Probably King’s most atypical novel. A fairytale-style story about two brothers disputing over the throne in a vague Kingdom where the power is manipulated byt the evil wizard Flagg. Not much reminds us that we are reading a book by Stephen King here. There’s Flagg, who is the most memorable part of this book, and then there are of course those boogers… It is told by a narrator from our time which at times feels a bit askew. The story has some nuance and atmosphere. Some parts hold together well, other parts feel jumbled and sketchy. I liked the dollhouse and the bit where the children play pretend games where ”indians” attacks the castle, a detail that throws the whole European fairytale thing off balance, in a good way.

I finally read my first Stephen King novel. I really liked it. I’m not a huge horror fan so I felt this fantasy was a good choice. I couldn’t put the book down. This book was from the 1980s so I doubt there will be a sequel but the ending opened up the possibility. I will definitely read more Stephen King. Perhaps my next King book will be Fairy Tale.

3.75

I didn't really like this the first time I read it a few years ago. I thought it was largely forgettable and one of my least favourite Stephen King novels.

This time around I really liked it. It was intriguing reading about Flagg having now started on The Dark Tower novels. This book helped to fill in a little of his back story

Finished in one sitting and rounded up to 4*

I so thoroughly enjoyed reading this book! Such a fun and exciting book to read during a time when the whole Western world seems to be descending into chaos … I was able to forget about inflation, war, climate change, and pretend I was a little kid again adrift in a book with princes and royal treachery and an adorable huskie named Frisky …

This book had sort of a macabre “Princess Bride” vibe going … none of the romance, but that sense of my grandfather reading this modern fairy tale to me while I snuggled under my favorite quilt in bed … this book centers on Peter and Thomas, the two princes born to King Roland in the kingdom of Delain … Flagg, the demonic magician who is King Roland’s closest advisor, plots an assassination of the king, framing Peter, the heir to the throne, as King Roland’s killer … the rest of the story follows Peter and his friends as they try to free Peter and dethrone Thomas, now king of Delain, who is controlled by Flagg …

Typically, I don’t like “action-packed” entertainment - I like slow building plots with deep character development … but I was hypnotized by the quickly unfolding twists and turns of this novel … the story is told through brief - sometimes very brief - chapters, each one jabbing home sweet little tidbits of the story … Stephen King’s wit and dark sense of humor shine brilliantly throughout this book, and Flagg was the perfect villain to boo and hiss at …

I have a feeling I will be rereading this book again in the near future, for the sheer thrill of the roller coaster ride through the kingdom of Delain …

The Eyes of the Dragon is in my book a kid’s fantasy tale and one with a merrily joyous feel good factor, it was all just too nice and goodly good for me. If my only way of escape was to fashion a rope out of strands of napkin, worked on a toy and it was going to take over a year, then I'd have thrown myself out of the tower on day 3, fuck it as they say and goodbye happy ending.
 
Flagg is the man in black, the evil magician who's been around for ever, changing faces and involving himself in the running of the kingdom of Delain for generations. He poisons the King and sets eldest son Peter up for the fall. A lifetimes imprisonment in the tower and then it's youngest son Thomas who takes over, subtly prodded by our man in black.
 
Peter is of course a lovely lad who everyone believes is guilty except a few friends, so he sets out to escape using the threads of many napkins tailored into rope, worked on a tiny loom or whatever it was and aaaaaaaah!!!! thunk.
 
Oh noooo, he's had enough after three weeks and chucked himself out, three hundred foot to the cobbles below. Ah fuck I was just getting into that and he's blown the ending, every goody fantasy trope blown to the wind all from a disappointing lack of endurance. Boys and dolls houses never end well, Oh well surprises all round there, totally unexpected and I have to say, well played.
 
Truth? Of course not, it all ends exactly as expected in a well written tale of loveliness.

A 2.5* rating.

Also posted at http://paulnelson.booklikes.com/post/...

3.5

Something a little different from Mr King— a straightforward fairy tale set in a kingdom of another time and place.

