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 Seeing as how there are a few King threads currently active in the Book Barn already, I decided to go ahead and make one specifically for the Dark Tower series since it pops up fairly regularly anyway. This is only my 2nd OP ever so be gentle. This thread is pretty much about whatever people want to talk about relating to the Dark Tower. Want to vent/praise King for how he ended the series? Do it here. Have a plot-related question? Here. Criticisms about the self-insertions in later books? Aqui. I would ask that spoilers be used on the major major stuff in the thread so as not ruin it for people working their way through the series or new readers who are just checking out the thread because they've heard of the series. Although I will say if you are still reading the books or want to know about them then you might want to exercise caution as I am sure many of the posts will be from people already done with the series. But just as general info about the series for newbies who still want to read this thread and a little catch-up for everyone, and because it makes my post longer, I'll put some stuff here. 1: What's the Dark Tower? The Dark Tower is a series of 7 books by Stephen King as well as a literal tower within the series itself. King himself has said that series is his magnum opus and it took him over 30 years to write. 2: Seven books? drat. What are they? 1: The Gunslinger 2: The Drawing of the Three 3: The Waste Lands 4: Wizard and Glass 5: Wolves of the Calla 6: Song of Susannah 7: The Dark Tower 3: Ok, seven books about a tower. What's the big deal? The big deal is that the Dark Tower encompasses all of creation. Not just the world in the book, our world. Yours and mine, the real world. Stephen King's world. Plus whatever other alternate dimensions may be out there. The Dark Tower is basically the most important thing....ever. 4: Oh, so its like a sci-fi series with alternate dimensions and poo poo? Well, no. At heart, its really more of a Western, I guess. But it mixes many other genres such as sci-fi, romance, terror, drama, and religion among others. Its not easily classified. Each book is markedly different from the other. In fact, you can trace King's writing style as it changes throughout the series because there were gaps of a few years between some of the books. For instance, The Gunslinger reads totally differently than The Waste Lands. 5: Alright, popular book series, lots of genres, but who's in it? The main character is Roland Deschain, AKA Roland of Gilead AKA Olan. He is the titular Gunslinger. A combination of sheriff, knight, diplomat, and Clint Eastwood, his only goal in life is to reach the Dark Tower. That's him in the picture up top. I dont want to put too much about him because half the fun is learning about Roland as you go. 6: OK, Roland. Don't tell me he's the only character for 7 loving books. Oh my, no. There's a cast of dozens, probably hundreds. I won't list anymore here so as not to spoil surprises unless discussion in the thread warrants it, but trust me when I say you'll get to know a lot of people very closely. 7: I'm not much of a reader. Can't I just watch a movie? Yes, you can. Just not one about the Dark Tower series. There always seems to be some talk about making a movie or more probably a mini-series, but nothing has come to fruition so far. The last I've heard, JJ Abrams, of Lost and Cloverfield fame, had expressed interest in tackling the project. 8: Is there ANY way to enjoy the story without all the troublesome reading? Well, there is a graphic novel telling the story. It's by Marvel and is under King's "supervision." I've read the first few and the art is very good. However, it really cuts out lots of story in the ones I've read, probably because you can't have a 400 page comic book. I can't speak for later volumes, but the ones I read do a decent job of trying to cover everything. But, they cost like 15 bucks each. Just be a man and buy the paperbacks for 8.00 and get the whole story. In addition, thrawn527 helpfully pointed out that the series is available as an audiobook for those who find it easier to use that. He also said we could make fun of him for "not really reading" the books if we so desired. So go ahead, I guess. 9: So what is this "ka" in the title? Ka is basically destiny in the series. For example, Roland's ka is to find the tower and climb to the top. But its not that simple. Ka has a wide variety of meanings in the books so I'll just stick with the easy answer for now. If you want to learn all about it, read the series. 10: My friend says there are different versions of the book. Is he right? There aren't different versions, per se. Covers change periodically and the series has been re-released with a new introduction by King. What your friend probably means is that King went back and re-wrote parts of The Gunslinger since it was written so early in his life and he thought the tone was far too different from the following books. Also, King changed certain references because they weren't fitting into the later books. Whether the original or the re-write is better is a matter of some debate between fans. For the record, I prefer the original. 11: Any other stuff I might want to know? Sure! First off, there are cross-references throughout nearly all of King's book relating to the Dark Tower. Character names, locations, and proper nouns make cameos in lots of King's non DT books. You don't need to read his other books, but its kinda cool for the people who can make sense of the references. Also, there is a short story called The Little Sisters of Eluria that shows Roland earlier in his quest than the main books. Check it out. 12: OK, it all sounds pretty cool, I guess. I'd like to start talking. So how are you gonna end this post? Well, I guess I'll end by showing you the very beginning of the whole thing... The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed. oldpainless fucked around with this message at Apr 26, 2010 around 21:06 |
| # ? Apr 26, 2010 06:07 |
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| # ? May 20, 2013 05:33 |
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Nice OP. I love the Dark Tower series, I just wish there were more of them to read! Also, Stephen King posted:The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed. is like, the greatest opening line for anything ever.
