[net.sf-lovers] Eyes of the Dragon

rsu@cbscc.UUCP (Rick Urban) (03/26/85)

	Can Jerry Boyajian or anyone else give their opinion of this book
by Stephen King (no spoilers, please, I'm waiting for its general release
in 1987)? Thanks.


						Rick Urban
						ihnp4!cbscc!rsu

kalash%Berkeley@.ARPA (03/30/85)

From: unisoft!kalash@Berkeley


	Somebody asked for a review of Eyes of the Dragon. As I am
one of the select many (~1500 people probably own the book right now)
who has read the thing, I thought I'd give it all a spin.

	Eyes of the Dragon is Stephen Kings first "childrens" book.
It is about a young prince falsely convicted of murdering his father,
a very nasty wizard who set him up (his name is Flagg, but he bears 
little resemblence to the character in the Stand), and various and 
sundary players.

	As a straight novel, it suffers from being written as a childrens
book. There are a number of simplistic explainations, and "wide eyed"
descriptions, which slow down the books pace for adult readers. Also as
with most childrens books, the people are mostly either good or evil
with very few shades of grey.

	As a childrens book, it suffers from some adult concepts that
would either confuse, or slow down the story. The king complains at
one point of his impotence and how it effects his life and relations
with his wife, and how he doesn't really like women. There are a
couple of these concepts floating about which make this less than
wonderful as a childrens book.

	As far as the story goes, while it is well written (as is
most if not all of King's work) it is no great shakes. It is a fairly
standard adventure yarn with most people living happily ever after,
and there aren't any real surprises.

	I would generalyy reate the book at about a "B-" grade,
a decent read, but no great shakes. I'm not at all sure 'tho
that I would give it to any of my kids to read (even if I had any).

			Joe Kalash

			unisoft!kalash@berkeley
			ucbvax!unisoft!kalash