Charming and a great bed time take for older elementary kids, I enjoyed the tale. Old King. Two princes. Evil magician.

Unfortunately, about a 100 pages too long and not nearly as creative a storyline as I’ve come to expect from the master of storytelling.

I’m considering it a solid primer for his Fairy Tale novel, which I hope is darker and more complicated than this tale.

Final note- I was very intrigued that the evil magician’s name was Flagg. I love King’s connectivity!

"He knew as well as we in our own world do that the road to hell is paved with good intentions--but he also knew that, for human beings, good intentions are sometimes all there are. Angels may be safe from damnation, but human beings are less fortunate things, and for them hell is always close."

It was hard to choose just one single quote to represent how I felt about this book but I have tried. The medieval them to this book was so enjoyable and each and every character was someone you either rooted for or hated. I fell in love with this book and I would read it over and over again.

The King is dead and his favoured, eldest son is imprisoned for his murder. Will the wrongfully accused boy manage to free himself and will his subjects believe his innocence if he does?

I found this a very accessible fantasy story. King does not dwell on particulars of the fictional kingdom but, instead, focuses on the mystery inside of it. Even this he approaches from an unusual angle, as the reader is privy to the real perpetrator very early on and spends much of the book waiting for justice to be delivered.

I thoroughly enjoyed both the story and how it was conveyed. It provided me with some straight-forward escapism, which did not require too much thought and instead allowed me to become immediately immersed in the story and remain gently carried along by its meandering trajectory.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ ½
Genre: Fantasy + Young Adult

This is a straightforward fantasy story with less complexity and less emphasis on world-building. Mainly catered for the young adult audience. I have not read any Stephen King YA books before. Actually, I’m not sure if any of his other books are even in this genre. Still, you know this is King writing the story. You can tell from his writing even if you had no idea. All his quirky additions are still there and provide a great reading experience.

The story is about king Roland who has a wicked magician advisor (Randall Flagg). This magician keeps plotting to destroy Delain (the Kingdom). He causes big harm to the King’s family and a feud between his sons Peter and Thomas. I’ve read this book after The Stand in which Flagg is the main villain there and here as well. It is amazing how Stephen King lets his characters appear in different books even though the books are not in the same series. But they are all in the same Stephen King’s world. I’m very glad that I am reading these books in this order as I keep knowing these characters more and getting closer to them. I highly recommend the extended reading order for The Dark Tower series. It will take time to finish the series that way but I feel it gives me a much better understanding of the characters and their motives.

So should Stephen King write more young adult fantasy? Absolutely. I’m usually very picky about things when it comes to the YA genre, especially in fantasy. But this story was very pleasant. I think it might be a good entry point for those who never read a King’s book before but do not want to start with his usual horror stories.

Note: The Eyes of the Dragon comes as a part of my reading of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series. This is Book No.4 of 24 books I am going to read for this series.

Well I liked this story a lot, but I didn’t love it as much as some of the other SK stories I’ve read. I think it was perhaps a little too straightforward for me - I never really hit a spot where I was surprised by a plot twist or anything. As usual, I didn’t research this ahead of time because I wanted to go in cold. For that reason I didn’t even know it was fantasy. If I had known that I might not have read it hot on heels of reading the first Mistborn by Sanderson and Mort by Pratchett. I was so impressed by both of these fantasy books perhaps it swayed my opinion a bit.

I did like the characters and it was interesting to see Flagg in a prequel of sorts to The Dark Tower. I was a little disappointed in him that he had been unsuccessfully trying to topple the kingdom for hundreds of years... and failing... I thought he was more clever than that - haha. Maybe Mordred was right to give him such a bad performance review?? Nice shout out to Rhiannon (Rhea) of the Coos as well.

The storytelling was good - as I’ve come to expect with SK books. I did feel that it seemed to lack much of his trademark nuggets of humor. Nevertheless I did enjoy it and would recommend it to someone interested in the ‘lighter side’ of Stephen King.

La clásica historia de reyes y dragones de la mano de King.

