John Marco

[Brys]

That's kind of the conclusion I'm coming to - Marco has these excellent moments - but unfortunately they're very few and far between. He seems to me to be almost a cross between Glen Cook and Robert Jordan - the military sections are particularly reminiscent of those of the Black Company, but there's enough padding in it to make even Jordan happy. I dopn't know why he felt the need to try and make the novels so long - half the length of the Jackal of Nar (to roughly the same length as Sanderson's Elantris), and it would be a lot better. I'll continue the series eventually, but it won't be high priority.

I agree it's not stunnning but still a better than average read and preferrered to Eddings and Jordan by this reader.

Better than Eddings and Jordan still isn't saying much for me. For the past couple of years I've been reading a lot of new authors who are almost exclusively excellent (Anderson, Bakker, Howard, Kay, Kearney, Leiber, McKillip, Mirrlees, Moorcock, Powers, Sanderson, Stover, Vance, Wolfe and Zelazny - and that's just in epic/swords and sorcery fantasy). Reading something that's just average isn't really enough for me now.

I'm now getting to the end of the book, and it seems that the best parts have been the first 100 pages and the last couple of sections, while much of the middle part was unnecessary and drawn out too much. There are some decent characters in there - Tharn, Dinadin, Biagio - and they show real potential for the series, but then there are an awful lot of characters who don't have a lot more depth than the average Eddings characters.

 

[Werthead]

I read The Jackal of Nar a few years back and it was perfectly average. It was one of those books that was 'ok' with never rising above that level. It wasn't as terrible as Brooks, Eddings or Goodkind but it wasn't even as good as Feist, Jordan or Gemmell. I did read it around the same time as Erikson's first book though, which may explain my disappointment with it.

 

[ScottSF]

I read Eyes of God by Marco. I found it engaging enough but lacking depth. I liked the plots and magic well enough, I guess for me the world was lacking that lived-in feel and some of it came across as afterschool special + romance novel. If I were stuck in a cabin with lots of Marco to read I would be ok with it, but given a choice there are plenty more authors I would want to go through before reading him again.

 

[hedgeknight]

I really enjoyed the different pace of Tyrants and Kings trilogy, especially the Grand Design (book 2). I've kept it on my shelf to reread sometime in the future or to lend out, unlike Eyes of God which sucks ass and is heading to the used paperback exchange store today!
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