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| # ? Apr 26, 2010 08:00 |
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Great first post, and I will defend to my dying day the Gunslinger is one of my favorite books. (Read the unedited and updated version if you wanna be one of the cool kids.  )Spoilering: Just going to get it out of the way, but he wrote himself into a corner when he wrote the last book. I realize that he said he was going to finish them, but at the rate he churned those out and included himself even in the books just was not what anyone wanted, you shouldn't have to put a warning before the ending saying the ending sucks but the other books were good right?
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| # ? Apr 26, 2010 09:18 |
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The first four books were great, but the last 3 aren't worth jack poo poo. I actually prefer to finish the series at the end of Wizard & Glass, rather than read the others and be reminded why I hate them. Any goons here who've read the comic 'prequels' btw?
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| # ? Apr 26, 2010 12:29 |
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I have "The Fall of Gilead", it's pretty good. Too bad it's the only one I could find.
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| # ? Apr 26, 2010 12:42 |
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I'm reading this series for the first time now (don't worry, I won't bitch about spoilers since I've already had most of the major events spoiled for me) and I'm a little over halfway through The Waste Lands and loving it. So thanks for this thread! And yeah, I've heard that the series starts to suck pretty soon, but I'm up to date on the Wheel of Time, so I know a thing or two about reading mediocre entries just to find out how it ends.
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| # ? Apr 26, 2010 13:48 |
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Hemp Knight posted:Any goons here who've read the comic 'prequels' btw? Just the first one. It does a pretty good job condensing Roland's story from Wizard and Glass. The narration boxes are sharp and sometimes funny and the artwork is fantastic. My one complaint was that the characters' personalities don't really shine through. Also, people who haven't read the books would have a hard time figuring out what's going on in places.
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| # ? Apr 26, 2010 14:16 |
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I like this series, and really love the first three books. There's a lot of things to complain of in the last couple, but the thing that I found really disappointing is just how anticlimatic the Red King (did I remember his name right?) resolution was.
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| # ? Apr 26, 2010 15:42 |
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I finished this series recently and was excited to learn that King is planning a new book set between Wizard and Glass and Wolves of the Calla titled The Wind Through the Keyhole, although he's not planning to start working on it until the middle of 2010. I enjoyed the books, and thought it was much better with the "optional" epilogue that has Roland entering the tower. For those that have read this epilogue, I have a continuity question. How do you reconcile the story from Wizard and Glass with the Tower "resetting" Roland to the Mohaine Desert with the addition of the Horn of Eld that Cuthbert dropped before the events of The Gunslinger? We learn that the roses surrounding the tower are actually the tower in other worlds, so if we accept that the series is always set in King and Roland's keystone worlds then Jake's "there are other worlds than these" can't ever work to explain this. Is the Patek Philippe pocket watch spinning backwards meant to show us that the Tower controls the timeline?
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| # ? Apr 26, 2010 16:24 |
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I heard Father Callahan shows up later. I will get reading. Casimir Radon fucked around with this message at Apr 26, 2010 around 18:25 |
| # ? Apr 26, 2010 18:12 |
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Just letting people know I added a little bit to the OP. Also, feel free to let me know if you think it can be improved. Comments and suggestions are appreciated.
