fireblend 's review for:

The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King

3.0

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Imagine you're the kid from The Princess Bride, sick in bed, waiting for your grandpa to come around and tell you a story, except who comes through the door but weird uncle Steve. He's fine! He's told some good stories before but he's also said some gnarly, cringey stuff at the dinner table that's made you look the other way. Those are the exact vibes at the beginning of this book. And sure, there's broken family dynamics, there's an odd fixation with sex life and the princes' conception (evil magical viagra was involved in one of them) and there's a guy splitting heads in half with an axe, but overall? a perfectly fine if a little boilerplate fantasy story. This very much feels like a writing exercise for King, getting to flex some new muscles, maybe in preparation for Dark Tower stuff? I wouldn't know, but Flagg is here and there's a Roland, so if not that then at least it has some on-the-nose callbacks. I don't think I'd have thought this was worth my time if it wasn't King writing it due to the blandness, but since it is, it ends up being an interesting curiosity.