The Book: The Eyes of the Dragon, by Stephen King
The Story: Let me start off by saying that this book has nothing to do with dragons. I’ve had this in my pile of books to read for over a year and just haven’t touched it because I can’t get into dragon-y stuff. It was written by Stephen King when his daughter was 13 because she was scared to read his other books, so he wrote her a book that reads almost like a bedtime story that you’d read to a kid, only a little bit more “grown up.”
In the story, Roland is the king and he has two sons, Peter is the eldest and is mild mannered and good at everything. Thomas is younger and kind of quieter and takes the background a lot. The Queen died while giving birth to Thomas, so it is just them. Roland’s magician and advisor is a crooked, mysterious man named Flagg. I know you Dark Tower fans are squealing your little brains out.
Anyway, Flagg is crazy and manipulative and he manages to kill Roland and get Peter blamed for it so t hat easy-to-sway Thomas becomes the king. Peter is locked at the top of a tall tower and Flagg pretty much takes over control of the country through Thomas. Stuff gets bleak. Peter is hatching a plan and has friends in the country that are still rooting for him.
Like almost all Stephen King books, this turns into a good vs. evil deal and sways back and forth until you really can’t tell who is going to prevail in the end.
What I Thought: Another one of those books where I’m not really sure why I liked it so much, but I really, really did. When I read it, I wanted to read something lighter that didn’t make me cry. I’ve been crying about books way too much lately. This was light without being total brain candy and it really kept me engaged.
I think what really made me like this one was how it was written. It had a story-telling type of narration. ”You’ll have to make up your mind,” “I’m sorry to say,” and other stuff like that reminded you that this was basically a bedtime story. I love nothing more than a good bedtime story and this just did it for me.
If you are Stephen King fan, you’ll see several tie-ins with other books, particularly The Stand and the Dark Tower series. It’s that kind of stuff that makes Stephen King compulsively readable for me and I was thrilled beyond words that Flagg was the bad guy. Spooky dude, that Flagg. Good stuff.
Conclusion: So fun. Read this to your kids. Maybe not your little, little kids but probably 10 and up could handle what’s happening here. If you don’t have kids to read it to, read it anyway. A good fantasy type book without getting too crazy. More of a kings-and-queens-and-knights type of deal. Love it.