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joshkiba13's review
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
"His mother pointed from GOD to DOG. 'These are the two natures of man,' she said. 'Never forget them . . . most bad people are more like dogs than devils . . . Dogs are great pets because they are loyal, but if a pet is all a man is, he is a bad man, I think . . . A dog is just as eager to lick the hand of a bad master as he is to lick the hand of a good one, because dogs don’t know the difference . . . A dog will eat slops, vomit up the part his stomach can’t stand, and then go back for more.'"
This was the most distinct King novel I've read thus far (I think this is #15, including novellas). I understand that he wrote this one for his daughter and his friend Peter Straub's son, who were young at the time. That's a very sweet backstory for a book to be written, and it veery much reads like a bedtime story.
I enjoyed the narration style - the narrator may have been King himself, or not, but certainly he's a man from our time. It was interesting to have him address the Reader; one time he ended a chapter wishing us a "sweet and blameless" sleep, and I got 9 hours 😎
It's been a few months since reading The Stand, so it was fun to see the return (or origin(?)) of the demon Flagg. Just like in The Stand, I wish we'd spent a liiittle more time with him and his plans, though. He gotThomas onto the throne and it says he increased the tax by 80% but that's about it. We followed him a lot to get to that point, but once his plan was in motion he kind of disappeared from the story for a long time.
That said, I wasn't disappointed by where the story went after Flagg's plan was in motion.Peter's time in jail was interesting as he methodically planned his escape, and I absolutely loved how he was inspired by lessons from his mother the late queen, as well as a falsely imprisoned man of ancient days.
Like in The Stand, I appreciate that one theme of the story is that evil is self-destructive. Flagg really laid his own traps without knowing it, such as by showing Thomas the secret room with the peaky-holes in Niner to his father's sitting room. Which, by the way, was such a unique origin for the title of the book, referring to the gold-emerald eyes of the head of the last dragon hung on King Roland the Good's wall. Those eyes and what was witnessed through them were of paramount import; I love this quote about the guilt Thomas felt in the years following his father's death:
"Guilt is like a sore, endlessly fascinating, and the guilty party feels compelled to examine it and pick at it, so that it never really heals."
Lastly, I enjoyed the themes of loyalty and friendship. Peter's childhood friend Ben, as well as his butler Dennis, with the aid of Naomi and her husky Frisky, risked absolutely everything to set things right in the kingdom of Delain. Our narrator gave us these beautiful words on the subject:
"I think that real friendship always makes us feel such sweet gratitude, because the world almost always seems like a very hard desert, and the flowers that grow there seem to grow against such high odds."
I'll be very interested to see how this book connects to the Dark Tower. I imagine this won't be the last I see of Flagg, but beyond that I'm curious. Things from the Dark Tower universe like ironwood, or words like "ken" (understand) make me wonder if the kingdom of Delain shares space with Gilead. I also think it can't be coincidence that our gunslinger and the Good King from this book share a name. We shall see.
A good story overall, just a little tropey/basic for my tastes. Ready to jump back on the path to the Tower :)
This was the most distinct King novel I've read thus far (I think this is #15, including novellas). I understand that he wrote this one for his daughter and his friend Peter Straub's son, who were young at the time. That's a very sweet backstory for a book to be written, and it veery much reads like a bedtime story.
I enjoyed the narration style - the narrator may have been King himself, or not, but certainly he's a man from our time. It was interesting to have him address the Reader; one time he ended a chapter wishing us a "sweet and blameless" sleep, and I got 9 hours 😎
It's been a few months since reading The Stand, so it was fun to see the return (or origin(?)) of the demon Flagg. Just like in The Stand, I wish we'd spent a liiittle more time with him and his plans, though. He got
That said, I wasn't disappointed by where the story went after Flagg's plan was in motion.
Like in The Stand, I appreciate that one theme of the story is that evil is self-destructive. Flagg really laid his own traps without knowing it, such as by showing Thomas the secret room with the peaky-holes in Niner to his father's sitting room. Which, by the way, was such a unique origin for the title of the book, referring to the gold-emerald eyes of the head of the last dragon hung on King Roland the Good's wall. Those eyes and what was witnessed through them were of paramount import; I love this quote about the guilt Thomas felt in the years following his father's death:
"Guilt is like a sore, endlessly fascinating, and the guilty party feels compelled to examine it and pick at it, so that it never really heals."
