Gunslinger awesomeness!! The Gunslinger blew me out of the water and this one was if possible even better! Stephen King is so good at people..I know he goes on a bit at times, but I have to tell you this book was just amazing! I used whispersync and the audio version on this was absolutely superb. Who would have thought a 'lobstrosity' could be so horrifying? Dud-a-chum? ‘Dod-a-chock? Brilliant!
If you haven't picked up The Dark Tower yet, you really need to give it a chance. Genius!

***The quest for the DARK TOWER continues***

n  n

Beginning mere hours after the events of the The Gunslinger, Roland Deschain wakes from his bizarre encounter with the Men in Black Man in Black to find himself on a strange beach. Before he can even get his bearings, he's attacked by n  Killer Crabsn the Seafood from Hell in the form of ginormous, ill-tempered (though wonderfully delicious) “lobstrosities.” After a near fatal encounter with the vicious entrees, Roland finds himself seriously injured and feverish from infection. Slowly and painfully Roland begins to make his way across the beach as his health rapidly deteriorates.

While trekking across the massive beach, Roland separately encounters 3 strange doors. Each door is inscribed with a different name matching tarot cards the appeared during Roland's earlier encounter with the Man in Black. The doors appear to be standing in the middle of nowhere with nothing behind them. In fact, they are each a passageway to a New York City very similar to our own.

Roland’s investigation of these doors (each leading to a different year), his introduction to 2 of the 3 members of the group that will journey with him throughout the rest of the series (i.e. his “Ka-tet”) and the events leading up to their joining Roland's gang comprise the balance of this book. I'll stop there as I think that's enough of a plot summary to give a good sense of the book...with one exception. That one exception is that I would be remiss if I did not mention that the shootout between Roland and Eddie on one side and [withheld to avoid spoiler] at [withheld to avoid spoiler] is among the best choreographed gunfights I can remember.

It's sweet, sassy and super and makes the book worth reading all by itself.

THOUGHTS:

I just want to make a few commnets on the importance of this book. As a whole, the Dark Tower is one of the most uniquely enjoyable and imaginative fantasy series I have ever read...probably the most. It's this book in which King’s truly epic vision of the rest of the series begins to form and take shape. I enjoyed the first book but it's easily my least favorite of the series and the one most disconnected from the rest of the tale. The sense of vastness was there only in hints and while I think King did an admirable job revisting "The Gunslinger" to correct some of the glaring inconsistencies between it and the later novels, it is still not up to the rest of the series.

With this story the multiverse begins to open up and the creeping hugeness of the plot begins to bloom. This story is actually my second least favorite of the entire series, but I would still need a slide rule and an abacus to calculate this book’s TOTAL NUMBER OF FUNTASTIC UNITS. It's just that the next installments are so saturated with magical awesome that they can't even be measured by existing technology and can actually cause bouts of hot flashes and tingling in the naughty bits.

Yes, they are that good.

However, it's with this book that the long, wonderful, magical, incredibly fun and wholly original journey of Roland and his Ka-tet is really born. I can not recommend this book or the series more highly and it gets my HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION!!!

5.0 stars.

P.S. As I mentioned in my review of the previous book, I have listened to all 7 of the Dark Tower installment on audio (the first 4 read by the late Frank Muller and the last 3 read by George Guidall). I believe that anyone who has read the books and not listened to these stories on audio is REALLY MISSING SOMETHING WONDERFUL. I think the quality of the reading truly enhances the enjoyment of the story.

In my awesome NJSK book club, we're reading through the Dark Tower series and related books. We started last month with The Gunslinger (because where else is there to start?) but THIS month is the one that I was waiting for. I absolutely love this book. It has long been a favorite of mine, and I was so thrilled to be able to go through the series again and discuss the book with a group of people who love King as much as I do, and have really interesting insights and thoughts to share with me. I love it.

The last time I read these, I listened to the audio, and while I love Frank Muller for these books (his Eddie is spot on fucking perfect), I wanted to read them with my eyeballs this time so I can really take in everything and absorb it. I tried to read these as if it was the first time - but of course that is impossible, because the whole series arc is so mindblowing and I can't help but see the connections in how each piece fits into the whole. I don't mean to say that the series is perfect, it's not. And especially the editions that I'm reading (Plume, illustrated) have quite a few errors and inconsistencies. But, nitpicking aside, this story is such an amazing adventure and experience. It has inspired me to get two tattoos already (and a 3rd is in the works), and it has changed my whole understanding of King's writing. That's a pretty hefty responsibility, but I think this series lives up to it. Not everyone does, and that's OK. But I'm not everyone, and I only care what I think. (I'm selfish like that.)

