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King's Quest #1
The Floating Castle
The peaceful world of Danventry is shattered by a vicious storm that precedes the arrival of an evil mage who steals the king's soul, prompting Prince Alexander to banish the evil forces from the kingdom and save his father. Original.
304 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published July 1, 1995
6 people are currently reading
122 people want to read
About the author
Craig Mills
17 books1 followerCraig Mills (b.1955), the author of four fantasy novels beginning with The Bane of Lord Caladon (Del Rey, 1982). Mills studied acting in college and acted on stage in New York for four years before moving to California and taking up his writing career. In addition to four original fantasy novels, he also wrote the gaming tie-in King's Quest #1: The Floating Castle. Although Mills attended conventions in the San Francisco area, he was quiet and may not have been known to many.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
December 23, 2024
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
I am SO sad that this is out of print.
I loved every single melodramatic, sarcastically sassy, delightfully described page of this short, fast, hysterical book.
To be entirely fair, I might be biased: I know these characters already. I *like* these characters. The book doesn't have to work to earn my interest. And yet. It does a surprisingly good job of showing rather than telling. It shows Graham being the good and noble king with fears and frustrations that he can tamp down in the name of his rule. It shows Alexander being a good prince who is a little at odds with his father but still loves and respects him, and who wants to go do actiony things despite having royal responsibilities. It introduces, it explains, it carries. It has the bones of a strong fantasy tale beneath it. Which, for a money grubbing video game adaptation novel, is Hilariously Unexpected and Deeply Enjoyable.
There's no character arc here. No one grows from the King's Quest set (because they aren't allowed to--they still have a video game universe to inhabit, and if there's any growth to happen, it's gonna be in said games). Some of the freshly-invented characters have very tiny and basic arcs: nothing to blow open the awards cabinet.
The language is melodramatic and purple prose'd to the point where it actually hurts to read ("The force of the impact had knocked the wind from him; his body responded by sucking up a mouthful of stagnant water and aspirating most of it into his lungs. He began to cough." OR "One after the other, he freed his legs from the imprisoning blankets and jerked them over the side of the bed."). However, that's actually half the charm of the book. Somehow in the second half it *clicks* and works in its favor. The character dialogue gets so ludicrous and the scenarios get so wild that the flowery fantasy prose seems like it's been intentionally dragged onto the page, staked down by that purple torture crystal, and made to squirm while the author laughs hysterically somewhere behind his clunky Compaq, tapping out on whatever the 1995 equivalent of Microsoft Word was.
Even better, sometimes it gets so melodramatically purple that it phases through the rainbow and becomes deliciously lyrical.
This book is EXTREMELY episodic. You're blitzed from scene to scene so abruptly you're going to get whiplash. The entire segment of hearing about, catching, "taming," talking to, and shooing away a kelpie takes like, what, four pages? It's amazing. Still, if you can keep up, you'll find lush fantasy forests, dark castle dungeons, accurate castles (kitchens and keeps and stables and murder holes and antechambers oh my!), and one very disgusting swamp.
The characters are fun--though your opinion on how creative they are is going to vary. It's Hero, Schmendrick, King (McGuffin for most of the book), Princess, Villain, and frog. It's as canned as you can get, but their interactions are grand. They're delightfully sassy at each other regardless of scene or tension. (Villain tries to get hero to dialogue with him on the nature and value of good and evil. Hero doesn't give more than one word in response. So GOOD.) The secondary characters are as entertaining as the KQ cast: they're allowed to shine while sharing the space with their famous companions, not crowding or overwhelming (or underwhelming, for that matter). It feels natural to have them here. They could easily inhabit the game universe and no player would feel any qualms.
If there's anything rough about it, it's that some of the "puzzles" and item-gathering (included to make this feel more like its game counterpart) feel unfair, contrived, or even mildly laggy, but it's a small quibble. If this was a game, you'd be inching along the bridge to line up with the kelpie bubbles before throwing the apple from your inventory into the river. Just go with it.
It hits every fantasy highlight you could care to name, from every Lord of the Rings rip-off (lembas, ringwraiths, watcher-in-the-water, oh my!), to sneaking into castles while hidden in barrels, to turning into frogs. All coated in a shiny, oil-slick shimmer of purple prose. It's a ball of tropes that knows it's a video game adaptation, that knows that you're reading it because of the names on the cover, and that decides to go full nuthouse with it.
This is not a deep book. It's junk food for your brain. It's a cash-grab novel. It is a JOY.
Also, Graham is such an insufferable flirt with Valanice that my heart actually hurts reading about them.
(Please someone agree with me that the bearded knight in Daventry's court is a Brian Blessed joke.)
