Wednesday, October 21, 2009

The Eyes of the Dragon

"The Eyes of the Dragon" was written by Stephen King and published in 1987. It's a fantasy book that describes a "classic" battle between good and evil. The story takes place whithin a kingdom called "Delain". It's written and told from a perspective of an unnamed story teller. The story is full of struggles and battles, scams and conspiracies and of course, a lot of magic.


There are 5 main characters involved in the story- King Roland, Queen Sasha, Prince Peter, Prince Thomas and the magician and king's advisor, Flagg. Right at the beggining of the story we witness Flagg's evil ambitions, his goal is to take control of the kingdom. He starts with his succesful attept to end queen Sasha's life while she's giving birth to Thomas and contiues with the poisoning of King Roland. The two princes develop into 2 complete different men. Prince Thomas who is intelligent, wise and handsome and Thomas who is chunky and clumsy.


The turning point of the story occures when King Roland is poisioned and Prince Peter (is) framed for the murder. Peter is sent to a tall tower and Prince Thomas, the younger brother, recieves the throne. Due to his very young age, 12, it seems that it is much easier for Flagg to manipulate him and get the kingdom's condition to relapse. Peter finally finds a creative way to escape the prison and take back the throne he deserves. After a long struggle, the two brothers overpower Flagg and he flees. From that event, it seems that the power balance changes; the good seems to overpower the evil.


In my opinion, the book is very well written, although it took me time to get used to the writing because I'm not used to read fantasy stories. The characters are well written and the story manages to keep up at a good pace. One fact (that) did disturb me though, is that the book seems like it was written for children; The "classic" villain that tries to gain power by manipulations and the "classic" hero, that opposes him and tries to eliminate his ambitions. Sadly, I felt the story wasn't sophisticated and intensive enough for me, but it was good and well written anyway.

Much better, Kobi. I enjoyed your review.
(97)
Daphna