The Eyes of the Dragon / Stephen King

3 out of 5 stars

Once upon a time - there was terror and dragons and princes... evil wizards and dark dungeons... and 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 most shivery and irresistible kingdom of wickedness... The Eyes of the Dragon.

 This seems to be one of those books that people either love or hate—how strange to find myself right in the middle! I’ve never been one of King’s Constant Readers and have only read a few of his books over the last number of years. This one is written very much in the form of a fairy tale and is dedicated to his daughter, who may have heard the first versions of it as bedtime material? I was disappointed that the dragon of the title was only a mounted head on the wall—live dragons are much more entertaining.

King recycles some material here—anyone who has read The Stand will recognize the villain, Flagg. There is also some overlap with the Dark Tower series.

I found The Stand to be a very black & white tale, with very little nuance. The Eyes of the Dragon takes that to a whole new level, despite the fact that King tries very hard to convince us that Thomas isn’t as bad as he seems. However, that is the nature of fairy tales, so it fits in this case.

I chose to read TEotD because it was on the NPR’s list of Science Fiction & Fantasy finalists back in 2011 (they were asking people of vote on the top titles in the field). Other children’s books were omitted from the list (e.g. Harry Potter) so I’m not sure how this one squeaked through to be included.

It is the 232nd book that I have read from this NPR list.