Lastly, I enjoyed the themes of loyalty and friendship. Peter's childhood friend Ben, as well as his butler Dennis, with the aid of Naomi and her husky Frisky, risked absolutely everything to set things right in the kingdom of Delain. Our narrator gave us these beautiful words on the subject:
"I think that real friendship always makes us feel such sweet gratitude, because the world almost always seems like a very hard desert, and the flowers that grow there seem to grow against such high odds."
I'll be very interested to see how this book connects to the Dark Tower. I imagine this won't be the last I see of Flagg, but beyond that I'm curious. Things from the Dark Tower universe like ironwood, or words like "ken" (understand) make me wonder if the kingdom of Delain shares space with Gilead. I also think it can't be coincidence that our gunslinger and the Good King from this book share a name. We shall see.
A good story overall, just a little tropey/basic for my tastes. Ready to jump back on the path to the Tower :)
Content Warnings
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Violence, and Death of parent
Minor: Physical abuse and Blood
frankiejo's review against another edition
adventurous
lighthearted
relaxing
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
I had mixed feeling throughout this novel, but my end thoughts were mostly positive. It was difficult to get through at times, but I feel it was worth it.
Unlike my previous two reviews, my main gripe is not that it should have been longer. It was the right length, but I felt its time could have been better spent. King does an odd thing here. The narrator (whose voice and style I really enjoyed, for the most part) would describe in brief what was about to happen, and then spend a dozen chapters describing it in detail. I constantly felt like I was playing catch-up, and lost some emotional investment in these moments because I already knew what was going to happen. I would have preferred it if those summaries of what was about to happen were axed, and the time they took up in the narration (quite substantial, all things considered) to be devoted to other, more important things. Naomi, maybe. I did like her character a lot, but she just kind of...appeared? I would have liked to at least have a brief appearance from her earlier on before she abruptly becomes a major character. I'm sure the real Naomi loved to have a character named after her though, especially one of the heroes, but the feeling of "this character was included for his daughter" was so strong that it took me out of the otherwise immersive story. I would have preferred for her to be, again, introduced earlier, and to have more development.
Speaking of characters, my other gripe (that isn't nitpicky) is with Flagg. Now, admittedly, I haven't read The Stand nor any of the books in The Dark Tower, I understand he's in both and perhaps I am missing something about him in having not read them. With that said, this is a stand-alone novel, and should be able to stand on its own merits. Which it mostly does! My issue with Flagg is that he felt excessively and cartoonishly evil. He wasn't scary at all and I laughed out loud at several lines of his that I'm certain were meant to be dramatic. This is not a horror novel, I understand that and did not go in expecting that, but Flagg is supposed to be scary here. And he wasn't. Very much "I'll get you and your little dog too!" vibes, if that makes any sense. There's little to no indication that Flagg has some glamour (a la It) that makes others take his obvious evilness in stride. I do not believe for one second that such a blatantly evil man would be allowed to rise to the rank he did, let alone countless times over thousands of years. I would have preferred to see him played as either having that glamour (a la It) or to be faux pleasant. Either, I felt, would have made him a more effective villain. This issues were especially glaring in contrast to Thomas, which brings me to the second half of my review: the things I liked.
THOMAS. My god, I loved Thomas' character. This is how he is introduced:
Unlike my previous two reviews, my main gripe is not that it should have been longer. It was the right length, but I felt its time could have been better spent. King does an odd thing here. The narrator (whose voice and style I really enjoyed, for the most part) would describe in brief what was about to happen, and then spend a dozen chapters describing it in detail. I constantly felt like I was playing catch-up, and lost some emotional investment in these moments because I already knew what was going to happen. I would have preferred it if those summaries of what was about to happen were axed, and the time they took up in the narration (quite substantial, all things considered) to be devoted to other, more important things. Naomi, maybe. I did like her character a lot, but she just kind of...appeared? I would have liked to at least have a brief appearance from her earlier on before she abruptly becomes a major character. I'm sure the real Naomi loved to have a character named after her though, especially one of the heroes, but the feeling of "this character was included for his daughter" was so strong that it took me out of the otherwise immersive story. I would have preferred for her to be, again, introduced earlier, and to have more development.
