The main characters are a warrior-priest named Damien and an evil sorceror named Gerald Tarrant (or "The Hunter"). Other characters come and go (some stay much longer than others), but the body of the story centers on these two. As a priest, Damien is dedicated to the forces of good, but he finds himself forced to work with the evil Tarrant. The interplay between these two, while not a sparkling new kind of story-telling for the fantasy genre, is convincing and well-written, at least in the first book. After that, it starts to become old hat. Even the characters realize it is old hat, to the author's credit.
Because of this, I found the first book to be the most enjoyable read, and it would've worked just fine as a stand-alone novel albeit with a few loose ends left hanging. The second novel, which introduces a new world and lots of interesting places, still seems to drag a bit. Maybe it's just me, but the thought of a tiny little band of people pitted against the might of an empire is starting to wear on me after many years of this genre. Just once, I'd like to see a book where the tiny band makes a wrong turn and is engulfed and killed mercilessly by the powerful enemy forces.
The third novel is, again, remarkably different (yet remarkably the same in character interactions) from the first two. The Deus Ex Machina climax was a bit of a disappointment, but it fit well with the rest of the series, so it wasn't necessarily the easy way out for the author. All in all, this is a great series to explore because the first book is a good stand-alone. If you like the first book, go ahead and read the rest and you won't be disappointed. I wasn't, but I didn't exactly devour the series either.
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