Hardcover edition Published In: 1987 Retail Price: $21.95 Our Price: $6.99 + S&H Score: 10/10
The passage through the castle is dim, sensed by few and walked by only one. Flagg knows the way well. In four hundred years, he has walked it many times, in many guises, but now the passage serves its true purpose. Through the spyhole it conceals, the court magician observes King Roland - old, weak, yet still a king. Roland's time is nearly over, though, and young Prince Peter, tall and handsome, the measure of a king in all ways, stands to inherit the realm.
Yet a tiny mouse is enough to bring him down, a mouse that chances upon a grain of Dragon Sand behind Peter's shelves and dies crying tears of fire and belching gray smoke. A mouse that dies as King Roland does. Flagg saw it all and smiled, for now Prince Thomas, a young boy easily swayed to Flagg's own purposes, would rule the kingdom. But Thomas has a secret that has turned his days into nightmares and his nights into prayed-for oblivion. The last bastion of hope lies as the top of the Needle, the royal prison where Peter plans a daring escape...
Writing with the wit and power that have enthralled millions, Stephen King has taken the classic fairy-tale form and transformed it into a masterpiece of fiction that will captivate readers of all ages.
Stephen King says, "Although I had written thirteen novels by the time my daughter had attained an equal number of years, she hadn't read any of them. She's made it clear that she loves me, but has very little interest in my vampires, ghoulies, and slushy crawling things.
"I sat down one night in our western Maine house to start this story, then called The Napkins. Eventually the tale was told, and Naomi took hold of the finished manuscript with a marked lack of enthusiasm. That look gradually changed to one of rapt interest as the story kidnapped her. It was good to have her come to me later and give me a hug to tell me the only thing wrong with it was that she didn't want it to end.
"That, my friends, is a writer's favorite song.
"I respected my daughter enough then - and now - to try and give her my best... and that includes a refusal to 'talk down.' Or put another way, I did her the courtesy of writing for myself as well as for her."
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