The Eyes of God (Daw Books Collectors, No. 1208) (Hardcover)

by John Marco (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
John Marco, author of the muscular Tyrants and Kings series, departs from the lands of Nar and Lucel-Lor with The Eyes of God--a sprawling juggernaut of high fantasy filled with political intrigue, fairy-tale wonder, flawed heroes, and sympathetic villains. Changing tactics from his Nar books, Marco opens The Eyes of God not with a battle scene but with a peace offering. The young king of Liiria--Akeela the Good--and his champion Lukien, The Bronze Knight, ride into the lands of their ancient enemy Reec to make peace. To seal the deal, Akeela takes a Reecian princess as his Queen, and the stage is set for a full helping of betrayal and woe.

Marco's tale of Akeela and Lukien and the love that destroys them both begins with a deceptively sentimental and occasionally maudlin first act. But just when the reader thinks he or she has inadvertently stumbled into a bodice ripper, Marco brings the hammer down and his idyllic Kingdom of Liiria is twisted without remorse into a decaying kingdom with madness on its throne. Despite some cliché dialogue and a few loose plot ends, this is no lightweight book. Marco's characters are complex and multidimensional, and his seemingly simple story is a rich, complex exposition of high fantasy with an underlying brutal reality. This brutality is punctuated with Marco's skill as a military writer--like his Nar books, the battle scenes in The Eyes of God are massive in scale while remaining rich in exquisite, personal detail. --Jeremy Pugh

From Library Journal

Accompanied by his lifelong friend Lukien, the Bronze Knight of Liiria, King Akeela rides to a rival city to offer a peaceful end to a long and bloody war. In return, he brings home a bride, unaware of the tangled threads of destiny that unite him, his new wife, and his longtime friend in an age-old triangle of love and betrayal. Marco (Jackal of Nar) offers a sprawling tale of military battles, personal and political intrigue, magic, and star-crossed love set against a richly detailed land of warring kingdoms and hidden magic. For most fantasy collections.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 608 pages
• Publisher: DAW Hardcover (January 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0756400473
• ISBN-13: 978-0756400477
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (73 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #262,102 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A departure for Marco, August 18, 2002

By	Nathan Blumenfeld "mastadge" (Wilmington, DE United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Having read John Marco's previous novels, of the TYRANTS AND KINGS trilogy, I went into THE EYES OF GOD with high expectations. T&K, despite characters that were usually pretty weak, was an amazing military fantasy, featuring some the best-written and most inventive battle sequences I've ever read, and quite a bit of interesting strategizing. THE EYES OF GOD, however, is a very definite departure from what Marco has written before. This novel is much more character-driven than his other novels; it is not about a war, but about the interactions of its characters. This was an ambitious move on Marco's part, considering how weak many of his characters have been in his previous novels, and it provides mixed results.

This book is broken into three parts, each better than the last. Truth to tell, I really had to force my way through much of Part One; there was very little originality there. Part One was mostly just a retelling of the whole Arthur/Lancelot/Guenevere story, with a few twists, but it really served to make me a bit wary as to what the rest of the novel would hold. Part Two picks up nearly twenty years later, and basically is there to get all the characters in position for Part Three, which is where the final confrontation between characters occurs. Not only did my level of interest in the plot grow with each successive part -- Marco's skill at writing believable characters grew, too. At the beginning of the novel, many of the characters' actions seemed kind of spontaneous and didn't really work with what we knew of the characters, but by the end the characters all seemed real and natural.

THE EYES OF GOD is a massive book, an epic fantasy that is truly worthy of the name. Like all of Marco's previous novels, this one stands alone even though it is part of a series. This is a book about love and betrayal, passion and madness, loyalty and honor, cowardice and paranoia and guilt. There are some battles, though frequently not on the scale of Marco's previous novels. There are nations at war, but they are not the point of this book. There are magical amulets, characters with "magic," monstrous beings, intrigue and revenge.

Overall, despite a shaky start, this novel is definitely worth reading, and Marco's definitely an author to keep your eyes on.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A flat tale devoid of emotional involvement, February 15, 2004

By	Victor Lange (Rochester, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Eyes of God (Paperback)

The Eyes of God is a story of how a single decision made for the sake of love leads to a series of unjust tragedies. Authors on the outside and inside covers commend it for being vague about what is for good and what is for ill. But while some authors, George RR Martin being my favorite, can write a story that is wholeheartedly grey or even black and still have their readers twined around their fingers, the Eyes of God only manages with its neutrality to make the reader care less about the characters.

Every character but the villain and antihero is the same... they care deeply for human life but have a hard streak if you touch the wrong topic. They have a great weakness, but have learned to overcome it with time. This lack of distinction made it difficult to associate with any characters after the first three that were introduced.

It would seem the author realized that with the characters' lack of individual charisma, he needed something else in order to make the reader take sides. The "good guys" not only have higher moral standards, but are also protecting a keep full of defenseless cripples. The "bad guys" are not only aggressors without moral cause, they are also murderers and psychopaths.

My complaints could go on, but I have a word limit to deal with here. I should put in a few words about why I gave this a 2 instead of a 1. The anti-hero King Akeela follows an interesting path of descent to redemption throughout the book. He is without a doubt the most dynamic character contained within. Also, the plot, while not being full of suprises, follows a fairly unfamiliar path if the Arthurian love triangle is cast aside. If you like stories of medieval wars and aren't huge on characters, this story might be for you, but don't say I reccomended it.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Tried for too much ended up with too little, May 24, 2002

By	"stupage_stu" (Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews

This wasn't a very good book. The characters were too flat for the story. Parts of the story were too easily solved or dismissed. And the book tries to be too many stories in one. Is it a story of betrayal between brothers? Not when one brother disappears for a quarter of the book and the main character shifts from one of the brothers to someone else not involved and SPOILER one of the brothers goes mad, not from being betrayed but because he kills a man. Or is it a story of a story of a place of magic and "disabled monsters" against a mad king and his brutal general? If so then what's with the first half to two-thirds of the book. Etc. etc.

The theme was too heavy for the characters. Betrayal and jealousy enough to drive men mad require more than paper thin characters and more time and interaction between those characters than occurred. If the author had stuck with one major theme or more time developing and resolving each theme and character this could have been a good book. Or if he had taken a lighter touch and let it be a straight fantasy adventure it could have worked too. He didn't so I give this book a D.