Paul's Dark Tower Page!

The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed.

Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger by Stephen King

This page is about The Dark Tower series of novels, some of my favorite books. I'll go into why I like these works, but I won't go into that much detail. Email me or go to my livejournal if you want to get in touch with me for a deeper discussion on the books

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    • The Dark Tower Series by Stephen King

    1. The Gunslinger

      2. What can I say about the first book in this great series? This book is amazing for several reasons. It blends aspects of the American Western, fantasy, mythology, science fiction and horror into a poetically written flourish. This is the book that introduces the main character of the series - The Last Gunslinger, Roland Deschain. Roland is on a quest to reach the Dark Tower, the lynchpin to an infinite number of universes. The first step to the Dark Tower is to catch up to the Man In Black, which is Roland's mission throught this book. Along the way, Roland must be heroic and villainous, kind and brutal, light and dark. This book also introduces Jake, a young boy that the Gunslinger meets from our world. BTW, I'm speaking of the original version of this book, not the Revised edition. I liked the Revised edition because it clears up a few things and ties in more to the rest of the series, but the Revised version loses some of that poetic quality that I mentioned. The language, particularly the dialogue, is plainer, which works, but the descriptive parts of the writing would have been fine if they were left alone. That's my opinion, anway.

    2. The Drawing of the Three

      3. The second book in the series begins hours after the end of The Gunslinger. Roland wakes up on the Western Beach alone (I won't tell you what happened to Jake before Roland finally catches the Man In Black). Well, actually, Roland isn't alone. Giant lobster monsters, dubbed "lobstrocities" by SK, have snuck up on Roland, and he doesn't escape the ensuing scuffle unscathed. And then things get even worse. Roland eventually finds a door standing on the beach. This door leads to our world, circa 1988. Roland must draw a man named Eddie Dean into Roland's world in order to help in the quest for the Dark Tower. Unfortunately, Eddie happens to be a heroin junkie stuck on a plane with bags of heroin tapped to his armpits. The second door leads to the 2nd and 3rd future members of Roland's quest. They just happen to be different personalities in the same woman's (Odetta Holmes) body. The third door leads to Jack Mort, a man who has a habit of pushing things off onto people or pushing people in front of things. Mort's connection to Odetta and to the boy Jake from the first book will send shiver's up the reader's spine.

    3. The Wastelands

      4. This is the book where Roland begins training Eddie and Susannah, who is the combined personalites of Odetta Holmes (don't ask, just read The Drawing of the Three, 'kay?). It's also the book where SK really begins to explain more about Roland's world and how it works. A breakthrough finally occurs when Roland and the group find one of the Beams, a kind of gravitational force/path that leads straight to the Dark Tower. Along the way, Roland tries to hide the fact that he is going insane because of his encounter with Jack Mort from the previous book. At the same time, in our world, circa 1977, the boy Jake is also going insane. The only way to save both Roland and Jake is to draw Jake back into Roland's world. They succeed, but their happiness is short lived. The group, Roland, Eddie, Susannah, Jake, and Oy (a dog/racoon hybrid that Jake picks up as a pet) must have a run in, and on, with Blaine, the super computer/insane monorail train. Blaine agrees to take the group to a town named Topeka. Along the way they will have a riddle contest. If Roland and the group loses, Blaine will kill them all. And that's how it ends. Oh, and regular SK readers will recognize just who makes a cameo near the end of the book to help out the Tick Tock Man. It made me a happy man to read it.

    4. Wizard and Glass

      5. This book opens with the resolve to the Blaine cliffhanger (although readers had to wait about six years in real time). After finishing with Blaine, Roland and his ka-tet find themselves in Topeka, Kansas. But this Topeka has been ravaged from the Superflu (read The Stand, or go to my second book page, for information about that nasty bug), and has slight differences than the Topeka the readers (and Eddie, Jake, and Susannah) are used to. Blaine passed through a "Thinnie", an unstable portal between universes, during the trip, and Roland's group ended up in a universe very much like ours, one that had been hit by the Superflu. The group moves on, and eventually come to a Yellow Brick Road that leads to an Emerald City (yes, you read that right). Before getting to the Emerald City, however, Roland tells the ka-tet about a time he encountered another "Thinnie". This is the real highlight, and selling point, of this entry. The readers get the revelation on who Susan, Roland's first and only love, was and the circumstance around his meeting her. This was more insight into Roland's past that SK had ever given the readers, and it's worth the wait. Roland tells them that the day after he became a Gunslinger (detailed in what is probably my favorite part of The Gunslinger), Roland's father sent him and his best friends (and Gunslinger trainees), Cuthbert and Alain, into the west for their protection. You see, Roland's society was in the middle of a civil war between the forces of the Gunslingers, the ruling aristocracy and "defenders of the White", and the forces of John Farson, "The Good Man" who had no problem plotting the poisoning of a town's children to serve his own means. The boys go to Hambry, the seat of the barony of Meijis, and Roland falls in love with the girl Susan, who has been promised to the Mayor of Hambry by her aunt. However, Roland also finds enemies, most notably the Big Coffin Hunters, and he discovers a plot by Farson supporters in the town. And there's a "Thinnie." It all comes together in two tragedies that made Roland into the obsessed, driven, and sad man that he is.The book climaxes with Roland's group travelling to the Emerald City, and having a little conflict with the familiar SK character that had a cameo in The Wastelands.