In my last review, I mentioned how brave I thought Eddie is - braver than Roland in some ways, and that still holds true. Here's what I said (and yeah, I'm plagiarizing my own review some because it's still true and I couldn't say it better now than I did back then, so there.)...

"I love Eddie Dean, I love his struggles and his heartache and his determination and his adaptability and his need - both for someone to need him, and to need someone for himself. He's brave - in ways, even braver than Roland, because Roland chose his quest knowing full well what it could mean, but Eddie didn't. Eddie had to choose with a cloudy mind, an aching heart, a different need, and nothing but the Gunslinger's word for what he was getting into. That takes a real courage to step blindly into that unknown."

Yep, that about sums it up. But I continued with...

"Odetta/Detta are brave as well, in a similar but more adaptable way, but unlike Eddie who DID choose, they weren't given a choice in anything. They are nothing if not adaptable though, each in their own ways, and when Susannah makes her appearance, they've all been down a long and hard road already, and still are only just beginning."

Which is an interesting point, and one I would like to elaborate on. (PS. I love how I talked about them as though they were two separate people. In a way they were - that's certainly how it felt to read them.)

Odetta is soft-spoken, liberal, educated, and kind. She is sheltered and naive and, in a way, an innocent. She is... kinda boring.

Detta is anything but. Detta is a piece of work. She's vicious and ruthless and fearless - well, not fearless, exactly. She does fear, but she doesn't let that stop her. It makes her go on the offensive and fight all the harder. She uses her fear as a weapon, and in that way, she is fearless. She relentlessly attacks her kidnappers, her rapists, the whitebread honk mahfahs that tie her up and hold her prisoner.

None of those descriptions are false either. (Well, 'whitebread honk mahfah' is maybe opinion. :P) but she WAS kidnapped, she was held prisoner, and if one defines "rape" as a removal of another's bodily autonomy, then she was raped, too. She was invaded, the very core of her being was violated, and she was forced, fighting tooth and nail, to do something she did not want to do. I think that qualifies as rape, regardless of whether there was a sexual aspect to it or not.

As I think about Susannah-to-be while I write this review, I actually find myself feeling quite sorry for her. Nearly everything that has brought O-Detta to the point where we meet her has been an act done against her. The brick. The train. The drawing. All of these things have been done TO her, without her permission. She was not given a choice. In one of the cases, when she was hit with the brick, she wasn't even aware that it was an intentional assault by a person, and further wasn't even aware of the changes that it caused inside her own mind - the splitting off of half of herself.

Detta is herself a rape. Every time she comes forward, she steals away Odetta's autonomy. The fact that she doesn't know that's what she's doing doesn't make it any less disturbing, it just changes WHY it's disturbing. She is a product of cruelty and malice, and it makes sense that her very existence would mirror those qualities.

While we were discussing O-Detta/Susannah at the meeting yesterday, I mentioned that I liked the fact that Odetta had to accept and understand and love the Detta part of herself in order to heal her fractured mind and become whole. Taking that a step further, one could say that Odetta has to learn to love her victim self - the one that is so hurt and embittered by the things which have happened to her that she hates the whole world and can't see any kind of goodness in it. She has to acknowledge the pain and fear and anger she's experiencing through her Detta half, and allow herself access to it and strength from it. And that's what she does. It doesn't change anything that has happened to her, but she is able to take on the knowledge of those things, stop hiding her victimized half away from her own mind, and grow as a whole person.

That is impressive for a single book's character arc. Even more impressive is that King wrote this at the beginning of his career. This insightful, powerful, and brave character is not born of a lifetime's worth of experience and knowledge, it's the product of a young career. And this is part of the reason why that career has stretched on for longer than I've been alive (longer by nearly a decade, in fact) - King is a damn good writer. He runs the gamut from shock and gross out to literary brilliance. Sometimes all in the same book. Like this one.

