A well written book. Enjoyed reading it.

This is an important and necessary book for anyone who has read (and suspects there is more to) The Dark Tower series. The depth and exploration Bev Vincent gives to King's Magnum Opus allows the casual reader to access all the subtle clues and threads that pervade not just the seven Dark Tower novels, but numerous other King works.

If you want to fully understand Roland's journey, you'll need to pair these books with other King work, including It, Rose Madder, Hearts in Atlantis, Black House, Salem's Lot, and Bag of Bone (to name a few).

Or you can just read this book.

A well written book. Enjoyed reading it.

A well written book. Enjoyed reading it.

'The Dark Tower': Stephen King's epic post apocalyptic fantasy which threads itself throughout the other novels from King's bibliography. A quest of such proportions that it spans almost five thousand pages and draws on mythology, fantasy, imagery from the American West and Romantic ideals. A massive undertaking to read, let alone write.

'The Road to the Dark Tower' is an invaluable companion piece, which summarises the plot deftly whilst pondering on the intertextuality and its place in modern popular literature. Bev Vincent writes clearly without being condescending and encourages the reader to engage not only in his own book, but the entire bibliography of Stephen King.

The book feels a lot longer than its page count - this is a compliment, as the text is intense without ever coming across as densely packed.

A fascinating and exhaustive reference for any fan of the Dark Tower series. I really enjoyed all the endnotes that led to a richer understanding of all of the DT novels.

I just love Stephen King. An opportunity to geek out about The Dark Tower series (and all of the other books Roland's reality has snuck into) was pure pleasure for me.

I was expecting a lot more scholarship out of this book than I was given. Instead of analysis of the books, readers are given huge chunks of summary, which would be more bearable if the summary occasionally offered insight. As it stands, I can't think of any reason to recommend this book.

This is what you do, Steve King, turning readers into Tower junkies. Well, I was ready to dive back into the series the moment I turned the last page of The Wind Through the Keyhole, holding back was just too hard. I also knew that one could miss many details while reading such an epic story, so I picked this book, and guess what? There were a lot of pieces in the puzzle I have never noticed or haven't been able to put in place while reading. Bev Vincent's The Road to the Dark Tower helped me find if not all then most of those pieces.

The book takes you to a long journey from the moment King wrote one of the best openings in literature ever ("The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.") to the finish of the series (kind of, The Road to the Dark Tower was published in 2004 and maybe The Wind Through the Keyhole was not even in King's distant plans). Time span is almost 40 (!!!) years. I was really interested in the story of the first book, The Gunslinger, its revisions/changes.

The Road to the Dark Tower contains summaries of all The Dark Tower books, symbolism, ties to related works (both King's and other authors'), analysis of main characters, influences on the series, King's appearance and his role as deus ex machina, both reality and fiction timelines, Mid-World glossary.

It got a bit boring at some places when several stories were repeated in different points of views. And I was a bit disappointed in relatively poorer analysis of Wolves of the Calla and Song of Susannah. But the rest was really thorough and exciting and informative.

I'd recommend Tower junkies to read The Road to the Dark Tower right after they finish the series (reading the first time or revisiting).

I read that comic & now I got a Dark Tower jones. What can I say?

A good read for us DT/King fans. Vincent has put a lot of work into this. The novel summaries were a bit lengthy and not as interesting as the other chapters, but they did provide some insightful observations. Overall It was worth it. I just wish I could erase DT from my mind and read it for the first time again.

Having finished the Dark Tower books, but not willing to leave Roland and his ka-tet quite yet, I read The Road To The Dark Tower to take one more trip into Roland's world. I wasn't disappointed. The book begins with an overview of the history of the books and there is a chapter for each of the seven books, describing and analyzing the action in each one. The rest of the chapters deal with other Stephen King books that are related to the Dark Tower series; a detailed description of each major character in the books; works that influenced the series; discussion of whether the books are Stephen King's Magnum Opus; two time lines (fact and fictional); a mid-world glossary; Dark Tower on the web; and the poem the influence the dark Tower series "Childe Roland To The Dark Tower Came".

I bought this book because I recognize Bev Vincent's name from his numerous posts on various Stephen King forums and newsletters and am always impressed with his knowledge. This book is a prefect example, even though I've read all of the Dark Tower books (the early ones several times), I still learned things I hadn't known before. Although the entire book was good, I find the chapters summarizing the books the most interesting, especially where Bev pointed out things that foreshadowed the ending of the last Dark Tower book.

Dark Tower fans will love this book.