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| # ? Apr 26, 2010 18:22 |
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oldpainless posted:8: Is there ANY way to enjoy the story without all the troublesome reading? Don't forget the audio books. It's how I'm going through them (I have a long drive to work, so sue me. And make fun of me for "not really reading" them if you want, I'm still enjoying it and getting the whole story) and they're great versions. The guy who does books 2-4 (I think that's all he did, I haven't gotten through all of them yet) is fantastic. His voices aren't silly, but actually really good. The other reader for the other books isn't as good, but still lends a great element to the series. thrawn527 fucked around with this message at Aug 16, 2010 around 13:01 |
| # ? Apr 26, 2010 19:16 |
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There's at least one Dark Tower short story as well, title is "Little Sisters of Eluria." It's set pre-first-book, so it has that old-west-gothic vibe that made the first volume so great, with little to no silliness. My personal opinion . . . the Dark Tower series should have been one book, the first book. The only original vision or quality writing in the whole series is in the first novel. That was new, that was original -- a brilliant mix of gothic horror, westerns, and science fiction. It's a classic of modern fiction and everyone should read it. Everything after that was cliched poo poo, a horrible mass of worn-out cliches and discarded Star Trek plotlines. Suddenly we aren't reading a post-apocalyptic horror novel; we're reading a silly fantasy story With Real People From Earth, Just Like You And Me In It, and every remote trace of believability is utterly pissed away. Then, later, everything turns into King Arthur. King can come up with great ideas for novels, but he doesn't know when to stop writing. The Stand is another good example -- the first half of it is a pretty great horror novel, the second half is a grotesquely bad pile of cliches (how many King books have a magical black person in them?) Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at Apr 26, 2010 around 19:33 |
| # ? Apr 26, 2010 19:18 |
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I'm sure you all know it, but the original source of the work is Robert Browning's "Childe Roland to Dark Tower Came" which can be found at http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/%22Ch...k_Tower_Came%22 The opacity of this work is what has kept me from trying to track down the King version and read it. drat I just looked at that poem again, I seriously have no clue. Dude could make an academic career with papers on that bitch.
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| # ? Apr 26, 2010 20:05 |
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Doesn't "Eyes of the Dragon" also take place in the same mythos? I've never gotten around to reading it, but there you go. Edit: Wikipedia tells me that it's more of Flagg being a douchebag. Dude just doesn't know when to quit. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eyes_of_the_Dragon)
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| # ? Apr 26, 2010 20:22 |
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thrawn527 posted:Don't forget the audio books. It's how I'm going through them (I have a long drive to work, so sue me. And make fun of me for "not really reading" them if you want, I'm still enjoying it and getting the whole story) and they're great versions. The guy who does books 2-5 (I think that's all he did, I haven't gotten through all of them yet) is fantastic. His voices aren't silly, but actually really good. The other reader for the other books isn't as good, but still lends a great element to the series. I put a note in about the audiobooks for you.
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| # ? Apr 26, 2010 21:06 |
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oldpainless posted:I put a note in about the audiobooks for you. ...I suppose I deserved that.
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| # ? Apr 26, 2010 21:14 |
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KelsoTimebomb posted:Doesn't "Eyes of the Dragon" also take place in the same mythos? I've never gotten around to reading it, but there you go. God no, Eyes of the Dragon is just dribble.
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| # ? Apr 26, 2010 21:17 |
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When I was in 8th grade and started really getting into King, The Gunslinger sounded awesome and I read it and it was. I quickly found cheap used copies of the next few books (I believe this was just after five had come out) and plowed straight through two and three. Four. Four four four. It took me the better part of a year to read through four. I have the last three books on my shelf and I just have not been able to get back into the series, which is a shame. I mean, I know the books go down markedly in quality but man, that fourth book really throws off the pacing of the series.
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| # ? Apr 26, 2010 21:24 |
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I just finished the wastelands and so far the series is loving awesome. I hope the remaining books aren't as bad as everyone says they are!