But it's more than that, because these books stand the test of time and experience. I loved Susannah previously. I thought she was a strong, adaptable, courageous woman who took the hand life had dealt to her and played it. But now, after reading some really amazing books on feminism, I see her in a completely new light. It's like I couldn't see the whole woman, but she was there waiting for me to open my eyes. I am under no illusions that I see all of her even now. My eyes feel half open and there's still more to see. And that's yet another reason that King has stood the test of time and continues his awesome career. He writes the kinds of characters that live on their own. Every time you read about them, they tell you something more about who they are. They grow with the reader.

This is the kind of stuff that makes me proud to be a Stephen King fan.

I could go on and on, but I won't. Suffice it to say that I love the characters in this book, and the way that they are brave enough to accept the bizarre and traumatic and keep moving forward.

The Drawing of the Three is a book that is so completely different in tone and feel from The Gunslinger that if not for the shared main character, one might think that they are completely unrelated. The Gunslinger has a bleak, monotonous feel. It trudges relentlessly on. But The Drawing of the Three is a nonstop action ride from almost the moment it starts. It feels modern, immediate, exciting, more in tune with the rest of King's pop-culture-filled books. Reading The Gunslinger is like reading a story about a man who was... but reading The Drawing of the Three is like reading about a man who IS, right here and now, as Wolf would say.

This book is really where the series starts to take off, it's where the story begins for the Ka-tet.. and I definitely include myself in there. I'm in for this journey to the end... whenever that might be...

Ricordo che, anche quando lo lessi la prima volta, mi era piaciutocmolto più del primo volume della saga. In effetti lo trovo un buon libro. Forse la trama scricchiola un po' qua e là. Forse, ogni tanto, King si concede qualche decina di pagine più del necessario, ma nel complesso la considero un buon libro. Sparge interrogativi, promesse, prospettive. Suscita curiosità. Approfondisce la figura di Roland a pizzichi, senza dir troppo. Spinge, insomma, ad andare avanti.

When I was in my teen years I have read the first books in this series and I wasn’t enamoured. I might be too young (I was probably about 13 back then) or this kind of story is just not my thing. But for all these years I was thinking about giving another chance to this series with so many positive reviews out there. But I was never in a right mood. Finally, two challenges pushed me to do it.

I admit that I’m still not a fan of this series. What can I say, I just don’t like those deep, deep books full of symbolism and innumerable layers. I read for pleasure and entertainment and I rarely search for any deeper meaning in my books. I completely understand why some people find this series so alluring. As for me, I don’t think I will ever be a fan of this kind of stories.

Still, I pretty like this book. And even I am amazed to what extent. I expected a lengthy struggle and instead it was a rather fast read. What’s more I enjoyed the plot and characters. I seriously hope they don’t die in some mindless manner at the very beginning of the next book.

And yes, to my utter surprise, I’m going to read the next book in this series. Maybe not right here and now, but I will do it for sure one of these days. And this time I won’t wait more than 15 years to do so. This book is still out of my comfort zone, but I’m doing exceptions from time to time. This may be one of those.

A great continuation from The Gunslinger. Serves up some good suspense while laying the foundation for the rest of series.

UPDATED
2024
Omg. Holy Crap! It's been too long. It feels like the best book I've ever read and I've read it three times now. It's been six or seven years since I read King. I'd forgotten.

I wanted to add this for other writers, or anyone interested in the working of "story." I write down things I see in stories, wherever they come from, whether TV shows, novels, movies, whatever. I learned a few things from this book by King:

1. Conflict- He uses conflict, starts with it and strings it through the whole novel, adding other conflicts to it, until the very end with the crisis ending all resolutions at once.

Beginning........................................................................................................................................................End
--Roland gets poisoned
-------------------Eddie threatens to kill him (part resolution with Odetta's arrival)
---------------------------------Detta wants to kill both of them
---------------------------------------------Detta's/ Odetta's conflict within herself
-----------------------------------------------------Third Door:
---------------------------------------------------------All conflicts resolved in Crisis

2.Passion/ Poetry- King writes with his whole heart and mind and life. He loves literature. He uses poetic description to express his passion, although in a subtle and well-balanced way. I think he may have read poetry for his writing, like Bradbury suggested in his book on writing.

