BRYAN SMITH: The hapless driver of the minivan that struck Stephen King on June 19, 1999. By writing about him in The Dark Tower, King reinforces the feeling he had after the accident that he had somehow been struck by one of his own characters.
THE CRIMSON KING: Roland’s adversary tries to gain access to the Dark Tower, but is denied entrance. Taking up a position on a balcony outside the Tower, he tries to ward off the approaching gunslinger with explosives called, à la Harry Potter’s “snitch,” sneetches. The Crimson King is rendered harmless by Patrick Danville, who draws a picture of him, then erases it, except for the King’s glowing red eyes. Those eyes remain hovering over the balcony where the King once stood.
THE DARK TOWER: Once Roland enters the structure, the meaning of the book’s subtitle, “Resumption,” becomes clear. After witnessing bits and pieces of his life on various levels of the Tower, Roland finds himself at its peak, ready to resume his pursuit of the man in black across the desert. It is clear he has lived this quest many times, but always lost the Horn of Eld in the battle that wiped out all of the other gunslingers. This time, however, he has managed to retain the Horn, and so perhaps with the Horn and the benefit of the hard lessons he’s learned, Roland may finally find peace.
THE DARK TOWER: TRIVIA
• The creature called Dandelo survives by consuming the misery of others and is a trickster who appears to his prey as a kind of distorted clown. King has said publicly that Dandelo and Pennywise the Clown from It are not one and the same. However, it seems likely that the two are in some way related, at least as the same sort of creature.
• The robot, “Stutterin’ Bill,” is quite reminiscent of the character from It, and though the connection is never explained, it is there nevertheless.
• Turtleback Lane, where the story’s King has his vacation home in Lovell, Maine, clearly gets its name from Maturin, Guardian of the Beam, the Turtle who legend says carries the world upon his back. In addition, that home is called Cara Laughs. The main action of King’s Bag of Bones takes place in a similar vacation home named Sara Laughs, clearly an alternate-reality version of the same structure.
8
THE EYES OF THE DRAGON
(1982)
The Eyes of the Dragon is a strange addition to the canon of Stephen King. It is a book for young readers, though older audiences will be no less entertained. As the story goes, King’s daughter, Naomi, complained to her father that he never wrote anything she would want to (or be allowed to?) read. Thus, King set out to do just that, and dedicated the book to both Naomi and to Ben Straub, son of his longtime friend and twotime collaborator, Peter Straub. Indeed, the Ben and Naomi characters in the book are quite obviously named after the then-children the tale was dedicated to.
This novel is a fairy tale, told in a serious and yet somehow whimsical voice. It is a story of long ago, a story told at bedtime, perhaps. It has magic and kings and clever princes, intrigue and poisons and brave young girls.
The Eyes of the Dragon is the story of a kingdom and two young princes, Peter and Thomas. When the court magician, the evil Flagg, kills their father, he arranges for it to appear as though the elder prince, Peter, did the deed. Peter is a shrewd young man, and he would have inherited the throne and like as not tossed Flagg out of the kingdom of Delain moments after being crowned.
But Flagg prepared for that eventuality. He cut Thomas, the younger prince, out of the pack. Thomas has always felt that in their father’s eyes he could not live up to his older brother’s example. Flagg plays on that until Thomas is almost entirely his creature. When Peter is framed for the king’s murder, though Thomas knows it is Flagg who is responsible, the younger brother does not make any attempt to help the elder.
Thomas becomes monarch, and Peter is imprisoned at the top of the Needle, a narrow tower that stands at the center of the kingdom. Peter forges an ingenious and extraordinarily patient scheme to escape—a plan that could only be found in a fairy tale. He uses the tiny working loom in his mother’s old dollhouse, and a small number of threads stolen every day from the napkin that comes with his lunch, to weave a lengthy rope. It takes many years to complete, of course.
