The Eyes of the Dragon, by Stephen King

When the name of Steven King comes up, I, like many others, immediately think of horror, and so it came as some surprise to find he'd written some fantasy. The Eyes of the Dragon is exactly that. It tells the story of two princes, who on the death of their father ascend to the throne; but which of them is king is decided by the manipulation of an evil court wizard.

Inside the front cover of this book there is a quote from Stephen King which explains that this was written for his 13 year old daughter who expressed little interest in the horror he'd previously written, and while not expressly aimed at children, it is clearly written with the younger reader in mind. This isn't always a bad thing! In fact, I felt that it was a masterful piece of storytelling - I could imagine the author reading this to me aloud, and this is a particularly well chosen style for this book.

As you can probably guess, I enjoyed this book a lot. It's a good story and written well, and has a lack of pretentiousness that makes it feel like a good, honest fairytale. I particularly liked the incidental inclusion of the reader in the book, where the author makes a comment about the story that is between you and him, eg "Did Flagg plot against her, you might ask?"

It's not the perfect book. My biggest criticism is perhaps that the "baddie" is very much the fairytale stereotype of the evil manipulating wizard or the grand vizier who is trying to take over the throne, but this is probably nitpicking. The writing style is also quite juvenile and simple, and this may not appeal to all readers. This is not the deepest and most meaningful of books by a long stretch!

But I feel to criticise the book on that level misses the point. This is a great fairytale, and while suitable for the teenage reader, at the same time enjoyable for an adult. I'd heartily recommend this as a piece of light reading.

Buy The Eyes of the Dragon at amazon