3. Characters-
a. He gives POV from each one, even minor and supporting characters.
b. PLOTTING: He uses the motives and will of characters to move the plot. He lets THEM do it instead of plotting (planning).
c. I suspect he may have practiced by interviewing his characters or came up with ideas by character summaries, He makes each one feel personal, like he wrote it it first person in his mind but used a third person POV.

----------

This is the second time I have read this book. I loved it the first time, but it’s no lie that I loved it more this second time. I saw a few things from a different perspective this time. I laughed a lot more, seeing humor – a lot of humor – where before I must have been focused on the nostalgia of the Gunslinger. It made me laugh loudly several times. Also, I didn’t see the romance in it last time I read it. There is a romance story in this book. Yes, very unique and unpredictable, but romance nonetheless.
I was doing my economics homework yesterday and I was reading a chapter on multiple regression analysis. I was stacking my points in my head one by one, but my understanding was very shaky. I thought it was a lot like a house of cards, so frail and weak. That was when I understood some symbolism in the story. I thought of cards because one of the bad guys in the story is heading an illegal mafia rink and he is obsessed with building a tower of cards. In the end Roland has dialogue to those he has drawn about the quest. He says that everybody has a tower, a pursuit in life. Balazar’s pursuit was as frail and strong as a deck of cards. Roland crashed his tower.

[7/10]


- "What's on the other side of the door for me?" Eddie asked the gunslinger quietly. "Go on and tell me. If you can tell me, maybe I'll come. But if you lie, I'll know."
- "Probably death", the gunslinger said. "But before that happens, I don't think you'll be bored. I want you to join me on a quest. Of course, all will probably end in death - death for the four of us in a strange place. But if we should win through ..." His eyes gleamed. "If we win through, Eddie, you'll see something beyond all the beliefs of all your dreams."
- "What thing?"
- "The Dark Tower."

I wasn't bored, but neither was I exactly bowled over by this sequel to 'The Gunslinger'. The book is eminently readable, the tension maintained with consummate skill, the new characters intriguing and well fleshed out, the dialogues snappy and natural. There's even a couple of well rendered high adrenaline shotouts, some scary oversized lobster-monsters that justify the classification of 'western-horror-fantasy' for the series. What I'm still missing is the point of the quest. Why is Roland compelled to search for the Dark Tower? When will the blank spots in his backstory be filled out? When will we learn more about the world of Roland, why and how it moved on? Questions that remain largely unanswered at the end of the novel, making it a second, longer prologue to the main event that is still only vaguely defined, mostly in metaphysical terms. I want to see something 'beyond the beliefs of all my dreams', but so far I got a lot of posturing and marketing sales pitches, promises of later enchantment, if I only continue reading these Gunslinger books. I guess I will do it, I will give credit to Stephen King's promises and to the enthusiasm of his legion of fans, even as I cast a wary eye at the doorstopper size of these later installments.

Coming back to the present story, the plot is holding together much better than the episodic novellas included in the opening book. Roland needs some sidekicks to aid him in his quest to reach the Dark Tower, and some unknown entity or God is conveniently placing doors to the north of the beach that our gunslinger finishes his westward quest after The Man in Black. These doors lead to a parallel universe, a secondary world that is revelaed to be our own dear Earth, in particular New York City. The doors also mess up with the fabric of time, and Roland goes through the portals into three different timelines: 1987, 1964, 1977. I had to check online for the dates, I'm not sure they are spelled out like this in the book, but maybe a reader more familiar with American pop culture will have an easier task than me in placing the action correctly. I know that the sixties in particular are a fascinating, defining moment for King, as references to the Kennedys, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King and the drug counter-culture are recurrent themes in King's stories.

Anyway, the dates are less important to me than the people Roland is trying to recruit. I believe this is the one field where King is a true master : making the reader care and become invested in the fate of his fictional characters. The first door gets us into the mind of Eddie Dean, a young man in very big trouble, a drug addict that gets on the wrong side of a Sicilian dealer who uses Eddie's love for his older brother to turn him into a drug smuggler. King manages to transform this crook into a smart, loyal, considerate knight, a reluctant participant in the search for the Dark Tower that I hope will serve later as a counterweight to the more ruthless, cynical atitude that drives Roland.

"Only two choices here, Roland whispers. Don't know how it is in your world, but only two choices here. Stand and maybe live, or die on your knees with your head down and the stink of your own armpits in your nose. Nothing ..." He hacks out a cough. "Nothing to me."