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| # ? Apr 26, 2010 21:31 |
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RCarr posted:I just finished the wastelands and so far the series is loving awesome. I hope the remaining books aren't as bad as everyone says they are! Get ready for a snore-fest. I'm not much of a reader, but The Gunslinger and The Waste Lands are among my favorite books ever. I read through books 1-3 in a span of a couple of weeks. Then I hit Wizard and Glass and stopped. The book was boring as hell and I just can't motivate myself to finish it. Are the comics that cover the events in this book a good substitute? Am I okay to read those and then continue with Wolves of the Calla? I already bought all seven books, but 5-7 have been sitting on my shelf untouched for about four years now v  v
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| # ? Apr 26, 2010 21:51 |
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Mak0rz posted:Get ready for a snore-fest. It's been a few years since I read it, but if I remember correctly you can pretty much skip Wizard & Glass if you want. There's a bit with Roland & Co. at the very end and that's pretty much it. I didn't care for it either. (I also liked Wolves of the Calla though, though that's probably just due to having read a lot of King previously.)
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| # ? Apr 26, 2010 23:11 |
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Just from the few replies in the thread, its already easy to see how pretty much everyone seems to really like the first half, is divisive about the 4th book, and the last half is almost universally reviled by those who read it or ignored by people who got soured on the 4th book. I really love The Gunslinger, its my 2nd favorite. The tone and setting is just so sparse, especially for a King book. There's comparatively little dialogue for King and I love the ending of the book high up in the cave. I'm not so much a fan of the 2nd as focus shifts somewhat away from Roland toward the three he is drawing. I was interested in Gilead and a decent portion of the book is dedicated to a world I'm already familiar with. The Waste Lands is without a doubt my favorite in the series. We get to explore much of Roland's world and get to learn the mythology behind the Beams and just why the Dark Tower is so important. A good chunk is in our world but the two stories manage to parallel each other nicely. Plus, the Doorkeeper. And Lud was just a fascinating place to me. When I first read Wizard and Glass, I couldn't stand it. I really did not like the book and was pissed that King spent 600 pages on Roland's childhood fuckbuddy. We had just finished the awesome sequence with Blaine and crashed into a world reminiscent of The Stand with some references to the Crimson King and now we waste a whole book? I mean, we know Roland lives, lets get on with it! But when I reread the book, I enjoyed it. In fact, it has become my third favorite in the series. I honestly urge people to give it a second chance and read for its imagery and the little town King manages to infuse with life. As for the fifth, it reminded me of The Waste Lands in the beginning with the ka-tet making their way through a strange land. But here is where I think King's greatest problem as a writer really begins to surface. He loves to leisurely characterize amd create a flesh-out locale. And that's fine, but not when we are 60% through a series of books. It seems like SO MUCH TIME is wasted on things nit related to Roland and his quest. This remains a problem for me throughout the series in that King seems to spend 10 pages describing what could be said in 2. The sixth....I'm not even gonna waste time. It is by far my most hated book in the series. The 7th has the aforementioned long drawn-out writing style I spoke of in the fifth. But its even worse because now we are so close to the end but its like King keeps throwing up roadblocks for no loving reason. That said, there are large portions of the book I loved that touched me on an emotional level. Anyone who finished the book probably has a part that made them cry or even several parts. The ending, like Wizard and Glass, has a love-it or hate-it mentality for people and I'll not spoil it here. But I will say I am glad I took the journey and on some days, when everything seems to be perfect, I can imagine Roland's world with the sun in the sky and the smell of gun-leather.
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| # ? Apr 26, 2010 23:47 |
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The Wastelands is the only book I've ever read that made me sit on the edge of my seat. I loved books 2-4 (and I loved book 4 a lot because I have three friends who are totally like Roland, Alain, and Cuthbert), but I think I need to reread The Gunslinger since I read through it quickly and couldn't remember anything. Wolves of the Calla was soooo drawn out that I couldn't even continue with books 6 and 7 for like 3 years, when I finally gave in and got them on audiobook. Although I can't think of any other way the series could end like it did restarting all over again, they were incredibly disappointing. That said, I recommend this series (with a warning about 5-7 sucking) to friends. 