When the time finally comes for him to make his escape, he has help from some of those who still believe in him. At the same time, Thomas is at last tired of living with the horrible guilt of what he knows, and has determined to defy and hopefully destroy Flagg. In the end, the kingdom is at peace once more, with Peter as ruler, and his friends Naomi and Ben live “happily ever after.” Thomas and Dennis (who had been his butler) go out across the land in search of Flagg, who escaped. They are determined to find him and put an end to him once and for all. The results of that quest are not revealed in the story (though the boys’ hunt for Flagg is referred to in the Dark Tower series).
There are many interesting facets of this story. Primary among them is this: though Thomas shares the role of protagonist with Peter, and it appears to be a narrative in which the younger brother, falsely made monarch, will rise to the occasion and make all things right, Thomas does not emerge the hero. The account does not follow that path, but remains, in Thomas’s case, a rather sad one. He may share the role of protagonist, and he may be the one to turn the tables on Flagg, but he is not a hero.
There is no doubt that Eyes is fashioned as a fairy tale. However, it is also far more than that. Not only does it contain a number of adult elements, including a discussion of the sexual practices of the ruler of Delain, but it also has strong ties to the rest of the Stephen King Universe, links that have become stronger as time has passed, and additional material has been added to the fabric of the tapestry King has created.
The most obvious of these is Flagg. The author’s most ubiquitous villain, Flagg also appears in The Stand (1978) and the Dark Tower series (1982–2004), specifically, and in several other places as well (though disguised), including 1999’s Hearts in Atlantis. Interestingly enough, though we first spotted him (or at least, first know him) as the Walkin’ Dude from The Stand, in Eyes it is revealed that he has spent a great deal of time in this world. He has returned, for many decades at a time, century after century, to plague the kingdom of Delain.
Why Delain? What is its special fascination for Flagg? Readers are given insight into this in volume seven of the Dark Tower series, where King explains that it was Flagg’s hometown.
Thomas and Dennis, and their quest in pursuit of Flagg, are mentioned by Roland in the Dark Tower series, but that is not enough to be 100 percent certain that Roland’s world and the world of Eyes are one and the same. The author went to great length to establish that certainty, however, and only recently. For the 1998 novella collection Legends, he penned an entry entitled The Little Sisters of Eluria. Therein, Roland the Gunslinger meets a boy who is from Delain, a kingdom Roland knows of, and that he expects to pass through on his quest.
As such, one could very easily look at The Eyes of the Dragon as a segment of the Dark Tower series, a part of that story just as important, if not more so, than such other “linked” works as The Stand (1978), Insomnia (1994), and ’Salem’s Lot (1975).
THE EYES OF THE DRAGON: PRIMARY SUBJECTS
PETER: The older son of King Roland of Delain, he becomes king briefly upon his father’s death, only to be framed for the murder by Flagg. He spends years as a prisoner, until his own ingenious plan for escape and his friends’ determination to free him combine to not only give him liberty, but to reveal Flagg as the true villain.
It is presumed that Peter is still king of Delain.
THOMAS: The younger son of King Roland, Thomas is disaffected and jealous, and is manipulated into becoming Flagg’s puppet after his brother is imprisoned. Thomas proves to be a very poor king, but he eventually rebels against Flagg, almost destroying him in vengeance for the murder of King Roland. When Peter again becomes ruler and Flagg flees Delain, Thomas and his former butler, Dennis, set off after the wizard in hopes of destroying him once and for all.
It is unknown whether they ever managed to catch up with Flagg, though the sorcerer himself is now dead.
FLAGG: An ancient wizard, possibly a demon, Flagg has existed for millennia. He has plagued Delain time and again for much of that time. His latest scheme in the kingdom involved his killing of King Roland and his plot to frame the king’s son, Peter, so as to control the kingdom and bring about its ruin through his manipulation of Peter’s younger brother, Thomas.
Flagg’s plan eventually fails, and he flees the kingdom.
