Hardcover, 326 pages
English language
Published Jan. 4, 1987 by Viking.
A tale of archetypal heroes and sweeping adventures, of dragons and princes and evil wizards!
The passage through the castle is dim, sensed by few and walked by only one. Flagg knows the way well. In four hundred years, he has walked it many times, in many guises, but now the passage serves its true purpose. Through the spyhole it conceals, the court magician observes King Roland--old, weak, yet still a king. Roland's time is nearly over, though, and young Prince Peter, tall and handsome, the measure of a king in all ways, stands to inherit the realm.
Yet a tiny mouse is enough to bring him down, a mouse that chances upon a grain of Dragon Sand behind Peter's shelves and dies crying tears of fire and belching gray smoke. A mouse that dies as King Roland does. Flagg saw it all and smiled, for now Prince Thomas, a …
A tale of archetypal heroes and sweeping adventures, of dragons and princes and evil wizards!
The passage through the castle is dim, sensed by few and walked by only one. Flagg knows the way well. In four hundred years, he has walked it many times, in many guises, but now the passage serves its true purpose. Through the spyhole it conceals, the court magician observes King Roland--old, weak, yet still a king. Roland's time is nearly over, though, and young Prince Peter, tall and handsome, the measure of a king in all ways, stands to inherit the realm.
Yet a tiny mouse is enough to bring him down, a mouse that chances upon a grain of Dragon Sand behind Peter's shelves and dies crying tears of fire and belching gray smoke. A mouse that dies as King Roland does. Flagg saw it all and smiled, for now Prince Thomas, a young boy easily swayed to Flagg's own purposes, would rule the kingdom. But Thomas has a secret that has turned his days into nightmares and his nights into prayed-for oblivion. The last bastion of hope lies at the top of the Needle, the royal prison where Peter plans a daring escape.
The story is fine but I didn't like the foreshadowing that happened so many times. The beginning is already quite slow and spoiling the outcome made it feel even slower. To be fair the end of the book felt way more interesting and more like a climax because of the slow pace before that. But 50 nice pages at the end don't make the 350 before that less of a drag.
Stephen King is probably one of the more versatile writers of our time, having tried his hand at several different genres. This one takes the form of a child's fairy tale, told in the "Once upon a time" style of a fairy tale, but told to adults.
But whereas the Grimm brothers might have told the story in 10 pages, King takes over 400, and draws the story out to an extreme length.
It contains the usual matter of such fairy tales -- the good prince whose throne is usurped by his mediocre brother with the plotting of an evil sorcerer, and how the good prince and his supporters fight back. In some ways it is a typical story of political intrigue, what in South Africa today is called "state capture", and it describes the process fairly well.
A good book to read to your children by candlelight through long …
Stephen King is probably one of the more versatile writers of our time, having tried his hand at several different genres. This one takes the form of a child's fairy tale, told in the "Once upon a time" style of a fairy tale, but told to adults.
But whereas the Grimm brothers might have told the story in 10 pages, King takes over 400, and draws the story out to an extreme length.
It contains the usual matter of such fairy tales -- the good prince whose throne is usurped by his mediocre brother with the plotting of an evil sorcerer, and how the good prince and his supporters fight back. In some ways it is a typical story of political intrigue, what in South Africa today is called "state capture", and it describes the process fairly well.
A good book to read to your children by candlelight through long winter nights of load shedding as part of their political educatio0n. You might have to explain some of the sexual innuendos, though, or just skip them.
Exciting young adult fantasy novel with good immersion.
"The Eyes of the Dragon" was suggested to me by a very dear friend. It was an excellent suggestion. Dive into this book and meet a story teller who delivers to you the story of a king who slays a dragon and what happens to his two sons after he died.
"The Eyes of the Dragon" is a book by Stephen King who also wrote the Dark Tower series. This is definitely a different class of writing, one that appeals to me. A fantasy story / fairy tale he wrote that's rich in views and characters. Definitely something to read if you like fairy tales.
A sort of fairy tale, and only Stephen King can write one.
I really liked this book. It was really obvious that he wrote the book for his daughter, but it still had all the elements of Stephen King that I've grown to like. :)