Check my review of the sequel, Kingdom of Sorrow, here.
And the third in the trilogy, See No Weevil, here.
Aaaand review of the novelized walkthroughs, games 1 - 6, here.
With review for novelization game 7, here.
Other reviews from other reads under spoiler tags:
I am SO sad that this is out of print.
I loved every single melodramatic, sarcastically sassy, delightfully described page of this short, fast, hysterical book.
To be entirely fair, I might be biased: I know these characters already. I *like* these characters. The book doesn't have to work to earn my interest. And yet. It does a surprisingly good job of showing rather than telling. It shows Graham being the good and noble king with fears and frustrations that he can tamp down in the name of his rule. It shows Alexander being a good prince who is a little at odds with his father but still loves and respects him, and who wants to go do actiony things despite having royal responsibilities. It introduces, it explains, it carries. It has the bones of a strong fantasy tale beneath it. Which, for a money grubbing video game adaptation novel, is Hilariously Unexpected and Deeply Enjoyable.
There's no character arc here. No one grows from the King's Quest set (because they aren't allowed to--they still have a video game universe to inhabit, and if there's any growth to happen, it's gonna be in said games). Some of the freshly-invented characters have very tiny and basic arcs: nothing to blow open the awards cabinet.
The language is melodramatic and purple prose'd to the point where it actually hurts to read ("The force of the impact had knocked the wind from him; his body responded by sucking up a mouthful of stagnant water and aspirating most of it into his lungs. He began to cough." OR "One after the other, he freed his legs from the imprisoning blankets and jerked them over the side of the bed."). However, that's actually half the charm of the book. Somehow in the second half it *clicks* and works in its favor. The character dialogue gets so ludicrous and the scenarios get so wild that the flowery fantasy prose seems like it's been intentionally dragged onto the page, staked down by that purple torture crystal, and made to squirm while the author laughs hysterically somewhere behind his clunky Compaq, tapping out on whatever the 1995 equivalent of Microsoft Word was.
Even better, sometimes it gets so melodramatically purple that it phases through the rainbow and becomes deliciously lyrical.
This book is EXTREMELY episodic. You're blitzed from scene to scene so abruptly you're going to get whiplash. The entire segment of hearing about, catching, "taming," talking to, and shooing away a kelpie takes like, what, four pages? It's amazing. Still, if you can keep up, you'll find lush fantasy forests, dark castle dungeons, accurate castles (kitchens and keeps and stables and murder holes and antechambers oh my!), and one very disgusting swamp.
The characters are fun--though your opinion on how creative they are is going to vary. It's Hero, Schmendrick, King (McGuffin for most of the book), Princess, Villain, and frog. It's as canned as you can get, but their interactions are grand. They're delightfully sassy at each other regardless of scene or tension. (Villain tries to get hero to dialogue with him on the nature and value of good and evil. Hero doesn't give more than one word in response. So GOOD.) The secondary characters are as entertaining as the KQ cast: they're allowed to shine while sharing the space with their famous companions, not crowding or overwhelming (or underwhelming, for that matter). It feels natural to have them here. They could easily inhabit the game universe and no player would feel any qualms.
If there's anything rough about it, it's that some of the "puzzles" and item-gathering (included to make this feel more like its game counterpart) feel unfair, contrived, or even mildly laggy, but it's a small quibble. If this was a game, you'd be inching along the bridge to line up with the kelpie bubbles before throwing the apple from your inventory into the river. Just go with it.
It hits every fantasy highlight you could care to name, from every Lord of the Rings rip-off (lembas, ringwraiths, watcher-in-the-water, oh my!), to sneaking into castles while hidden in barrels, to turning into frogs. All coated in a shiny, oil-slick shimmer of purple prose. It's a ball of tropes that knows it's a video game adaptation, that knows that you're reading it because of the names on the cover, and that decides to go full nuthouse with it.
This is not a deep book. It's junk food for your brain. It's a cash-grab novel. It is a JOY.
Also, Graham is such an insufferable flirt with Valanice that my heart actually hurts reading about them.
(Please someone agree with me that the bearded knight in Daventry's court is a Brian Blessed joke.)
Check my review of the sequel, Kingdom of Sorrow, here.
And the third in the trilogy, See No Weevil, here.
Aaaand review of the novelized walkthroughs, games 1 - 6, here.
With review for novelization game 7, here.
Other reviews from other reads under spoiler tags:
June 29, 2019
SUCH a treat to read this! I love King’s Quest, especially Alexander, so I loved that he was the protagonist. A must if you’re a fan of the games, like I am. There’s humor, wit, magic, and excitement.