He continued to plague others across many worlds until he was slain by Roland of Gilead.
KING ROLAND: Once the king of Delain, Roland was good, but not very bright. He was the father of Peter and Thomas. His wizard and adviser, Flagg, plotted against him, and finally murdered him. No relation to Roland of Gilead.
DENNIS: The son of Brandon, Dennis is born into service to the royal family of Delain. As Brandon was King Roland’s butler, so Dennis is butler first to Peter, and later to Thomas. When Peter is eventually freed, Dennis joins Thomas on his quest to find and destroy Flagg.
They remain on their quest.
BEN STAAD: Though not of a noble family, Ben Staad is King Peter’s best friend as a child, and throughout their lives. He is one of the prime movers involved in the effort to free Peter from the Needle. Eventually he marries Naomi.
It is presumed that he yet lives in Delain, and remains the king’s close friend and confidant.
NAOMI REECHUL: The daughter of a noble family who have fled Delain in fear of Flagg, Naomi becomes part of the effort to free Peter from the Needle, and falls in love with Ben Staad along the way. They are eventually married. It is presumed that she still lives in Delain.
ANDERS PEYNA: Once upon a time, Peyna was the Judge General of Delain. It is he who, upon seeing Peter crying at news of his father’s death, thinks those tears imply guilt in the king’s murder, and orders a trial. But Peyna comes to believe that he may have made a mistake, and is instrumental in helping to free Peter years later.
It is presumed that Anders Peyna still resides in retirement somewhere in Delain.
SASHA: The queen of Delain, she is the mother of Peter and Thomas, but dies giving birth to her second son. Her death is no accident, but, rather, is engineered by Flagg.
NINER: A dragon slain by King Roland, whose head is displayed upon the wall of the king’s private chamber. There is a secret passage behind the wall from which one can see into the chamber through the dragon’s eyes.
THE EYES OF THE DRAGON: TRIVIA
• In The Eyes of the Dragon, King mentions a witch named Rhiannon of the Coos. Much later, in Dark Tower IV (1997), we are introduced to a nasty, vicious witch called Rhea of the Coos. In the 1998 novella The Little Sisters of Eluria, Roland thinks about Rhea “and her sisters,” yet another link to tie Eyes to the Tower.
• King mentions that Flagg is reading from a book of darkest magic, bound in human skin, which was written by a “madman” named Alhazred. This is an obvious nod to horror grandmaster H. P. Lovecraft, whose own book of darkest magic, the Necronomicon, was also supposedly written by a madman named Alhazred.
9
THE TALISMAN
(1984)
It’s a mind-bending endeavor, attempting to incorporate The Talisman into the Stephen King Universe. In some ways, it should not be done at all. The simple fact that King did not author the book alone, but in full collaboration with his friend and colleague Peter Straub—a masterful writer in his own right—should disqualify the novel. But given that its sequel, Black House, ties the events of this book closely to The Dark Tower series, it must be included herein.
What that means is that by virtue of the logic we’ve followed throughout this volume, the entire works of Peter Straub could conceivably be connected to the SKU as well. Of course, that is a sort of mysterious logic that King has employed in his fiction. We could continue: since Straub has a character in his novel Mystery who is essentially the Shadow, we might include all of the early Shadow pulps as well.
Obviously, we must draw the line somewhere. Logic dictates that it be drawn cleanly between the two authors of this novel. So, while King and Straub coauthored The Talisman, it will be in its relation to the overall Stephen King Universe that we address that work, and only in that context.
The Talisman, for all its classic Americana—a King trademark—is a quest novel in the grand fantasy tradition of such fiction. A teenager named Jack Sawyer discovers that his mother, Lily Cavanaugh, is dying of cancer. Almost simultaneously, however, he encounters Speedy Parker, an elderly African-American blues musician turned maintenance man. Parker reveals to Jack that he has a destiny that could lead him to find a cure for his mother’s ailment.