    5. Wolves of the Calla

      6. Released around Thanksgiving of 2003, this book was eagerly anticipated by Dark Tower fans. Stephen King had claimed retirement by this time, but promised that he would release the last three of the Dark Tower books. If he didn't, I'm sure a riot would ensue. This novel is less epic in scope compared to the previous few entries, but the story is much tighter and focused. It doesn't hurt that the plot to this book is a retelling of the plots of the Seven Samurai and The Magnificent Seven films, which fit in well with the characters of the Dark Tower series. In the village of Calla Bryn Sturgis, twins are very common. Unfortunately, every generation or so, riders who wear green cloaks and wolf masks come out of the west, from the Thunderclap (the dividing land between Mid-World, where most of the series has been set, and End-World, where the Dark Tower lies) and take one member of every set of twins they come across. Months later, these abducted children return, mentally damaged, and they eventually grow into giant sized adults before dying painful deaths at an early age. Even more unfortunately, in the opening of the book, Andy the Messenger Robot, who putters around the Calla, reveals to the townsfolk that the Wolves are coming soon. Some want to fight, but most are afraid to. Until, that is, the old preacher of the town, reveals that he knows that a group of Gunslingers are near. So, Roland and the others agree to protect the Calla from the Wolves. That's the main plot, but three major subplots are also showcased in this novel. One concerns the pregnant Susannah. The problem is, the baby may not be Eddie's (Eddie and Susannah have been together since the end of the second book). It might be a demon's baby. That always throws a kink in one's plans. The other subplot deals just what's buried underneath the preacher's church and how it can help, or destroy, the Gunslingers. The last subplot deals with the old preacher himself. He's actually from Eddie, Susannah, and Jake's world. His name is Father Callahan. He's also actually from SK's novel, Salem's Lot. That becomes important in later parts of the books when the group comes across a copy of Salem's Lot, which chronicles what happened to Father Callahan in every detail. This subplot is just beginning here, but it will loom large in the next two books. It's a wicked idea, at least if King is able to pull it off.

    6. Song of Susannah

      7. My friend Chris and and I picked up our copies of this book the day it came out. By the time I had gone to bed that night, I was just under halfway through. By the next night, I had finished. This book is good, but very different from the other ones in the series (not that that's a bad thing, mind you. Roland's ka-tet has been broken up due to the events that occured in The Wolves of the Calla. Susannah, controlled by personality named Mia, has disappeared into the New York of 1999 in order to have the child she (they) are having. Roland, Eddie, Jake, and Father Callahan all want to save her, but they must also save Calvin Tower (don't worry, it makes more sense if you actually read the book). Through the quirks of ka Jake and Father Callahan get sent to 1999 to save Susannah, and Roland and Eddie end up in 1977 Maine. With three different storylines, the book loses the cohesion that made Roland's group, and the books great. However, it's worth it when SK starts to give the readers more information about the Dark Tower and what is exactly in Susannah's belly. I liked the fact that SK returned more to the actual quest for the Tower, which had been more on the back burner after the story of Susan taking up most of Wizard and the battle in Calla. And the subplot of Roland and the others just being characters in a Stephen King book comes to the forefront, with some thought provoking information. Only Jake and Callahan really suffer from the split narratives in the novel. They're only in one chapter of the book, and I would have liked some more time with them since they're going into a situation that seems to be a suicide mission for them. The dual endings are killer, and, maybe for the first time in the series, I don't think things are going to turn out so well for Roland. Cue ominous music.

      Click on the pic for more info on the final Dark Tower novel (Beware of Spoilers!)

    7. The Dark Tower (Coming September 21, 2004)

      8. This is it, people. The final installment of the series. Who will live? Who will die? Will any live? What's the deal with SK himself being in the story? What happens to Jake and Father Callahan, to Susannah/Mia, to Eddie? What happens when Roland is finally confronted by Mordred, Susannah/Mia's son (see Song for the reasoning behind Mordred's name...it's a kicker). Will Roland finally reach the Dark Tower, and will he be able to keep it from falling? We should find out here.

    8. The Little Sisters of Eluria

      9. This is a novella about an adventure Roland had before the events of The Gunslinger. Roland comes to a deserted town with only lunatic and a dog as its inhabitants. Roland gets injured and comes under the "care" of the Little Sisters. Roland eventually learns the horrific true nature of the Sisters and has to escape and destroy them. I enjoyed this novella, and it was good to see more of Roland's adventures. I think it'd be ineresting if SK were to do more novellas like this one, chronicalling more of Roland's past. There is so little that has been revealed to the readers, except for parts of the The Gunslingers and the story of Susan that takes up Wizard and Glass. You can find Sisters either in the anthology it first appeared in, Legends (it's in the first volume of the paperback edition, which split the large hardback into three parts), or in SK's collection of short stories, Everything's Eventual.

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