↳ "Creo que una verdadera amistad siempre nos hace sentir este dulce sentimiento, ya que el mundo casi siempre parece un árido desierto y las flores que en él crecen parecen hacerlo en contra de todas esas circunstancias desfavorables."

 Al grano: no me convenció. En cuanto supe de la existencia de este libro se dispararon mis expectativas, o sea, ¿King haciendo cuentos de hadas? Sonaba algo que definitivamente tenía que leer, y lo hice. Quizá me jugaron en contra. Quizá, siendo mi autor favorito y habiendo leído más de 15 novelas esperaba algo más. ¿Quién sabe? Esta fue mi experiencia:

Estaba al tanto de que es una historia para su hija y, por lo tanto, de su infantilidad; de hecho, esta no se me hizo molesta en ningún momento, es una novela firme y (bastante) extensa para el rol del cuento antes de dormir. Tenemos un rey, un mago, príncipes, entre otros elementos de fantasía clásicos, que se iban presentando y, viniendo del autor, no sabía qué esperar de sus roles, pero, lamento decir, que no me sorprendieron en absoluto. La historia es muy básica, lejos de ser una de las mejores. A pesar de su narración de lectura veloz, se me hizo bastante pesada, creo que perdía ligereza con descripciones excesivas y explicaciones de sobra. Otro punto que no me gusto fue que había sucesos que sucedían por casualidad o porque sí en vez de tener razones complejas o ingeniosas (quizá es por su carácter más infantil, pero no lo justifica ya que no deja de ser una novela y pretenciosa).

 El narrador en primera persona aportó mucho, desde el humor como desde el suspenso (algo destacado en esta novela en particular). En relación al tema de los personajes admito que ninguno me agradó o disgusto lo suficiente, una nada, fueron bastante lineales y superficiales, piezas de una novela y ya; a pesar de esto, debo hacer una excepción con el gran antagonista, Flagg. Siniestro, poderoso, simplemente digno del papel, además me hizo recordar a Voldemort. Sé que aparece en otros libros (ninguno que haya leído yo) y sé que la novela en general tiene conexiones con la Torre Oscura (de la que solo leí el primero), por lo que luego investigaré más de esto para saber cuando llegue el momento (si alguien quiere comentarme, mejor). 

Hacia el final, a eso de las últimas 60 páginas, fue cuando empecé a conectar con ella (no es precisamente un cumplido el conectar casi cuando está acabando pero es algo ¿no?). Toda esta última parte fue un acierto, el desenlace, la acción y algo de oscuridad. Su versión realista del "y todos vivieron felices para siempre" me gustó, y su final también. 

 En pocas palabras, una novela que tiene algunos aciertos y algunos desajustes. No es de mis preferidas del autor, sino que se queda en una franja regular. Aún así, amo que salga de su zona de confort o su cotidianidad para explorar y experimentar con otros géneros.

Well, this was a REALLY quick read for me. I remembered liking this one from the first time that I read it, but I didn't remember the storyline at all. It turned out to be one of those stories that I just didn't want to put down for long.

Eyes of the Dragon is very different from most of King's other works. Written for his tween-age daughter because she complained that he had not written anything that she was interested in or felt comfortable reading, the Eyes of the Dragon is basically King's take on a Young Adult level Fairy Tale. The story takes place in the Kingdom of Delain, which is located in In-World, the setting of the Dark Tower series and is told from the perspective of a story teller who is telling the reader a tale of old from his lands.

I enjoyed the perspective that King chose to tell the tale from and the way that the teller poses questions and comments directly to the reader. I think that this method works great especially considering the target audience of the story as the story teller method keeps them a bit distanced from the harsher elements of the story (which isn't entirely pleasant, duh it's King!) while involving them more in the story by asking them to come up with their own conclusions about certain aspects and not entirely holding their hand through the whole thing.

Overall, I found this to be an enjoyable tale of suspense with a good mix of emotions brought to the reader from betrayal, redemption, perseverance and yes, even a little love.