Speaking of characters, my other gripe (that isn't nitpicky) is with Flagg. Now, admittedly, I haven't read The Stand nor any of the books in The Dark Tower, I understand he's in both and perhaps I am missing something about him in having not read them. With that said, this is a stand-alone novel, and should be able to stand on its own merits. Which it mostly does! My issue with Flagg is that he felt excessively and cartoonishly evil. He wasn't scary at all and I laughed out loud at several lines of his that I'm certain were meant to be dramatic. This is not a horror novel, I understand that and did not go in expecting that, but Flagg is supposed to be scary here. And he wasn't. Very much "I'll get you and your little dog too!" vibes, if that makes any sense. There's little to no indication that Flagg has some glamour (a la It) that makes others take his obvious evilness in stride. I do not believe for one second that such a blatantly evil man would be allowed to rise to the rank he did, let alone countless times over thousands of years. I would have preferred to see him played as either having that glamour (a la It) or to be faux pleasant. Either, I felt, would have made him a more effective villain. This issues were especially glaring in contrast to Thomas, which brings me to the second half of my review: the things I liked.
THOMAS. My god, I loved Thomas' character. This is how he is introduced:
Thomas was not exactly a good boy, but you must not think that made him a bad boy. He was sometimes a sad boy, often a confused boy (he took after his father in another way, as well—hard thinking made his nose stuffy and his head feel like boulders were rolling around inside), and often a jealous boy, but he wasn't a bad boy.
This, I feel, is an apt description. King does an excellent job of portraying him in the exact right way to shift the reader's opinion from "fuck this kid" to "oh my god, does this world have therapists?" I won't go into too much detail, to avoid spoilers, but man I was not expecting to feel this sympathetic towards a character who (minor spoilers. like very minor spoilers. first sixty pages)
Like I said before, I really enjoyed the narrator. The way the story was told, I felt like somebody's grandfather was reading me to sleep. Not my grandfather, he's racist and doesn't think Covid is real, just the archetype of a grandfather. It reminded me a lot of The Princess Bride, except without the satire. It was like The Princess Bride if everything was played straight.
I enjoyed the middle and end of this book far more than the beginning. As the story goes on, the pacing issues get less and less obtrusive, and the narrator eventually stops with their weird habit of telling you in fifty words what will happen in the next fifty pages. I know I wrote more about the negative than I did the positive, but that's simply because a lot of what I enjoyed involves spoilers or is, like the narrator's voice, simpler to describe than the more complex negative issues.
All in all, what I'm saying is that it's a good book despite its flaws. Is it King's finest? No. Is it a damn good read once you get into it? Hell yeah.
Cheers,
Frankie.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Confinement, Death of parent, Murder, and Alcohol
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Fatphobia, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, and Gaslighting
Minor: Ableism, Child abuse, Sexual content, Violence, Police brutality, Grief, and Pregnancy
catapocalypse's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
This was technically a reread, as I'd first read this way back as a teen, at a time when I read a lot of Stephen King. I had enjoyed this one quite a bit, and wanted to see how it held up. Unfortunately, I didn't care for it so much this time around.
I think this book is unusual among Stephen King's other early works, in that it is primarily a fantasy adventure with only a sliver of horror. It follows two princes: Peter is the eldest and a good boy, but he is framed for the murder of their father. Thomas is the younger and fairly troubled, and he struggles in the shadow of his older brother until this murder... when he then must struggle under the shadow of knowing the real cause of their father's death while still assuming the throne that is not rightfully his.
The story starts at a slow pace, but reads quickly as it progresses. There's a lot of fun stuff, including a dragon, an evil magician, an incredibly intricate dollhouse, and even dogsledding. But there are missteps as well. It started off on a bad foot, basically beginning with the 50-year-old king marrying a 17-year-old girl, including his having to explain to her how things were going to work on their wedding night. It felt gross and unnecessary. This is the main reason I would not consider this middle grade/children's as I've seen some shelves describe it... The tone of the storyteller narrator does treat it like a children's tale, though.
In the end, it's not a terrible book, but it's not a great book, either.
I think this book is unusual among Stephen King's other early works, in that it is primarily a fantasy adventure with only a sliver of horror. It follows two princes: Peter is the eldest and a good boy, but he is framed for the murder of their father. Thomas is the younger and fairly troubled, and he struggles in the shadow of his older brother until this murder... when he then must struggle under the shadow of knowing the real cause of their father's death while still assuming the throne that is not rightfully his.
The story starts at a slow pace, but reads quickly as it progresses. There's a lot of fun stuff, including a dragon, an evil magician, an incredibly intricate dollhouse, and even dogsledding. But there are missteps as well. It started off on a bad foot, basically beginning with the 50-year-old king marrying a 17-year-old girl, including his having to explain to her how things were going to work on their wedding night. It felt gross and unnecessary. This is the main reason I would not consider this middle grade/children's as I've seen some shelves describe it... The tone of the storyteller narrator does treat it like a children's tale, though.
In the end, it's not a terrible book, but it's not a great book, either.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, and Murder
Minor: Ableism, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Blood