I don't know what this is, but I like it.

I almost DNF'd this book and the entire series at the 50% mark. King clearly was doing stream of conscious writing and it started to get REAL tedious at around 40% with tons of extraneous details and many, many coincidences in the plotting and it was starting to get contrived and boring. I took the matter to my Twitter and Discord pals that I really wanted to DNF. Most were like "do you, DNF" but there were the dissenters that were adamant that I should persevere and so I did. And I'm totally happy I finished this because it was awesome.

I don't know what this series is and that's what makes me keep picking up the books. It's urban fantasy and science fiction and horror and post-apocalyptic and found family all rolled together. After King gets a bunch of arbitrary nonsense out of his system, that later half of this book is bizarre, unique and really, really compelling. The city of Lud and the bonkers characters including Tik-Tok man and Blaine the Pain are just like a train wreck to read. I could hardly put this down after 50%. And then the main protagonist cohesion really started to come together which I really enjoyed. The characters have always been good in this series but it wasn't till this book that I started to care about them. The mystery of the Dark Tower and all the parallel inter-dimensionality and cataclysmic things on the horizon really worked for me and I ended really enjoying this book. I will definitely be picking up the next one.

To the Wastelands OK!... Well with a little bit luck, we'll make it through this book! The third instalment of King's Magnum Opus on first reading was just another expansion of the fabulous The Dark Tower verse and King could do no wrong. On this, my third reading the book almost feels like a filler, dare I say! Do we really need that much more detail on the world moving on, on Mid-World and the dying reality? Admittedly it's a great read, watching the Ka-tet in their first real adventure as a unit, and Roland getting use to having people around him again, but in hindsight there's so many other stories that could have been told at this stage, pre the telling of Wizard and Glass.

Artwork uploaded by: ecasasweb, on YouTube
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Despite my misgivings, I think this is still a wonderful expansion of Mid-World's present and past and its possible last days; in addition there are some great antagonists and then of course there's Oy! 8 out of 12.

Artwork from; https://www.criminalelement.com/the-d...

El mejor puto libro que he leído en toda mi vida..!!!!

Fue amor a primera vista.

Siempre me ha gustado el genero de ciencia ficción, también el genero de terror, misterio y suspenso (Pueden comprobar en mi biblioteca) y esta historia lo tiene absolutamente todo, es una genialidad. No hay nada que no me guste de esta historia y primera vez que eso me pasa con un libro.

King supo mezclar estos géneros literarios de una manera simplemente genial.

Paradojas espacio temporales, viajes interdimensionales, androides gigantes asesinos con inteligencia artidicial, personajes al borde de la locura y la desesperación, tramas enrededas e incomprensibles todo esto da como resultado una historia de Ciencia Fantasía exquisita, como nunca antes había visto.

En este libro es donde Stephen King se pone los pantalones con la saga, es a partir de aqui donde realmente comienza la acción, donde realmente comienza el viaje a la torre y donde tenemos una idea mejor de que rayos está sucediendo, puede parecer un poco tedioso que esté diciendo esto del tercer libro de una saga, pero creánme cuando les digo que realmente vale la pena haber leído, esta historia esEPICA , no se si todavía quedó suficientemente claro, absolutamente EPICO

Las ilustraciones son una pasada.

Roland y Sussanah en el bosque.


Jake y esa rosa misteriosa.


Eddie amenazado por un osito cariñosito



Algunas frases destacables del libro:

n
"Estaba bien ser joven y enamorado, pensó. Incluso en el cementerio en que este mundo se había convertido.
«Disfrutadlo mientras podáis —pensó—, porque tenemos más muerte por delante. Hemos llegado a un arroyo de sangre. Es algo que habrá de conducirnos a un río de la misma sustancia, sin duda alguna. Y más adelante, a un océano. En este mundo las tumbas bostezan, y ninguno de los muertos descansa en paz.»"

"Por fin he encontrado el rumbo. Después de tantos años he encontrado el rumbo, pero al mismo tiempo parece que estoy perdiendo la cordura."

"La rueda que hace girar nuestras vidas no conoce el remordimiento; siempre regresa al mismo sitio."

"Por cada cosa que sé, hay otras cien que ignoro."
n

Por si no fuera suficiente el final del libro es absolutamente increible y demencial, este libro es sin duda el mejor de la saga, lamentablemente a su vez, es el punto mas alto de la saga, no creo que otro libro le pueda llegar a este.

Además es el mejor que he leído de SK hasta ahora (llevo 13 hasta la fecha)

Por esta clase de libros es por lo cual amo la literatura, por lo cual me encanta leer, quisiera que cada vez que lea me lleve a vivir una experiencia como esta, sé que es mucho pedir, pero toparme con este libro fue maravilloso.

Quiero una versión tapa dura, edición limitada, con membretes de oro, firmada por Stephen King YA!! hahaha.

Léanlo. 5/5

Insuficiente esta clasifiación.

And the award for creepiest train in all of literature goes to…

“Don't ask me silly questions
I won't play silly games
I'm just a simple choo choo train
And I'll always be the same.

I only want to race along
Beneath the bright blue sky
And be a happy choo choo train
Until the day I die.”

Stephen King has had a place among my favorite authors for 3 or 4 years now. But over the span of this book and its predecessor, The Drawing of the Three, he’s edging remarkably close to becoming not just one of my favorite authors, but my hands down favorite. Right now he’s in a three-way tie with Brandon Sanderson and Nora Roberts, but Wizard and Glass might actually change that if it holds a candle to The Waste Lands. I’ve heard that the back half of the Dark Tower series pales a bit in comparison to the first 4 books, so I’m trying to keep my expectations low, but this is shaping up to be my favorite series of all time.

“The wheel of ka turns and the world moves on.”

The Gunslinger was fine the first time I read it, and I enjoyed it more the second time around. I loved The Drawing of the Three almost immediately, and that love never wavered throughout the course of the novel. But The Waste Lands is one of my favorite books I’ve ever read. I’m not saying it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read, as I’ve been fortunate enough to consume some absolute masterpieces. King’s prose doesn’t quite measure up to masterpiece quality. There are imperfections here. But for sheer enjoyment value, for its ability to keep me so invested that I had a difficult time focussing on real life, for its insistence on invading my dreams even after I had read its final pages, this book just wins. I was never less than completely entranced. The plot was astonishingly intricate and never lagged. I was never bored for a single second.

“See the turtle of enormous girth, on his shell he holds the earth. If you want to run and play, come along the beam today.”

I’m always amazed by the myriad of intricate ways in which King references his own work. Some are small and incredibly subtle, while others are evident to even those who haven’t read a lot of his backlog. And the self-referencing should seem haughty. It doesn’t. Instead, it makes everything King has ever written come across as purposeful and intentional and premeditative. I have mad respect for this, and I think it makes his stellar stories even more enjoyable, as they build on one another. I’m a huge lover of Easter eggs in stories. It’s why I love Marvel and Sanderson’s Cosmere, and it’s why I’ve come to adore King’s work. And it’s exactly why I’ve chosen to take the much longer, circuitous route to the Tower. I’d love to just blast through the main series, but I’d love even more to pick up on as many of the little references to his other works that King has interwoven into the story as I possibly can. This will more than likely lead to me reading his entire body of work over the course of a decade or two, and I’m completely okay with that.

“In the end, all things, even the Beams, serve the Dark Tower. Did you think you would be any different?”

The central cast of The Waste Lands completely won me over. I love each member of this ka-tet with every fiber of my being. And I can’t discuss a single one of them because, as with John Gwynne’s work, even mentioning certain character names could potentially spoil some important plot points. But also as with Gwynne’s work, I’m making an exception for an animal companion. Oy the Billy-Bumbler is an absolute darling, and I’m amazed at King’s ability to craft such a unique and lovable creature. I need one. Not want. NEED. I will say this about the central cast; they have all grown tremendously since each of them was introduced into the narrative. There’s so much character development in this series that it’s unreal. And their relationships with each other have experienced just as much transformation. It’s been truly wonderful to observe.

I do not aim with my hand. He who aims with his hand has forgotten the face of his father. I aim with my eye.
I do not shoot with my hand. He who shoots with his hand has forgotten the face of his father. I shoot with my mind.
I do not kill with my gun. He who kills with his gun has forgotten the face of his father. I kill with my heart.

I have no idea where the wheel of Ka will take these companions. I would say that I can’t wait to find out, but I also know that King has no problem killing off his darlings and I’m terrified of what might lie ahead. But the need to know is fierce, and I’m incredibly excited to continue my journey to the Tower. And I can’t wait to see how more of King’s other works tie into it.

Long days and pleasant nights, friends.

You can find  this review and more at Novel Notions.

Пътешествието към Тъмната кула набира скорост, а ка-тетът на Роланд се сдобива с още двама, малко неочаквани за мен участници!

Съдбата води героите към древния, велик някога град Луд и усещането за постапокалипсис се засилва с всяка изминала страница.

Премеждията са на всяка крачка, но от схватката с лудия Блейн Моно ще се реши, как ще продължи конкретно да се развива тази така необичайна и оригинална фентъзи сага!

[RE-READ]
THE DARK TOWER SERIES BOOK 3:

ROLAND AFTER SOLVING THE DRAWING OF THE THREE PUZZLE...FORMS HIS KA-TET.
KA-TET THEN FACE SHARDIK THE BEAR, ONE OF THE GUARDIANS OF ONE OF THE 12 BEAMS THAT HOLD THE DARK TOWER...(THEY ENTER MID-WORLD)
AFTER BATTLING HIM KA-TET FOLLOW THE SOUTHEAST DIRECTION OF THE BEAM. ON THEIR WAY THEY COME ACROSS A NEW DOOR "THE BOY"..WHO IS NO OTHER THEN OUR CUTE LITTLE JAKE WHO WAS LOST IN THE WAY STATION ..DYING THERE..THE REUNION OF HIM AND ROLAND WAS SO MINDBLOWING...WHEN JAKE ASKES HIM "YOU WON'T LET ME DIE AGAIN?..THAT WAS SIMPLY MAGNIFICENT...
THEN A NEW CHARACTER ANIMAL BILLY BUMBLER IS INTRODUCED ...IT WAS CUTE, LOVING ANIMAL..
THEN KA-TET COME ACROSS THE POST APOCALYPTIC CITY OF LUD (WHICH RESEMBLES TODAY'S NEW YORK)..THE CITY AND ITS INHABITANTS WERE PRETTY CREEPY AND SPOOKY...
JAKE WAS TAKE BY GASHER THE SERVANT OF TICK TOCK MAN...WHAT WAS AMAZING HERE WAS WHEN ROLAND TELLS JAKE "I WILL COME AND SAVE YOU "..AND HE DELIVERS IN STYLE...TO FOLLOW THE PATH OF THE BEAM KA-TET GETS HELP FROM BLAINE THE MONO EVIL TRAIN WHO WILL TAKE THEM SAFELY TO ITS LAST STOP "TOPEKA" IF IT CAN'T ANSWER ONE OF THE RIDDLES THROWN ON IT BY KA-TET, BUT IF IT ANSWERS ALL THE RIDDLES...IT WILL KILL THEM...
LET'S SEE WHAT HAPPENS IN BOOK 4..
THIS IS THE BEST OF THE 3 BOOKS SO FAR...

A key, a rose, and an insatiable demon trapped in a circle of stones.  A world beneath the world, and it is called Mid-World.  Time is not the same here.  You will not want to linger in the city of Lud.  It is toxic in every possible way.  The evil coming off the Tick-Tock Man is palpable, and the miscreants and cretins in his service are shudder worthy.  The drawing now complete with the addition of Jake and Oy, the ka-tet is ready to continue their journey in search of the Dark Tower.  Blaine the train awaits.  Make no mistake, Blaine the train takes riddling very seriously, taking extreme umbrage at silly ones.  He's a pain.

Another solid instalment to the Dark Tower series. This one starts with a few small adventures that felt like our beloved author was wondering a bit, but then Mr. King finds his stride and the story moves forward in meaningful, interesting ways. As always, I am left needing to dive into the next book immediately.

n   “In this world, there were ghosts everywhere.” n

I think I’ve finally cracked the secret - why The Waste Lands for me has always been the high point of not just The Dark Tower series but a standout among King’s vast output. You see, while Uncle Stevie’s endings can often be a bit underwhelming (to the point where he made fun of that in his cameo in “IT” movie), he truly excels at the art of setup. And that’s really what this book is — a tantalizing setup for the rest of the story, a place where the storylines are finally emerging and plot threads are set in motion.

n

n   “It was all of a piece, he realized now; all part of some awful, decaying whole, a tattered web with the Dark Tower at its center like an incomprehensible stone spider. All of Mid-World had become one vast haunted mansion in these strange latter days; all of Mid-World had become The Drawers; all of Mid-World had become a waste land, haunting and haunted.”n

The Gunslinger was a moody surreal prologue, a work of a very young man playing around with the idea of postapocalyptic fantasy Western. The Drawing of the Three was King having a bit of fun and bringing the players together — but with the shape of the story still unclear. The Waste Lands is where the actual quest is starting to take shape, the ideas are being laid out, the scope of the world and the stakes is widened, and the entire setup begins in earnest. The connections between “our” world and Roland’s world, the parallels between them, the invisible threads of fate ka linking everything, the physical manifestations and implications of that drearily catchy line “The world has moved on”. The ka-tet is fully formed; our cold antihero Roland Deschain turns out to have more depths than just a ruthless gun-toting Tower junkie; and the road to the Tower finally comes into view.

The setup is great, and the resolution - love it or hate it - is a few books away. This is King’s prime real estate.

n

n   “Now he saw the shattered facades and broken roofs; now he saw the shaggy birds’ nests on cornices and in glassless, gaping windows; now he allowed himself to actually smell the city, and that odor was not of fabulous spices and savory foods of the sort his mother had sometimes brought home from Zabar’s but rather the stink of a mattress that has caught fire, smouldered awhile, and then been put out with sewer-water. He suddenly understood Lud, understood it completely.”n

King really conveys that fractured wrongness present in both worlds - “ours” and Roland’s. Seeing the husks of the dead civilization - “These are the halls of the dead where the spiders spin and the great circuits fall quiet, one by one” — is eerily and creepily fascinating. He’s generous with his foreshadowing — unsubtle, but somehow more foreboding and disquieting specifically because of that unsubtlety.

“When is a door not a door? When it’s a jar.”

That ability of his to turn silly and mundane into menacing is in full swing yet again — because nobody but King can ever make me shudder at the mention of Charlie the Choo-Choo train. And the whole idea that everything serves the Beam and everything serves the Tower was probably the launching point for all those Dark Tower references and Easter eggs that fill his later works.

n

n   “The world has moved on, we say. When it did, it went like a great receding wave, leaving only wreckage behind ... wreckage that sometimes looks like a map.”n

King’s storytelling skills need no further elaboration — they are legendary, he’s a born storyteller and that’s the truth. His characters remain strong as ever, our little found family, the ka-tet, with Roland’s companions really becoming friends, comrades, partners in the obsessive quest driven by fate — and they are now willing participants and not pawn pieces of ka. Nobody sums it up better than my favorite Eddie Dean, he of bad jokes and humor as defense mechanism, who comes into being a gunslinger as though he was born to it.

n  “Because you don’t have to drag me anymore. I’m coming of my own accord. We’re coming of our own accord. If you died in your sleep tonight, we’d bury you and then go on. We probably wouldn’t last long, but we’d die in the path of the Beam. Now do you understand?”n

King by his own admission (as far as I recall) was winging this series, without a clear plan (or really, any plan) of where this story would go. He was just going where the story would take him, and clearly having fun along the way. This book - and really, the entire series - for me is the epitome of the idea of “it’s the journey, not the destination”. Watching this world unfold, from Shardik the Guardian to the old people village, to the road to Lud, to the city of Lud — I love it all, the ruins and hints of old civilization unsettlingly like our own, the ghosts of the later feudal world, the parallels and connections — and the creepy unreality of Jake Chambers’ New York where he should have died but did not.

n

n   “You won’t let me drop this time?”
“No,” Roland said. “Not this time, not ever again.” But in the deepest darkness of his heart, he thought of the Tower and wondered.”n

And I - King-junkie, his Constant Reader - am lapping it up like there’s no tomorrow. The quest in The Lord of the Rings - no, thankee-sai, I’d rather follow the quest to the Tower instead.

My only gripe, really, is the damn cliffhanger — the one that is so neatly concluded in the next volume but should have really been a part of this one. And so I choose to pretend that the beginning of Wizard and Glass is simply the last chapter of The Waste Lands, because all things serve the beam and blah-blah-blah.

n  “And then I came with my friends—my deadly new friends, who are becoming so much like my deadly old friends. We came, weaving our magic circle around its and around everything we touch, strand by poisonous strand, and now here you lie, at our feet. The world has moved on again, and this time, old friend, it’s you who have been left behind.”n

And before you leave:
- Remember the face of your father.
- When is a door not a door? When it’s a jar.
- Don’t ask me silly questions, I don’t play silly games.
- Blaine is the Pain, and that’s the truth.
- All is silent in the halls of the dead.

n

Long days and pleasant nights.

n   “Riddles have great power, and everyone knows one or two.”
“Even me,” Eddie said. “For instance, why did the dead baby cross the road?”
“That’s dumb, Eddie,” Susannah said, but she was smiling.
“Because it was stapled to the chicken!”n

5 stars.

————
My review of “The Gunslinger”
My review of “The Drawing of the Three”

n  DTProject2017 | Book 3n

It was in August 2012 when I 1st read this book and now (almost) 5 years later, with a better command of the English language I see many things in a much different way than what it was when I was reading it for the 1st time. I saw different landscapes, different views of the city and train station etc.

Here we see Roland (The Gunslinger) with the people he drew in the previous book from our world to his world moving towards their destination. Before they reach an abandoned city the also draw Jake the young boy from New York and with him the core of the fellowship is completed. So before they reach the dystopian-ish town of Lud the book was pretty slow but from there it took off and I was able to read it in less than 2 days.

Of course the book ends in a cliffhanger and will learn about it at the beginning of the 4th book, a book I will eventually start at the end of the Easter Holidays. A book I 1st read in August 2012 and loved and became an instant favourite.

And since I'm talking about favourite(s), my favourite character in the series is Jake, not Eddie or Odetta/Detta/Susannah, or Roland; even though I like them. Jake is innocent, young, and we see him as a boy with no family (he has a family, but he's alienated from them. They care more about their jobs and their social interactions. Their son is for show off.) He reads the same book I read a few weeks ago (Charlie the Choo-Choo), he experiences an adventure in a haunted house, he spends a horrifying period in the hands of a vile person (he's more inhuman than human), named Gasher, and I felt really sorry for him.

So this book started with a good pace, then it slowed down and then as if the author injected NOS in his writing we sped up towards the end, fast.
Hence 8/10

So see you in a few weeks. . .

n  * spoilers spoilers spoilers *n

It is both difficult and easy to say just why this book, The Waste Lands, is even better than The Drawing of the Three. That’s no small feat to accomplish because The Drawing of the Three is a terrific book. But when I first questioned why I liked this one a little more, I couldn't explain the why of it even to myself. With thought though it became clearer. First off, it's a roller coaster ride of a story (much like the second book actually - picking up only a few months and a few miles from where it had left off) that starts at the top of the coaster slope with the arrival of Shardik. By the way, if that name sounds familiar to you, but you can't quite place it, King has a little fun with the hinting of it in the book too. Much like The Drawing of the Three gives the reader no time before the Lobstrocities arrive, this book does the same with this giant, angry bear. And what's good about this is not just the excitement, but the pieces of information about The Dark Tower, the Beams, and these Guardians we've suddenly stumbled upon. The answers also have a way of creating more questions, but for me, that's part of the ride. As our Ka-tet finds and follows this new path of the beam, the book has a sudden direction with a course that seems set. The problem is that something is missing from the group. Feelings about that missing piece are subtly hidden within the pages long before we realize Roland is in the middle of a breakdown, so that Jake is on our minds as much as he's on Roland's. This is where I wondered about my thoughts the first time around. Did I think then that Jake would return? I just can't remember. Did King know before writing it? He never plans ahead, but my guess is he did with this one thing. Jake is a cornerstone, and the way he's returned is brilliant. The only thing that could possibly make it better is the inclusion of one billy bumbler. But just as King plays with the fate of a character in the previous books, he does so again here. The tension comes back big time - only to be eclipsed by the cliffhanger ending.

Posse read with my favorite gang of outlaws:

Jumpin’ Jeff,  Calamity Bev, Rootin’ Tootin’ Pistol Packin’ Delee, along with our newest member:  Shotgun Slingin’ Steven!

Our quest resumes on 03/30!