, Eyes of Silver was a surprisingly engaging novel. I say surprising because even though I am a fan of Michael Stackpole's work (his novel Talion: Revenant that turned me on to fantasy fiction in the first place), his work is not without some noticeable flaws. For example, he tends to end every chapter with a character making some bold declaration. Or the fact that the lead characters in most of his novels are essentially the same noble guy. Circumstances aside, Corran Horn is not much different than Nolan, who isn't that far removed from Locke, etc.

Stackpole took a big step forward with Eyes of Silver. Instead of focusing on a single heroic character, he introduces several characters and devotes nearly equal time to each one. The characters are diverse and seem far more human than I'm used to in a Stackpole novel. A few of the characters were a somewhat predictable, but a couple of them tread a very fine line between protagonist and antagonist, which made them all the more compelling. He doesn't quite reach the George R.R. Martin level with this technique (but to be fair, I don't think anyone really can), but it is still a nice touch.

Loosely basing the novel on historical events was another improvement, and made for a refreshing change from the RPG-based fantasy worlds in which Stackpole's other novels take place. He doesn't quite reach the Guy Gavriel Kay level with this type of storytelling (again, I don't think anyone really can), but it still works quite well.

All told, Eyes of Silver was a pleasant surprise from an author who has proven that he is not content to tell the same kind of story over and over. It's not a perfect novel, but I'll gladly take it over the latest Belgariad rehash by David Eddings any day.

I admit that I only got this book because I enjoyed Stackpoles Star Wars novels. Fantasy isn~t usually my thing, but his style is good and I was going on a long plane flight and needed reading material.
Having said that, I was pleasantly suprised at the richness of the world he creates, it~s pretty audacious to create an entire fantasy universe for only one book, but he does it very well, and the religious twists and connotations intrigued me enough that I immediately re-read it straight after finishing it (It was a VERY long flight after all... Melbourne to Santiago stopping via Sydney and Auckland)
The part I like most about this is that the characters are very much in the style of Mallory in the Arthurian tale- They are all flawed in some way. Pride, greed, arrogance, lust. No character is perfect, though the heroes allow themselves a greater deal of self reflection to oversome these faults than the villianous characters.
All told, I'd really like to see another novel set in this series, maybe one that explores the war with fernandi and the blinding of the wolf priest.
Top marks Mr Stackpole, but please... May we have some more?

With Eyes of Silver, Stackpole has done what has become nigh impossible in the last 30 years - he's told a compelling fantasy story in under 500 pages. Take that, Robert Jordan!

The universe of Eyes of Silver is a barely disguised recreation of 19th century Europe, with an England and a Russia battling over an Afghanistan - The Great Game replayed on a different board. "Napoleon" had been defeated a dozen years before, and "Genghis Khan" is prophesied to be reborn. Against that backdrop, Stackpole places characters we instantly like, and a plot with enough twists and turns to satisfy the most demanding readers.

Stackpole is best known for his incredible Star Wars X-wing novels. The same flair for crisp action he brought to those novels can be found here. If you enjoyed the X-wing series, you will not be disappointed with Eyes of Silver.

I've read all of Stackpole's Star Wars books, but since reading this book, I have come to believe that he is quite possibly one of the greatest science-fiction and fantasy authors of all time. EYES OF SILVER is an excellent read, fast-paced and exciting. I see a lot of parallels to history in it that I'm sure not a lot of readers have seen. It's really good.

Only the most hard-core speculative fiction readers will be able to stick with this book. The plot takes forever to get off the ground. It's very difficult to figure out who belongs to what country/alliance. While the individual characters and their societies are interesting enough, you don't care about any of them. None of this is helped by the book's jumping around between characters from chapter to chapter. This device wears thin even in books I like more. I wish I'd taken this one out of the library.

I've read a few of Stackpole's books (i.e. Once a Hero). In all of his works, Silver included, he weaves his story like a multi threaded loop weaves a patterned quilt. It's very exciting and keeps you from getting bored. The only negative is trying to keep everything straight. But even that is made easier by the way the story flows. I truly recommend this book to anyone.

I have several of Michael Stackpole's works, but this is the first I've found time to read. It starts out well and keeps the reader's interest. The universe he has created is interesting with many parallels with our own. I recommend it to all who enjoy a good military/magical fantasy.