by Jay Wilburn
The plan is to reread all of Stephen King’s works in the order that they were published. Richard Chizmar of Cemetery Dance had the vision. I’m doing it because I am a writer and I want to improve my fiction. And I love Stephen King’s stories. I think there is something to be learned through this process. As Richard Chizmar and Bev Vincent put up their posts on the official site, I will link those in the corresponding ones of mine on this blog, typically with the “After” posts.
You can also go back to the beginning and read Before Carrie or any of my other posts up through this one and beyond by checking out this link to the Master List of all my #StephenKingRevisited posts.
Take up your weapons for the hunt …
Aside from Secretary of Dreams one and two which I will likely never find, Eyes of the Dragon was one of the toughest books in King’s library to find. I originally read it back when I was teaching school in downtown Atlanta. I eventually put that copy in the classroom library I kept throughout my elementary teaching years. That copy was destroyed as tends to happen when you give kids free reign over books that are not library bound. It was for a good cause. That was in the 90’s.
As I filled in my collection of Stephen King books for this rereading effort, I realized Eyes of the Dragon was out of print and nowhere to be found locally. I ended up letting people know that this and a few others were out of print. Joyland and the Colorado Kid were two others along with the Secretary of Dreams volumes among others. Various friends and readers found, bought, and sent me copies of my missing volumes. That and one or two very book heavy Christmases caught me up to current and complete with King’s catalog. Blockade Billy is another novella I’m missing, but the story appears in another collection, so I didn’t endeavor to secure a copy of it separately.
I was a fantasy and sci fi reader before Stephen King got me into horror. I was excited to see what King did with a straight up fantasy novel because I had already read the first three Dark Tower novels at that point and thought it would have to be great. I wasn’t disappointed.
Scenes that stick out in my mind include the hunt, the section about the boy growing contemptuous of his father, the slow process of the escape, a sad irony that he could have escaped sooner, but the end of the story alludes my memory, so as with every other revisit, I will be experiencing the story anew.
There was something deeper and more visceral in Stephen King’s straight fantasy than what I had experienced before. At the time, I did not appreciate horror as a tool for story telling as opposed to just an isolated genre as I thought of it at the time. He built something I’m looking forward to revisiting.
So, let’s peer through the eyes of the dragon again. My next post will be After The Eyes of the Dragon which you will find linked on the Master List of all my Stephen King Revisited posts.
— Jay Wilburn, I have not forgotten the face of my father
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