Being a newcomer to the world of Roland (a blank slate), this Eddie Dean would make a useful literary device to let the reader learn more about this still generic country and about the backstory of our gunslinger. This opportunity is mostly wasted for now, as roland is very reluctant to release said information, and when he does he talks mostly in riddles. For example, Eddie wants to know what is 'ka' and why it is so important to Roland?

Here it means duty, or destiny, or, in the vulgate, a place you must go.

I may be thick skulled, but in another part of the novel 'ka' is equated with Roland's soul or conscience, the part of him that goes through the doors and leaves his physical body behind. So I'm still confused, as I am about the nature of the Dark Tower (a nexus of time and space, I believe was the description in the first book).

Second door gives us an even more troubled character, a woman of colour with a split personality. Odetta Holmes is a rich Park Avenue heiress with a sweet disposition and an active interest in the civil rights movement. But she has recurrent headaches that leave blank spots in her memory. She is completely unaware of her alter ego, Detta Walker, a bitter, violent, foul-mouthed, paranoic virago from the ghetto. Odetta/Detta is also a double amputee, victim of a random act of violence. Again, King is in top form making the transitions between the two aspects of this schizophrenic personality, using both women to advance the plot and crank up the adrenaline and even managing to introduce a romantic angle into his epic.

By the time we reach the third and last door prophesized by the Man in Black, the pace of the story has become a headlong rush into action, with split second cinematic cuts that grab the reader and refuse to let go before the last page is turned, no matter how late into the night it gets. The third 'recruit' comes to us like the previous two with a heavy psychological bagage, probably the heaviest, since his Tarot symbol is Death. Jack Mort is a socipath, a serial killer that we find out has already messed up with the fate of Roland and the others. How could he possibly be destined to be part of the search for the Tower? Well, you must read the book if you want to find out, it's not my place to give away all the salient points.

To finish with my review, after praising the characterization and the pacing of the story, I feel I have to include also the part that is bothering me. It has to do with free-will and pre-destination, with the use of prophecy and convenient plot devices (doors) that appear out of thin air. The construction so far feels contrived, forced, and still too vague.  In matters of the Tower, fate became a thing as merciful as the lighter which has saved his life and as painful as the fire the miracle had ignited. Like the wheels of the oncoming train, it followed a course both logical and crushingly brutal, a course against which only steel and sweetness could stand. . So, is Roland a rebel against the forces of entropy/destiny as he likes to refer to himself, or a puppett on a string for a cruel and mysterious master? I don't know, but I am probably going to read the next book in the series hoping for some illumination.

I wil say good-bye with a last example of Stephen King sneaky, yet effective marketing, a final repartee between Eddie and Roland:

- Are you going to get all of us killed? [...]
- We all die in time, the gunslinger said. It's not just the world that moves on. But we will be magnificent.

Roland is forging ahead determined to find the three people prophesied by Walter Padick at the end of  The Gunslinger. As the Universe in our hero's world seems to have a particularly twisted sense of humor, the gunslinger is given a heavy handicap at the beginning of the story. Some huge lobster-like monsters (a.k.a lobstrosities) bite off the first two fingers of his right hand, which puts quite a dent in his shooting skills

Threatened by both blood loss, as well as the constant chatter of monsters, Roland's quest seems to be getting more and more... sinister every step of the way. Not that it had been a walk in the park before, by any stretch of imagination.



I am still not entirely on board with the author's writing style, however the character development just blew my mind. Being rather impatient by nature, I always like to try and guess where the story and characters may lead the narrative thread. I tend to do exceedingly well with highly predictable genres (eg: historical romances), have the occasional success with murder mysteries, but miss the mark entirely when it comes to more complex world building and/or character development.

As I tend to get annoyed with predictability when it comes to anything other than the blindingly obvious, following Roland Deschain through the mysterious beach doors kept my mind locked in an epic story chock full of incredible action sequences, heart-breaking resolutions, liberally peppered with graphically horrifying slaughter scenes.



There were several dull sequences, generally courtesy of lengthy descriptive passages, that still caused the reading experience to drag significantly. However the sheer unpredictability of everything, along with the masterful character development couldn't really justify anything lower than a 4-star rating.