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| # ? Apr 27, 2010 00:17 |
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Be warned - King is notorious for lovely endings, and the ending of Dark Tower is perhaps the most monumental letdown ever. It was pretty much, "I'm sick and tired of this project, time to end it". That said, the characters are generally tremendous in true King fashion, and no matter how lovely the writing gets, you develop such an emotional connection to Roland's quest that you just keep reading. As the above poster mentioned, it's worth reading simply because it has by far the best opening line in all of literature. Ever. Also, perhaps the most tear inducing scene, ever: "The bumbler did not bite, but said a single word. "Olan," said he. Then he lowered his head, uttered a single sigh, and died. Edit: Oh, and I thought W&G to be absolute poo poo. I pretty much skipped it all. Mr.Brinks fucked around with this message at Apr 27, 2010 around 00:34 |
| # ? Apr 27, 2010 00:26 |
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Just popping in to say that I honestly think that Wolves of the Calla is the second best book in the series after The Waste Lands. (The Gunslinger is the third). I will never get tired of defending Wolves of the Calla - I loved the wild west setting, the sense of impending doom that the approaching wolves had, the creepy poo poo with the lobotomized kids, and Father Callahan's flashbacks were a hell of a lot more interesting than Wizard and Glass. Also I thought all three of the death scenes from the final book were extremely well written. I read the first two comic prequels and thought they were absolute poo poo, do the later ones get better?
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| # ? Apr 27, 2010 00:41 |
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Chairman Capone posted:Just popping in to say that I honestly think that Wolves of the Calla is the second best book in the series after The Waste Lands. (The Gunslinger is the third). I will never get tired of defending Wolves of the Calla - I loved the wild west setting, the sense of impending doom that the approaching wolves had, the creepy poo poo with the lobotomized kids, and Father Callahan's flashbacks were a hell of a lot more interesting than Wizard and Glass. I really enjoyed Wolves of the Calla. It had great setting, and perhaps most importantly, completely and utterly showed how hosed up the world had become.
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| # ? Apr 27, 2010 00:43 |
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Mr.Brinks posted:I really enjoyed Wolves of the Calla. It had great setting, and perhaps most importantly, completely and utterly showed how hosed up the world had become. This right here. And the reason books 6 and 7 sucked was that they lacked this sense of bizarre "otherness", which saturated the rest of the series. They were just too pedestrian. And the self insertion, obviously.
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| # ? Apr 27, 2010 01:05 |
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Hemp Knight posted:Any goons here who've read the comic 'prequels' btw? I've been ordering the HC collections off of Amazon, and I love 'em. Can't wait for the Jericho Hill one...partially because it means we're just that much closer to the main storyline 
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| # ? Apr 27, 2010 01:07 |
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Mr.48 posted:This right here. And the reason books 6 and 7 sucked was that they lacked this sense of bizarre "otherness", which saturated the rest of the series. They were just too pedestrian. And the self insertion, obviously. I actually liked 7 a decent amount if you ignore the ending and what happens to Mordred. And by that I mean the sublimely anti-climactic death. I might have been okay with it had the King been really cool, but he was not. I felt like 6 was a bit waste of time though. And are the comics worth it? I looked through the very first one, and the art was really cool, but I don't really want to get them if they're just a rehash of W&G. edit- Mr.Brinks posted:Edit: Oh, and I thought W&G to be absolute poo poo. I pretty much skipped it all. Have you tried reading it since the first time? The first time I read it I hated it, but when I went back and read it again I liked it a lot.
