I just got around to watching this. (My backlog is a thing that would send weaker beings into despair.)
Never read the books, so can't speak to faithfulness, but the quality of the show is pretty good.
It's certainly better done than any of the genre series ABC Family has put out. Been a long time since I've seen them, but probably better than the Renaissance Pictures stuff, and Hercules & Xena ran for over 100 episodes each.
The acting is fine as well. Certainly not award worthy, but I've seen worse performances out of Starz and even the BBC.