I've heard rumors that bad translations and bowdlerizations really hurt this work, and that it's really a classic.

It read to me like an eighteenth-century version of the Saturday morning Western. The characters are paper-thin, and every motive and emotion is explained - that is, told rather than shown.

What saves this from being one-star is that it is a rip-roaring, swash-buckling adventure with lots of carnage.