Title The Eyes of the Dragon Series --- Author Stephen King Illustrated By David Palladini Publisher Signet - 1988 First Printing Viking - 1987 Category Fantasy Warnings None Main Characters Peter, Ben, Dennis, Thomas, Naomi, Flagg Main Elements Wizards

Once upon a time - there was terror and dragons, and princes...evil wizards and dark dungeons...an enchanted castle and a terrible secret. With this enthralling masterpiece of magical evil and daring adventure, Stephen King takes you in his icy grip and leads you into the nost shivery and irresistible kingdom of wickedness...The Eyes of the Dragon

I read this book because it's one of the core books that ties into the Dark Tower series, in particular it features Flagg, the Man in Black.

However notice I categorized this as fantasy, not horror. Frankly, there was nothing scary at all...unless when you read Harry Potter you cowered under your bedsheets every time that Voldemort was mentioned! So ignore that synposis and here's what this tale is really like.

It's written in a very formal fairy-tale like language, and is a tale about a kingdom where an evil wizard has desired to rule from the shadows. He had some luck with the current king Roland, but his son Peter is strong and would never allow himself to be led astray. Framing Peter for the murder of his father, Flagg achieves his goal, the rightful heir is imprisoned in the tower and the weaker younger brother Thomas is helpless without the advice of his wizard!

A fairly standard story of an advisor wanting to take over the reins of a kingdom, but very enjoyable just the same. The writing style was quite unique, maybe not for everyone, but take it for what it is, an exercise in doing something different. In fact, I've seen people mark this as a middle grade book, and if it weren't for Roland's sexual problems at the start of the book, I would say say that's fairly accurate. Doesn't mean adults can't enjoy it though.

So while I thought The Stand was an excrutiating bore, I really enjoyed this one and was very happy that my quest to prepare for the Dark Tower led me here, that not everything King writes is horror but can in fact be a pleasurable fantasy. If you don't like horror but still want to read the Dark Tower, I recommend reading this to get more background on Flagg, a most fascinating character, and I suspect there may be other characters from this book that may show up in the Dark Tower series.