June 27, 2020
This rating is undoubtedly biased because I grew up playing the King's Quest computer games, but it was an enjoyable and light read. It followed a predictable format--seemingly impossible quest, with frequent obstacles overcome more by luck than skill. Still, I was left wondering for a long time how Prince Alexander was going to complete the quest, especially when more and more demands were placed upon him.
The big criticism of this book is that it could take place anywhere with any royal family--it has no specific references to Daventry except for the castle and the four members of the family (and a very brief mention of Alexander's past). In the games, characters are confronted by witches, enchanters, trolls, hags, etc. None of those exist here--the long walk through the woods is fairly uneventful (in fairness, there are a couple of creatures along the way, including one near a food cart that is a highlight of the book). I was hoping to catch a reference to places in the Daventry landscape among the long, detailed descriptions--walking past the ruins of the candy house, admiring the beanstalk reaching up to the clouds, stopping by the woodcutter's hut for a bowl of stew, or even just crossing the River Fools. It would take a bit of suspension of disbelief to accept the woodcutter's hut a fair distance from Castle Daventry, but the book already stretches the kingdom to at least a two-day walk, so I don't think this would be problematic.
The book expands upon the Daventry stories, even if it's not tied to any aspect of the games. It had a few creatures that were interesting and described well, and there was enough suspense to keep me interested. I probably wouldn't have ever read it if it wasn't for the King's Quest connection, but it was a fun way to branch out in my reading selections.
The big criticism of this book is that it could take place anywhere with any royal family--it has no specific references to Daventry except for the castle and the four members of the family (and a very brief mention of Alexander's past). In the games, characters are confronted by witches, enchanters, trolls, hags, etc. None of those exist here--the long walk through the woods is fairly uneventful (in fairness, there are a couple of creatures along the way, including one near a food cart that is a highlight of the book). I was hoping to catch a reference to places in the Daventry landscape among the long, detailed descriptions--walking past the ruins of the candy house, admiring the beanstalk reaching up to the clouds, stopping by the woodcutter's hut for a bowl of stew, or even just crossing the River Fools. It would take a bit of suspension of disbelief to accept the woodcutter's hut a fair distance from Castle Daventry, but the book already stretches the kingdom to at least a two-day walk, so I don't think this would be problematic.
The book expands upon the Daventry stories, even if it's not tied to any aspect of the games. It had a few creatures that were interesting and described well, and there was enough suspense to keep me interested. I probably wouldn't have ever read it if it wasn't for the King's Quest connection, but it was a fun way to branch out in my reading selections.
December 26, 2012
I had the pleasure of having many of the Sierra titles on our family computer growing up, I think its likely that Space Quest 3 was the first video game I every played. So I was happy to see this Kings Quest adaptation for sale at the local used book store. Prince Alexander has to find an evil magician by journeying across Daventry, where adventure and danger wait for him.
This was the first fantasy book I've read and I found it be be easy to read & enjoy, but maybe a little too much so. Although I have fond memories of reading this book, I was expecting something a little more challenging.
This was the first fantasy book I've read and I found it be be easy to read & enjoy, but maybe a little too much so. Although I have fond memories of reading this book, I was expecting something a little more challenging.
June 19, 2013
Prince Alexander and his new friend Cyril venture forth to save the soul of King Graham. This first volume is very much written in the style and humor of the games. It makes for a nice explanation of things in the time between games, such as the scorched oak tree, and there's more reappearing characters than just the royal family.
If you're a King's Quest fan you'll enjoy it quite a bit, if you're just a general fantasy fan its a good introduction to the land of Daventry. Too bad it seems to be a rare find.
If you're a King's Quest fan you'll enjoy it quite a bit, if you're just a general fantasy fan its a good introduction to the land of Daventry. Too bad it seems to be a rare find.
February 23, 2014
A pleasure to read, with some truly lovely prose. The characters are familiar and well-captured - I appreciated some of Alexander's snark, and liked his interactions with the other characters, especially Cyril. Also enjoyed the thought the author put into Alexander's thought processes while figuring out the castle's "puzzles" - it actually read at points like an adventure game, which considering the source material, was pretty spot-on. While there aren't too many surprises or twists, it's a solid and artful supplement to the King's Quest universe, and I highly recommend it to any fan.
March 3, 2020
If you like King's Quest and you want to go on one more adventure with the royal family of Daventry, this is great!
Don't expect high literature here, but it's a fun read you can blast through pretty quickly.
Don't expect high literature here, but it's a fun read you can blast through pretty quickly.
May 2, 2013
Loved it. Review to come.
Read
September 11, 2018DNF for me. I couldn’t get into the story - it was almost too simple. I really wanted to love it, but it wasn’t happening.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews