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The Bronze Knight #2
The Devil's Armor
A year after the events of THE EYES OF GOD, Lukien, Baron Glass and Gilwyn are all living in Grimhold. But the history of Liiria has not done with them yet. Jazana Carr, the Diamond Queen, has secured power in Norvor and is now set to unleash her mercenary army against Liiria. Convinced he can stop the woman he once jilted, the Baron steals the cursed Devil's Armour and rides to stop her. But the armour corrupts him and he falls in love with his former lover. Somehow Lukien must stop a man he once trusted, a man wearing armour that makes him invulnerable.
752 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
20 people are currently reading
628 people want to read
About the author
John Marco
36 books417 followersHello. Thanks for visiting my author page here on Goodreads. In case you don't know me, I'm John Marco and I'm a fantasy writer. My work includes the Tyrants and Kings trilogy and the books of the Bronze Knight Lukien.
My latest book, THE BLOODY CHORUS is now available at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BRTHJ768
My latest book, THE BLOODY CHORUS is now available at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BRTHJ768
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
April 17, 2013
A number of trilogies will tend to have the following loose format: the first delves into the world of new and exciting things, the finale gives you that wonderful climax and denouement for these characters you've grown to love, but the second novel just kind of gets you there. It bridges a gap and makes the third book a little better, but in it's own right it's just there doing exactly what a bridge does. It looks cool from a distance, but when you're on it, it's just another road.
This is my oh-so-clever way to tell you The Devil's Armor does not suffer from the sequel slump. You didn't see that coming at all did you?
In Marco's Tyrants and Kings trilogy, it was actually the second book, The Grand Design, that was my favorite of the entire trilogy. While I can't say so at this point as I've yet to even start the final book, but the same thing is looking to be a possibility in this trilogy as well. The Devil's Armor is an excellent sequel and while it serves as a great bridge to the third novel, it's a deep and compelling book all on its own.
It's no secret that epic fantasy is my main concentration. It just gets me. Not that I want to be alive through all that famine and disease and blood. I mean I really really like medical advancements. But I love reading about battles and history in the making. The problems epic fantasy addresses isn't constrained by history or the laws of physics, it can be anything even if many times it's the same boy-who-defeats-evil-lord plot.
And that's another reason Marco pushes all the right buttons for me. He writes epic fantasy, but he turns a lot of the fantasy tropes on their heads. What happens if that evil dark lord is actually your best friend? What if all you have is an army of people with disabilities (you tear them a new one is what you do!)? What if your hero doesn't make the right decisions, what if he makes terrible decisions sometimes? What if the guy called "King Lorn the Wicked" isn't really a bad guy after all?
The Devil's Armor takes up a year after The Eyes of God, book one of the Bronze Knight trilogy, and starts with the civil war going on in Norvor. The Diamond Queen, Jazana Carr, has paid her way to an almost complete conquest of Norvor and King Lorn (the Wicked) realizes he's been betrayed by almost everyone around him. What a great opening this is, what a satisfying story in and of itself where King Lorn essentially betrays his betrayers.
We also go back to Lukien, who's busy defending Grimhold as is his calling now with the Eye of God keeping him alive. It's actually quite interesting that Lukien really doesn't make a huge appearance in this novel and yet I still consider this one of my favorites. I remember reading The Dragon Reborn by Robert Jordan and it drove me nuts that Rand was quite possibly in all of 3 pages in the whole book. Here, I hardly noticed until the very end, there were too many things I was interested in to even care.
Gilwyn has been put in charge of Jador as regent for the true ruler, White-Eye, who cannot even visit the place because her eyes prevent her from going anywhere that is too bright. The one-armed Baron Glass is also still in Grimhold and finding himself less and less useful as war has passed (for now) and everyone, including his friends, have gone to their old and new duties.
Marco does an excellent job of seamlessly filling the reader in with details from the previous book, which is very unlike how I have done. Sometimes I like to struggle to find something out, but sometimes it's nice not to have to go look something up, to be told what happened and why this person or event is important. To be done succinctly without interrupting the flow of the novel is hard work, but it's pitch perfect here.
I think the thing I was most impressed with was how much I liked the character of King Lorn the Wicked. Marco writes some of my favorite characters and somehow my favorites are the ones that are supposed to be the bad guys.
Battles are fought, evil manifested, and betrayals are numerous. Marco knows how to plot a book (and series for that matter) and I'm amazed at where things end up from where they began. I thoroughly enjoyed this second installment in the Bronze Knight trilogy, an improvement on the first even and can't wait for more.
4.5 out of 5 Stars (Very Highly Recommended!)
