Read: The Eyes of the Dragon

I’m in the midst of reading a load of old Stephen King books that my dad has passed on to me that were some of his favourites when he was young. The Eyes of the Dragon came as quite the welcome change of pace, and proved King’s versatility as a writer.

A fantasy tale with next to no horror elements, the omniscient narrator instantly plunges you into the story with the voice of a man gathering his children around the fire to tell them a story. The characters are introduced and the setting established, and while the story itself is erring on the predictable side, the way it is told kept me hooked throughout.

There’s a layer of depth to each character that rises this above a typical fairy-tale. The main protagonist is locked away for most of the story, leaving a bunch of flawed, unsure, and unable characters to pick up the pieces. And while the infamous King villain, Flagg, is undoubtedly evil, our glimpses into his mindset give a welcome insight into logic.

It’s a short and sweet book, that feels like a throwback to the fantasy tales you may have read as a child, but with a sprinkling of mature content to make it equally as enjoyable to read as an adult.

4/5

Read: Cloud Atlas

*Minor spoilers*

Not my kind of book, unfortunately. The premise is sound enough; six stories throughout different points in time that become interwoven through the characters and previous stories being retold. But nature of telling it in almost short story form meant the momentum never gathered and character development was slow.

As well as that, the story itself just never grabbed me. Seeing the first plot line referred to in the second story, or similar instances, is intriguing and makes you wonder of the connection. But nothing solid ever forms, and it’s more a collection on ideas hinted at, with a lot of metaphor, symbolism, and themes thrown around. But the core, the actual story, is lacking.

The main cause for the difficulty in reading is the sheer number of characters thrown your way. There’s no constant with you throughout the story, so each chapter means being introduce to a new protagonist and side-characters. Yet I never felt a connection to any of them, and had no one to route for. As such, any antagonists then faced the same issue of being no threat, because it was hard to care about their intentions.

There was something to admire in the writing of Cloud Atlas; the 19th Century tale is very much told in a Victorian voice, while the distant future story introduces new vocabulary and logical adjustments. Though this can also add to how stagnated the book is to read, the different writing tones do help establish era and passage of time.

I watched the film to help me make sense of the story (a separate review of that would be inane, though), but to little avail. That too never really brought any of the characters to life for me, despite lasting just short of three hours.

Overall it’s a book I won’t forget, but not one I particularly enjoyed.

2/5