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| # ? Apr 27, 2010 01:13 |
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Wizard and Glass really pissed me off, and it was a few years after it came out that I was able to force myself to plod through it. As an earlier poster said, it was just Roland reminiscing about his first love and a bunch of wangst, after being dropped into this crazy post-apocalyptic world. It was pointless. I wanted more Flagg. I wanted more of the Crimson King. Of the seven, my favourite is the Wastelands and the part of Wizard and Glass when they're still on the train, because it's pretty damned terrifying in parts - the things the party sees as they travel through mid-world are just so loving weird. Wolves of the Calla was good in parts, although I was less than impressed with Doctor Doom and the Golden Snitches. The selfinsert really, really pissed me off, and the revelation of the Crimson King was really, really underwhelming for all that he'd been built up as some entity of endless evil and power. eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. God dammit, eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. As for the very end, I was actually pretty happy with it and I don't see how else he could have ended the whole affair.
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| # ? Apr 27, 2010 01:22 |
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Mad Hamish posted:and the revelation of the Crimson King was really, really underwhelming for all that he'd been built up as some entity of endless evil and power. eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. God dammit, eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. I was actually ok with the King's final portrayal, as its pretty clear throughout the book that while the Crimson King was once a powerful entity the same madness that has driven him to start the whole process of destroying the Tower is also rendering him senile and useless. I mean we have the whole episode of him slaughtering his own court. I could totally buy him as a great sorcerer so consumed by madness and obsession with the Tower (much like Roland) that it no longer even enters his mind to do anything more fancy than throw poo poo and yell.
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| # ? Apr 27, 2010 01:58 |
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Thanks for making the thread! I listened to the audiobooks, 1-7 over about a month and a half at work earlier this year. As thrawn527 said, the guy who did the earlier books is a great narrator, and it was really sad to hear about him getting in a motorcycle accident and basically ending his career. The second guy is okay but not as good. If nothing else, pick up book 3 (or 4, has it in the recap IIRC) and skip to the part where Roland gets tired of Blaine's bullshit and tells him off. It's one of the most   moments in fiction reading (err, listening) I've had.The Gunslinger is actually the first King book I've been exposed to (not out of snobbery, I'm just not a horror reader), and I was really impressed with the quality of the prose. He seems to get dismissed as a hack by a lot of people, but the guy can actually put a sentence together when he wants to. The other books didn't seem quite up to par in that department, although I could be misremembering the audiobooks. I liked Wizard and Glass kind of against my own expectations. I was prepared to be annoyed by a trip down memory lane stalling the more interesting ongoing plotline, but as the story progressed I liked it more and more. I guess a lot of my negative expectations came from already knowing the outcome (although I was part wrong: I expected Cuthbert and Alain to die in that book), but it was still a pretty decent story and Roland and his friends were compelling characters. For whatever reason I find the Gilead and pre-Gunslinger setting/stuff really interesting, although to be honest I think a lot of it is just the fact there's so much left unknown and your imagination just has to fill in the rest. Probably best left that way, I'm not going to read any loving comic books. Eddie's constant, cheesey "here's my contemporary American perspective on something in Roland's world" joking really grated on me. I don't think I really stopped actively hating him until Wolves of the Calla. Cuthbert was still 1,000x better the comic-relief sidekick. Wolves of the Calla I didn't mind but I could see the books/King kind of reaching the peak of the arc it described as it jumped the proverbial shark. Book 6 I kind of gritted my teeth through (if you think reading about Mia's chap is bad, try listening through it), 7 was a bit anticlimactic with the Crimson King reveal but as far as the overall ending I liked it. I really liked the old man with the cabin, and how well tied in with the original Browning poem, but to me it really underscored how brilliant the series could have been, but ultimately wasn't as a whole.
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| # ? Apr 27, 2010 03:46 |
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I thoroughly enjoyed Wizard and Glass, at least partly (paradoxically) because it was fairly predictable. I rather liked most of the characters, I knew what was going to happen, who was going to live,a nd who was going to die, and I also knew that there wasn't a damned thing I could do about it. There was such a sense of fatalism about watching the events unfold despite a desperate wish that they'd be otherwise that really sucked me into it. As for var1ety's spoilered question: as each of those roses represents the Dark Tower, I think the presence of Horn of Eld indicates that even though this isn't The End there will be an End eventually. There are a nigh infinite number of worlds, and there is no reason that which ones are keystone worlds couldn't change with time. This has all happened before, and it will all happen again. Basically, each time Roland goes through the journey to the Tower he becomes a little more human, the changes being during the portions of the journey that happen during the books. Look at his attitude in The Gunslinger and in the Dark Tower. The man changed a hell of a lot. On this trip he he changed into a person that would have retrieved the Horn, so in the next iteration he gets to have it with him. Eventually, he will make it through all the trials with Jake, Eddie, Susannah, and Oy all alive and able to move on to another world together. More importantly, he will arrive at the Tower, defeat the Crimson King, and his entrance to the Tower will be exactly as it was in his dreams. He will be able to climb every floor and look into every room (instead not being able to bear the memory of his own actions). When that day finally comes, he will be able to step through the Final Door and all things will be at an End. That's my two cents, anyway.