Score: 3.8/5 stars

Should you find the review incredibly vague, and maybe even a bit misleading, that is actually intentional. I even chose relatively pretty and nondescript pictures this time around, partly because I didn't wish to spoil the action unnecessarily, and partly because googling images for lobstrosities freaked me out... even in retrospect.

At this point, there are probably very few people (myself included) who may not know of/about the series' plot. Even so, I find that this proved to be an integral part of my... well definitely not enjoyment. How about sense of wonder? And I mean that in the most horrifying sense imaginable.

=======================
Review of book 1: The Gunslinger
Review of book 3: The Waste Lands

i’m not even going to rate this… i loved it at first half the book, meeting Eddie and Roland and Eddie interacting with each other. But when we meet Susannah… like that made me so uncomfortable, Stephen King cannot wrote black characters at all and like what was the point of using the N word with the hard R so many times?? like gotdamn at one point he said it 3 times in one sentence?? Why? also the romance between Eddie and Susannah was so bleh? i want to root for them but romance clearly isn’t Stephen King’s strong suit either.

Roland continues with his quest for The Dark Tower. While he was alone at first, he decides to have some company. He decides to have a drawing of the three. Three more people to be involved in his obsessive quest for the tower. Will he compromise the lives of the chosen ones, or will he make them better? The amazing quest continues in this second installment of the series.

Once again King introduced amazing characters. Right from the start I knew I was going to like Eddie Dean. He was this drug dealer who was unlucky enough to be chosen by The Gunslinger. He was not as difficult as Roland thought he would be. Honestly I'm shocked that he didn't feel weird about someone talking inside his head. The mere fact that paranormal things were happening and he didn't freak out made him a bit cooler than he already was. The plane scene and the one with Balazar are some of the few unforgettable scenes in this novel involving Eddie. Even his life story with his brother Henry was a really fun thing to read. I can't wait to read more of him in the next novels. There is something about drug dealers that aren't that cocky that I really seem to like. I guess they seem more realistic than drastically flawless characters. Eddie was flawed, but so was The Gunslinger. I think most people would agree that flawed characters are way better than the perfect ones.

Odetta Holmes was my second least favorite of the 4 main characters in this novel. She had no legs, but she was described as this sweet lady. Or maybe Detta Holmes was my second least favorite? Detta was this evil character that kept complaining and finding ways to make sure the quest would end up a failure. I'm rooting for Roland to succeed, so Detta was a pain in the ass. I didn't like her that much, but not enough to hate her. Jack Mort was my least favorite of them all. He was undeveloped in the end, and it felt like King didn't really make him likeable at all. He had the least appearances, so there was no room to like him. He wasn't unlikeable, but not enough information were given for him to be likeable. I guess this is my only complaint regarding the novel.

The plot was mainly about Roland discovering about contemporary America. His world was so different from ours that he was so confused about everything. It was fun reading about his struggles. Aside from the struggles though, it was even better reading about the way Roland managed to perform the "drawing of the three". It just further proved how amazing of an epic this is turning out to be. It's a mixture of Fantasy and Sci-Fi, and that was what King promised. It was more than adequate to satisfy my Fantasy/epic needs. While King will always be regarded as the king of horror, this series just proves that he can do so much more. In short, King is an amazing writer.

The opening scene, or also known as the lobster scene, will always be remembered. Perfect way to begin the novel.

5/5 stars and will definitely be one of my rereads in the future. I haven't even finished the series yet but I'm tempted to read the first book again already. This second novel was really great, and it makes me even want to finish the series already, so that I could reread it all over again, multiple times.

After dragging myself through the Gunslinger I was hedging all my bets on this book blowing me away because as a SK fan I want to love this series ..... and im happy to say my horse came home. I frigging love this book.

From the first few chapters I was pulled in, engrossed and my goodness this book is a world away from the Gunslinger. 

OK so firstly I just love that SK always pulls other authors works into the mix and notable mentions were the Exorcist by William Peter Blatty and Roots by Alex Haley.

After hearing so much about the SK multiverse all stemming from the Dark Tower series I literally squeeled with excitement over The shining crossover.

But more than anything I loved all the time travelling and the meeting of the characters and their confusion over language, expression and culture. As a side note on the language I will forever use Popkin for sandwiches, I love Roland's language,  culture and expressions the most.

I am looking forward to continuing the series and spending more time with Roland, Eddie and Susannah and seeing what happens next.

4 easy stars.