This is my oh-so-clever way to tell you The Devil's Armor does not suffer from the sequel slump. You didn't see that coming at all did you?
In Marco's Tyrants and Kings trilogy, it was actually the second book, The Grand Design, that was my favorite of the entire trilogy. While I can't say so at this point as I've yet to even start the final book, but the same thing is looking to be a possibility in this trilogy as well. The Devil's Armor is an excellent sequel and while it serves as a great bridge to the third novel, it's a deep and compelling book all on its own.
It's no secret that epic fantasy is my main concentration. It just gets me. Not that I want to be alive through all that famine and disease and blood. I mean I really really like medical advancements. But I love reading about battles and history in the making. The problems epic fantasy addresses isn't constrained by history or the laws of physics, it can be anything even if many times it's the same boy-who-defeats-evil-lord plot.
And that's another reason Marco pushes all the right buttons for me. He writes epic fantasy, but he turns a lot of the fantasy tropes on their heads. What happens if that evil dark lord is actually your best friend? What if all you have is an army of people with disabilities (you tear them a new one is what you do!)? What if your hero doesn't make the right decisions, what if he makes terrible decisions sometimes? What if the guy called "King Lorn the Wicked" isn't really a bad guy after all?
The Devil's Armor takes up a year after The Eyes of God, book one of the Bronze Knight trilogy, and starts with the civil war going on in Norvor. The Diamond Queen, Jazana Carr, has paid her way to an almost complete conquest of Norvor and King Lorn (the Wicked) realizes he's been betrayed by almost everyone around him. What a great opening this is, what a satisfying story in and of itself where King Lorn essentially betrays his betrayers.
We also go back to Lukien, who's busy defending Grimhold as is his calling now with the Eye of God keeping him alive. It's actually quite interesting that Lukien really doesn't make a huge appearance in this novel and yet I still consider this one of my favorites. I remember reading The Dragon Reborn by Robert Jordan and it drove me nuts that Rand was quite possibly in all of 3 pages in the whole book. Here, I hardly noticed until the very end, there were too many things I was interested in to even care.
Gilwyn has been put in charge of Jador as regent for the true ruler, White-Eye, who cannot even visit the place because her eyes prevent her from going anywhere that is too bright. The one-armed Baron Glass is also still in Grimhold and finding himself less and less useful as war has passed (for now) and everyone, including his friends, have gone to their old and new duties.
Marco does an excellent job of seamlessly filling the reader in with details from the previous book, which is very unlike how I have done. Sometimes I like to struggle to find something out, but sometimes it's nice not to have to go look something up, to be told what happened and why this person or event is important. To be done succinctly without interrupting the flow of the novel is hard work, but it's pitch perfect here.
I think the thing I was most impressed with was how much I liked the character of King Lorn the Wicked. Marco writes some of my favorite characters and somehow my favorites are the ones that are supposed to be the bad guys.
Battles are fought, evil manifested, and betrayals are numerous. Marco knows how to plot a book (and series for that matter) and I'm amazed at where things end up from where they began. I thoroughly enjoyed this second installment in the Bronze Knight trilogy, an improvement on the first even and can't wait for more.
4.5 out of 5 Stars (Very Highly Recommended!)
May 1, 2023
I’m so glad I read this right after reading Joe Abercrombie’s The First Law. Is it as good? Hell no but both author’s have outstanding character development and that is just my favorite. It’s hard for me to retain great battle scenes or intricate details of the setting that most people love but I’ll be able to remember 10 years from now if a character was awesome to read about or not!
The story kicks off a year after the first book. Lukien, still heart broken over Cassandra, unfortunately is barely in this book but it builds up a lot of other characters I really enjoyed. People are hearing more about Grimhold and are flocking to it hoping to fix their kid’s disabilities, but there’s only so many magical spirits left to heal people.
Meriel is still fawning over Lukien and thinks that if she can get rid of her burns and go back to her beautiful self then he will desire her as much as she does him.
Baron Glass has stolen the Devil’s Armor and is being possessed to do the Demon’s bidding, but there is still enough Baron in there to sometimes fight it.
King Lorn the Wicked has escaped his kingdom from the hands of The Diamond Queen, Jazana Carr who is created a large mercenary army and is planning to take over the world, Liiria being her next target. But are they as evil as claimed?
So once again The Bronze Knight and Co. must save themselves from evil. Can’t wait to read the next book.
The story kicks off a year after the first book. Lukien, still heart broken over Cassandra, unfortunately is barely in this book but it builds up a lot of other characters I really enjoyed. People are hearing more about Grimhold and are flocking to it hoping to fix their kid’s disabilities, but there’s only so many magical spirits left to heal people.