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| # ? Apr 27, 2010 04:39 |
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I must really be in the minority, because I don't hate half the stuff most people seem to. I really enjoyed Wolves of the Calla, for one, and I actually kinda liked the end. The "confrontation" with the Crimson King, and the quick and stupid way Flagg died, yeah, those were lame. (uh how much actually needs to be spoilered here? Personally I'd say if you haven't finished the series by now but intend to, gently caress off and come back when you're done and can talk about it, but whatever) And book six? I don't remember much good about it. Seven, though, for the most part I enjoyed. As far as Wizard and Glass goes, well, I'm glad I read through it all since it provides some context and a decent story in its own right, but when I re-read the series I'm just gonna skip over the backstory. I'll read the drat comic instead. I do love the comic series so far. Hands up who has or is considering a Ka-symbol or Eye of the Crimson King tattoo. The Eye's on my shortlist of what I want done soon.
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| # ? Apr 27, 2010 07:18 |
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I just finished reading the Tower a couple of weeks ago. At first I found the ending kind of jarring, but over time I've come to quite like it actually. I can't understand how anyone could dislike Wizard and Glass. Susan and Roland are a little annoying occasionally, but it's a great story. Cuthbert and Alain are so much more badass than Eddie and Susannah too.
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| # ? Apr 27, 2010 09:17 |
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Diet Poison posted:Hands up who has or is considering a Ka-symbol or Eye of the Crimson King tattoo. The Eye's on my shortlist of what I want done soon. poo poo, that's a great idea. Might even get one myself. As for Wizard & Glass, surprised a lot of people don't like it. Perhaps it was slow, but it set the scene, the love story was pretty touching, and if you didn't get a little misty eyed at the bonfire bit, you have no soul. 
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| # ? Apr 27, 2010 10:12 |
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Woodstockington posted:I can't understand how anyone could dislike Wizard and Glass. Susan and Roland are a little annoying occasionally, but it's a great story. Cuthbert and Alain are so much more badass than Eddie and Susannah too. Because it's a book about young reckless gunslingers and it takes them 400 pages before they fire a single shot.
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| # ? Apr 27, 2010 13:10 |
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Just wanted to say that this thread has convinced me to go pick up a copy of The Gunslinger and dive right in.
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| # ? Apr 27, 2010 14:00 |
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| # ? May 20, 2013 05:33 |
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W&G is basically a side story. its hundreds of pages of characterization for roland that isnt really necessary and actually breaks down some of the mystique king built up about him. that being said I think its one of the better written parts of the series. I cant stand the wolves of the calla. after 500 pages, mounting dread becomes an annoying buzz and the anticlimactic end just kicks you while youre down. (Though I really just dont like westerns so maybe thats a part of it) I honestly cant even remember song of susannah besides MAH CHAP the whole 6th and 7th books are a nauseous blur thanks to the awful pace that Calla set up. I may be one of the few people on the planet that thinks the ending was perfect though.. basically the only way he could have ended it. It really nails home the despair that is Roland, thousands of years old but not even middle aged, witnessing the same misery over and over and never truly remembering enough to keep from repeating it. In my mind I imagine how many times the King and Roland had played out that very same battle at the tower. Maybe once upon a time it was a fight to end all fights but after the thousand times, even if they dont truly remember, the memory lives on in their souls and they're just weary of fighting.
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| # ? Apr 27, 2010 15:09 |
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