Jack is supposed to travel across the country, from coast to coast, to find the mystical icon known as the Talisman. It is an object of extraordinary power that contains within itself a sort of microcosm of all time and space. With it, Jack can cure his mother. In his travels, Jack is able to “flip” back and forth between the “real” world and a place called “the Territories,” a parallel reality in which there are many people who are doppelgangers—or “twinners”—of people in Jack’s world.
The queen of the Territories is also dying, for she is Lily Cavanaugh’s twinner.
Traveling in both worlds, Jack must retrieve the Talisman and bring it home. In that way, it is also a classic journey. The authors are at pains to reveal that one of the major inspirations for the book is the work of Mark Twain, the classic American novelist. Twain’s Tom Sawyer (1876) and Huckleberry Finn (1885) are clearly the precedents upon which this book is dependent. Jack’s last name, after all, is Sawyer. The novel ends with a quote from Twain. And Lester “Speedy” Parker begins as a character who might easily have been torn from the pages of Twain’s stories.
Twain is not the only literary influence, however. It seems that the authors thought to throw in a bit of Charles Dickens as well. His Oliver Twist (1839) shares certain elements with the sections of The Talisman in which Jack and his friend Wolf are forced to become “guests” at a home for wayward boys called the Sunlight Gardener Home. The way the older boys treat the younger, or more recently arrived, kids, and the way Gardener deals with the local authorities, is quite Dickensian in nature.
Indeed, there are a great many classic elements in this novel, right alongside the very new, the very Straub, and the very King. Among the elements that are “very King” is all the talk of multiple dimensions and the thinning of certain places between them. Although in The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger (1982), it was clear that Jake had come from another, parallel world, it was not until much later, after The Talisman, that the concept of “thinnies” or places where the barriers between dimensions are worn down and can be traveled through began to show up. And yet this idea plays a significant role here.
Even more significant, however, is that this was the place where King (with Straub) first explored in earnest the idea of infinite dimensions. This has become not only a fundamental building block of King’s work ever since, but the major premise for the book you now hold in your hands.
Moreover, beyond Jack’s universe and the Territories, The Talisman also contains thinly veiled references to the Dark Tower. The place where the Talisman is located, and which only people who are unique in the multiverse (as is the Talisman) can enter, is called “the black hotel.” But when Jack touches the Talisman and the world around him rapidly shifts through hundreds of variations, one of those permutations seems to be the Dark Tower of Roland’s world.
In essence, The Talisman is a book about youth, hope, and innocence.
THE TALISMAN: PRIMARY SUBJECTS
JACK SAWYER: The son of a Hollywood agent and a movie starlet, Jack Sawyer led a pretty privileged life in California. Even as a child, though, strange things happened around him. He registered them, but they didn’t have any impact for some time. His father, Phil Sawyer, died, and later, his mother, Lily Cavanaug
h Sawyer, brought him to Arcadia Beach in New Hampshire, to an old hotel called the Alhambra, where Jack learns that his mother is dying of cancer.
There, in New Hampshire, Jack meets a man named Lester “Speedy” Parker, who reveals to him (or, more accurately, reminds him of) the existence of a place called the Territories, an alternate, almost medieval dimension. Jack learns that there are people in the Territories who are essentially alternate versions of people in the “real” world. Speedy calls those people “Twinners.”
Jack’s twinner, Jason, was the son of the queen of the Territories, Laura DeLoessian, but Jason was killed very young, due to the machinations of the villainous Morgan of Orris. Jack soon learns that Queen Laura is also dying.
Spurred on by Speedy, and his fear for his mother, Jack sets off on a quest to retrieve a magical Talisman, which Speedy tells him will save the lives of both of his “mothers.” Meanwhile, his father’s former business partner, Morgan Sloat, has been working to control the Territories for years, and now tries to prevent Jack from retrieving the Talisman.
The Complete Stephen King Universe Page 8