Meriel is still fawning over Lukien and thinks that if she can get rid of her burns and go back to her beautiful self then he will desire her as much as she does him.
Baron Glass has stolen the Devil’s Armor and is being possessed to do the Demon’s bidding, but there is still enough Baron in there to sometimes fight it.
King Lorn the Wicked has escaped his kingdom from the hands of The Diamond Queen, Jazana Carr who is created a large mercenary army and is planning to take over the world, Liiria being her next target. But are they as evil as claimed?
So once again The Bronze Knight and Co. must save themselves from evil. Can’t wait to read the next book.
March 10, 2010
Very much enjoyed the John Marco trilogy. A fantasy trilogy, similar in style to Tad Williams and George R.R. Martin. The characters are multi-faceted in ways that make them easy to relate to; the heroes have flaws and the villains have good streaks. The trilogy ultimately follows The Bronze Knight, Lukien, and where his decisions lead him. There's princesses and bravery, and sometimes the wrong people die; people try to do what's right and fail, good people become corrupted, and evil people display an unexpected courage.
March 13, 2009
Continuing the story of Baron Glass and Lucien, this book delves further into the psyche of the characters, letting you see the darker side of almost every single one of them. Marco is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors.
November 16, 2007
This was a pretty good book. It taught me a lot, that no matter how strong you really are or if you have no fears you can still be beaten.
January 1, 2011
The second part of this series. Marco is fantastic. I'm surprised more people haven't heard of this novel. It is wonderful.
February 15, 2012
It has been a long time since I have read this, but I absolutely have loved John Marco's books, his first series and this the second series.
January 17, 2013
Great sequel to the Eyes of God, this one was a little bit darker and not as quick paced. It was still a very enjoyable read, and looking forward to the next in the series.
September 1, 2020
There were some good and interesting parts in the book, but over all it was not as good as the others.
November 28, 2020
Friendships made and friendships lost.
January 15, 2022
Not really a spoiler, but one doesn't see the titular armor until over halfway through!
June 25, 2022
Все ещё было очень интересно, но первая книга затягивала меня сильнее. История там была законченна и могла остаться без продолжения. Но третью часть хотела бы почитать тоже.
October 5, 2022
The Empire Strikes Back of this series. Good twists and great story!
June 6, 2011
This book was a much slower read than the first book in the trilogy. Unlike the Eyes of God, I felt bored during parts of this story, which is a problem when the book is almost 750 pages. The new characters that were introduced were not a problem, I actually liked them, but there were too many segments that either not much was happening or they were on the "journey" part of the story, which always bores me. Also, I knew immediately upon seeing the cover of the second book one of the big things that was going to happen. I am unsure if this was supposed to be a surprise or twist, but it definitely was not. I am hoping the conclusion can be an improvement. With all that said, the book still was not a bad book. It would be worth reading if the third book is good.
March 18, 2016
Excellent continuation of the The Bronze Knight books. The concept of the Seekers is a nice follow-up to the discovery of the Akari healing magic. Good people to bad things. Bad people do good things. No one is faultless (including Gilwyn Toms and his naive desire to bring back Baron Glass from the spell of Kahldris). Lukien is the character that keeps getting smacked in the mouth by Fate. All of the good people who have died in the first two books would make an extremely full graveyard. Lorn is still a bit unknown. His love for Poppy may be his redemption; however, after being given control of Jador, I expect that he will do some very bad things!?
Good epic fantasy - now for the Sword of Angels.
Good epic fantasy - now for the Sword of Angels.
July 23, 2022
The Devil's Armor picks up right where Eyes of God left off which I greatly appreciated. While many of the new additions to the cast blend seamlessly I did feel this book struggled with too many new additions in both plot lines and character arcs that created a heirarchy of the stories I was happy to follow and the ones I couldn't wait for the end of. That said the expansion of magical lore and worldbuilding along with some very impressive action scenes kept me entertained.
October 19, 2007
avarage AGAIN
April 27, 2008
this was a good book for ages 15 -20 it was almsot above my aprehension level.
October 28, 2009
SF/Fantasy version of beach-reading material...something to pass the time with an easy read between more involved/complex genre books...
October 10, 2011
Pretty boring. I don't even remember much except not really liking this book.
Read
September 26, 201219
August 24, 2013
John is a fantasy writer. The story is full of life. The characters come alive in his writing. Read this series of books and be taken by the words to a place far away...
February 11, 2016
It's a middle book... it delves more into the characters and what drives them to do, well... what they do. Let's wrap this up and look forward to the action the third book of a trilogy!
Read
October 25, 2008Not as good as the first one
Read
September 9, 2016Stopped too long ago to remember why, will try it again later most likely.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews