Must read it's amazing fantasy book

It's a good reference book if nothing else. I did pick up a few theories (none I can remember off the top of my head) that didn't occur to me while reading the series originally. But I'm still disappointed with the series overall.

I enjoyed this book. Certainly easier to read than the Dark Tower concordances. Well written and well researched, the author does an excellent job of summarizing and highlighting the parts of the Dark Tower series (seven books) while illuminating key facts one might miss while reading this opus. Helps tie things together and even mentions some concepts not everyone will pick-up during a first read-through. I found some of the sections repetative but still interesting and useful as a whole.

Disappointed in this one. I was hoping for some new insights into the Dark Tower series, subtle things I might have missed, connections I might not have made, etc. What I got was 90% lifted word for word from the subject novels. I just finished reading The Dark Tower, I didn't start this book so that I could read it again.

Chapter 1 was a moderately interesting account of the publishing history of the series. Chapters 2-8 contain a synopsis of the entire series, and this section was painful to get through. Vincent basically just took quotes from the series I just read, and put them together to form a synopsis. There is almost no analysis of any kind. The chapter on major characters was just as bad.

The last few chapters are by far the best in the book. A few interesting theories are presented for some of the not fully explained mysteries of the series. If the entire book had been like these chapters, or even if it was simply a short essay containing ONLY the last few chapters, I would have been much more satisfied. As it was, I came away feeling like I had read the whole series twice, and that I had gained little additional insight the second time around.

If you do read this book, do yourself a favor and skip to the end. That is where the only "Exploring" of Stephen King's great series takes place. And it isn't enough to salvage this completely unnecessary book.

All I can say is, I picked this up thinking it'd give me a look into the (from what I'd heard, completely batshit) world of the Dark Tower series and see if there was something in there worth delving into the full series. I'm quite glad I did because hot damn, it was a bizarre, nonsensical slog of made-up jargon and incomprehensible fantasy logic that went right off the rails and off of a cliff. It took me quite a bit just to figure out what in the hell was going on between the talking trains and the spaghetti-western-by-way-of-the-multiverse worldbuilding...

Honestly, I'm glad I went here first. Smart move.

Very insightful

A good companion to The Dark Tower series with plenty of extra info included. It's basically just made me want to read all 7 books again as well as the various related works!

Unreadable in Kindle format

Almost all punctuation has been stripped out as well as the odd space between words. This is a huge disappointment.

I read this in pretty much a sitting on the way back from the World Horror Convention in Texas, where I picked up a copy from the author. I'm a huge fan of King's epic seven part series, my main reason for picking the book up, but really didn't know what to expect from this. I was disappointed, in the end. Though well written, the book is more summary than exploration. I suppose if you hadn't understood the books in the first place, the chapter long synopses of each novel might be useful, but other than that I struggled to find much value in them. There's a chapter on the long gestation of series, including the often bitter impatience of the fans at the time waiting for the next volume, which is interesting reading. For those unfamiliar with connections to King's other works, a chapter summarising those novels and how they fit in might also be interesting. Having read everything King's written though I found this a little disappointing too, as I was hoping to have highlighted things I've missed rather than just the most overt entries. A beginner's guide to the series, this is unlikely to delight long term fans.

I have been a fan of Stephen King almost all my life, have read all of his novels (well, close to it, I haven't read the sequels to Mr. Mershitties, or his newest books... yet.), almost every short story, and both of his non-fiction books about writing. I have loved the Dark Tower series for many years, and have read it many (many, many) times, and even have multiple tattoos inspired by and based on the series. I consider myself to be pretty well-versed on King and this series and the multiverse within it... but it is clear to me now that I am but dipping my toe into the waters of this epic.

And I love it. I love that even after all this time, after so many reads and rereads and analyses and tie-ins and easter eggs and hints and winks and nods... after all that, there's still more to learn and explore and understand, deeper meaning and history and symbolism. For that alone, this book should get 5 stars.

This book is a fantastic reference and research aide to The Dark Tower series, and it not only provides a recap of each book, but analyzes the inspiration for the full series, the story and characters, and whose literary shoulders the series stands on, and how those actually add to and tie in to the story, rather than just being a stepping stone. This book delves into the author's mind and process, and the nature of storytelling and creation.

It should go without saying that you should not be reading this book, nor my review, if you haven't read the full Dark Tower series (Wind Through The Keyhole notwithstanding). So, you know... turn back now if that's the case.

So, at this point, the observant among you may have noticed that I did not actually give this book a 5 star rating. Though I did really enjoy it (don't be fooled by the month and a half it took me to finish this - it was not my primary read, and I read several books while working on this one), I felt that there were a few things that marred it.

First, this book was started in 2002 and written at the same time as the final three Dark Tower books, and was actually released almost simultaneously with the final book, The Dark Tower, in 2004. Now, in his acknowledgements, he does mention that his quotes are from pre-release material, and the level of detail about the plot and the story means that he absolutely read it and analyzed it and that's all well and good. But I can't help but feel like there were some missed opportunities for further analysis and thematic tie-ins from pushing the release so close to the finale of the source material's release.

For one, there's always a risk that the pre-release and the official published story will differ, though that's not likely to be anything major in this kind of story, written as it comes rather than trying to follow some pre-outlined script and finding it doesn't work at the very end. Though... endings have not always been King's strong point, so a last-minute tweak wasn't outside the realm of possibility. Obviously that didn't happen, or at least not in any meaningful way, but I'm just saying that it's a risk to base so much analysis on something that is not even "official" yet, just to beat others to the punch, if indeed that's the reason for this kind of timeline.

Secondly, pushing that kind of deadline means that everything is rushed. This book was laid out in blocks:
Chapter 1: The Long Journey To The Tower
Chapter 2-8: Recaps of each book in the series (obviously excluding The Wind Through The Keyhole)
Chapter 9: Related works
Chapter 10: Dramatis Personae
Chapter 11: Epics, Influences and Ka
Chapter 12: Art and the Act of Creation

After that we have an Argument regarding whether this series is King's Magnum Opus, and 6 appendices containing various items of interest and reference, including a timeline of King's writing of the series and major life events that may have influenced or been included (his 1999 accident is one), as well as a timeline of the chronology of Roland's quest, both in Mid-World and Keystone Earth.

The reason I just typed all of this is because it feels like it was written in these sections, and not as a whole cohesive book. From one section to the next, things are repeated over and over, as if they had not been covered yet at all. For example, it's mentioned several times (in the recap of The Drawing of the Three chapter, Susannah's character chapter, and also in the Art & Act of Creation chapter) that the "fabled A train" doesn't stop at Christopher Street station where Susannah loses her legs. Ditto with Co-Op City being in Brooklyn instead of The Bronx in multiple chapters. Of course, the context varies, but the content is recapped again and again, making the book feel as though another round of editing and clean up probably would have been worthwhile, just so that it doesn't feel quite so repetitive. And hence the issue that I have with it being released so quickly.

Finally, (and this is my last point on this release date complaint, I promise!) in 2004, there was a really cool mini-series which was a Stephen King adaptation of a Lars von Trier show. This is relevant because the main character, Peter Rickman, had the same ability that Patrick Danville had - his drawings became reality.

I know that this is only one tie-in, (Duma Key was much later... I don't expect the guy to wait THAT long...) but it feels like a missed opportunity to discuss the fuller concept of art becoming life, particularly given that there's a whole chapter essentially designed for this topic.

Anyway, I totally get that these criticisms may be nitpicky, especially considering how well researched and well-written this is. It is a very compelling analysis and you can tell that Bev Vincent is a huge fan of the series and of King's work in general. At least that's the impression I got. But they were the little things that bugged me, and so I gotta mention them. Maybe, when I get to his follow-up from 2013, The Dark Tower Companion: A Guide to Stephen King's Epic Fantasy, it will knock my socks off with perfection. This was a damn good start, I'll give it that!

A well written book. Enjoyed reading it.

This very long journey had great parts, good parts, and tedious parts.