„Той определено не би могъл да опази нито една тайна, щеше да рече Флаг, особено от човека, разработил издигането му на трона. Но хора като Флаг преливат от гордост и самоувереност и макар че умеят да виждат много, понякога са странно слепи.“


„Очите на дракона“ е много симпатично, но и мрачно фентъзи! Стивън Кинг разказва в книгата класическа история за битката между доброто и злото, тъй като я е писал за дъщеря си, когато е била малка. Кралски магьосник в приказна страна е прочутият злодей Флаг, а пък принц Питър трябва да му се противопостави... Като цяло книгата ми допадна, без да ме впечатли чак толкова силно... но все пак е първата творба на Кинг в този жанр, като впоследствие е разгърнал писателското си майсторство в страхотната фентъзи поредица „Тъмната кула“.



„Той знаел, че е допускал грешки понякога, но никога не им позволил да сломят сърцето му. Не позволил и на последната, най-голяма грешка, да го направи. Той знаел също — както знаем и ние, в нашия свят, — че пътят към ада е покрит с добри намерения, но знаел и, че за човешките същества добрите намерения понякога са всичко, което имат. Ангелите може и да се спасят от вечните мъки, но хората са по-малко щастливи създания и за тях адът е винаги близо.“

3 stars
*** I have a YouTube channel now! Check it out here. ***

This book is definitely overhated. The ending was once again solid!! And it is very clearly a fairytale. A good one to read to young ones (with minor censorship... don't want 7yr old knowing reading about flaccid members). I wonder how I will think about this one in retrospect as I continue through to the Tower :)

I first read this about a year after it was published and hadn't thought too much about it since then, but for the young kid I was, it happened to be the first fantasy novel I ever read and the second novel... period.

It shaped my idea of what fantasy was, even if I've reformulated that about a million times since then, but let me be frank: I wasn't all that impressed. SF in all its shapes and forms caught my imagination more. In fact, it took something like a decade and a half before I went off the infrequent perusal of fantasies and did huge binge-reads of the genre.

The old castle, kings, queens, and princes just didn't do that much for me.

On the other hand, Stephen King will not be denied. I enjoyed the characters even tho they seemed to be nearly archetypal templates with hardly any differentiation from the ideals, was amused by the whole handkerchief plot, and was immensely interested in Flagg, that bigger-than-life evil bastard that spans many of King's novels.

This re-read didn't change my initial opinion all that much, but the core is still good if not purely fantastic. And this time, I got to wonder at all the kitchen-sink story elements that had been thrown into this tale, straight out of King's earlier novels. Such as the importance of storms, a-la IT, the incorporation of less than bright characters as extremely important heroes in their own rights, and elements of regret, redemption, and forgiveness for even the greatly-flawed and mostly despicable characters.

I haven't seen but a handful of characters in ALL of King's works that can be described as genuinely decent and/or good, but Peter happens to be one. That's pretty wild. :)

No, this isn't a King masterpiece, but it definitely has a lot of charm.

Can you believe it? It's King's only pure fantasy!

Napkins?

Napkins.

And more than enough (too much) nose picking and boogers.

Stephen “I dressed up like Jack Vance for Halloween” King made a noteworthy switch from straight up horror to a better than passable high fantasy in his 1987 novel The Eyes of the Dragon.

The King of American horror, though, is also a better than average writer and knows a thing or two about moving some copy and though this is a little out of character (like Henry Fonda in Once Upon a Time in the West) it is also entertaining and delivers a fantasy gem.

Vaguely reminiscent of Neil Gaiman’s Stardust, in tone if not in theme, this change of pace, to this humble reader at least, most notably features his epic villain Randall Flagg, in this work simply Flagg, the king’s magician.

King has created in Flagg a universal boogeyman, a timeless and undying human darkness that plays in a score of nefarious roles. But more than just a plug and play antihero, Flagg becomes a recurring evil in a mythos built on bad.

A good fantasy.