“The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.”

Adding my own personal addendum to that great line King had written some 50 years ago...n  “and I follow the gunslinger.”n My second go around towards the Tower. This time I plan to pay closer attention to the details. I've already noticed so much that I didn't the first time through, but that's partly because I know the ending, and therefore am able to spot the clues. I'm bound to miss some things along that path of the beam, and even forget parts as I go. But that's okay. It’s the trip that matters. I will not rush it. For now I can say that I really liked this reread of The Gunslinger, this beginning to the story, or “the end of the beginning” as the man in black would say. Once again I feel deeply for Jake. It's a tender spot. Because of the Oracle, Jake knows what will come, if not specifically when, then that it would. King tells the reader too, so that it won't come as a surprise. What struck me most though was revisiting Roland's youth, where I glimpsed the birth of his two sides – one soft, the other hard. Understanding the reasoning for it is why I enjoy the backstories, here and in future books. But it's the final pages, during the palaver near the closing of the novel that is the strongest. I'd forgotten how much the man in black shares with Roland, revealing a bigger picture. I now realize that he has unanswered questions too. As much as the asshole toys with our hero, he may need Roland as much as Roland needs him. The answers lie in the tower.

And so we've reached the western sea … I look forward to what I cannot remember in the long journey ahead, and what I do.

Seriously?! How did I miss this? This is iconic! Some books are like relationships, the timing has to be right. I remember picking this book up years (decades!) ago and thinking it was really not for me and what could Stephen King have been thinking...
With the benefit of hindsight I am now wondering how I could have been so dismissive...amazing what a few decades of developing your literary tastes can do to change your mind...
I read another book recently, The Vagrant, which I also loved. I caught myself thinking 'The Gunslinger' is like 'The Vagrant' but of course it has to be the other way round.
This book falls into the category of weird western for me. It is a novel of predestination, of good v. evil, of knightly quest, time travel and apocalypse.
Honestly, I thought I was done with Stephen King , and done a long time ago. When he started this series in the early 80s is almost exactly when I left off reading him.
Recently I have discovered Joe Hill and very much like his writing. And suddenly here I am back full circle, finally ready to return to his dad! The Dark Tower, the man in black, the gunslinger...genius!

5 ⭐

n  ”The universe is the Great All, and offers a paradox too great for the finite mind to grasp. As the living brain cannot conceive of a nonliving brain – although it may think it can – the finite mind cannot grasp the infinite.”n


Stephen King’s The Gunslinger, the first in the ‘Dark Tower’ series, published in 1982, is a dark, gritty mescaline-trip through a Dream Fantasy/Horror mashup in which an Old-Western Style Pistolero, Clint Eastwood (Roland), pursues an enigma known as Will Smith (The Man in Black), through the harsh landscape of a desolate world which one could be forgiven for believing was the decaying husk of our own planet. At first, hyper-focused on the Gunslinger’s quest, King exposes the reader to this strange setting, in which time seems to have lost its meaning, once familiar language is forgotten, and the inhabitants have become deranged and warped due to a strange, uneasy force pushing and pulling on their emotions, encouraging them to indulge their most carnal impulses. During his pursuit, Roland meets a young New-Yorker by the name of Jake and the majority of the book is focused on their journey, the fluctuating dynamic between the two in relation to the Man in Black and some light fleshing-out of the Gunslinger’s past. This is all great, but where the book transcends your average run-of-the-mill Fantasy is a point in which, without saying too much, the narrow scope of the tale explodes into something far greater. Seemingly out of nowhere, the gritty, gun totin’, dreamy dystopian tale is flipped on its head, breaking the chains of its simple, meandering narrative and revealing King’s ‘astronomical’ ambition for what I hope will be a remarkable and wholly original series.


This book is not all that popular with those in my friends list and going through their reviews there are a number of justifiable reasons why, but I think the number one reason is this. People generally like their books, even those within a series, to be self-contained. That is, to have a story that, while potentially leaving some questions unanswered, still has a satisfying conclusion in its own right. ‘The Gunslinger’ doesn’t have that in the typical sense. The Final Act really elevated this story, don’t get me wrong, but almost nothing comes full circle. You are given critical information, but it only leads to more questions.

n  ”Few if any seemed to have grasped the truest principle of reality: new knowledge leads always to yet more awesome mysteries.”n

I don’t think this can be fully enjoyed without the predetermined intention of continuing on with the series, as a large part of the excitement that comes with finishing this instalment is the wonder of what is to come. This is, essentially, a 238 page prologue in which you can dip your toes and get a feel for the World. It is in no way a stand-alone.

Furthermore, quite a few people mentioned that the story was strange (it 100% is) and they had no idea what was going on half the time. This is valid, in the sense that for the entire length of the novel you have far too few puzzle pieces to even begin attempting to put together but, on the other hand, I thought the plot was pretty straightforward. If you can manage to let go of the need for something tangible and concrete to anchor to within the narrative and just allow yourself to drift tranquilly , observing the interactions, moment to moment, poco a poco, you’ll have a much better time with this. Of course, individual tolerance for this will vary.


n  ”The greatest mystery the universe offers is not life but size. Size encompasses life, and the Tower encompasses size.”n


‘The Shining’ is the only other book by Stephen King that I had read prior to this one and, while I enjoyed both, the writing style of the two couldn’t be less alike. One thing they do have in common is fantastic characterisation. It’s not just the main protag and antag that burst forth from the page but many of the non-essential “NPCs” too. There are so many memorable and disturbing characters, it’s almost a shame that you pass by some of them so briskly. Alice and her insatiably “restless groin”, Kennerly the toothless, “scrawny rooster” of a man who lay with his own daughters, Nort the undead-like behemoth, resurrected through the infectiously joyous act of salivary spit-roast/phlegm facial. Vulgar? Yes. Memorable? Absolutely! The dialogue between Roland and these characters can be, at any given time, hilarious, grotesque, tense or emotional, but always of a high quality and captivating to read.


Fate, Time, Language, Love and Sexual Desire are all recurring themes that lend the story a bizarre and mysterious foreboding along with the niggling feeling that you’re always just slightly out of the loop with what’s going on. This mystery is crafted with the subtlety of a master author and is largely responsible for the palpable atmosphere felt throughout the novel. A strange, uneasy and unnatural sensuality permeates the world as can be observed through the knee-buckling, bottom-lip-biting, eyes-roll-to-the-back-of-the-head intense desire that Alice has for Roland, Roland for Sylvia and later the Oracle/Succubus for Roland. The source of this is alluded to but never made entirely clear. Love, without going into specifics, can be viewed in the same manner. You’re never quite sure if it’s natural or a result of some outside force acting on the characters.


n  ”I have not forgotten my father’s face; it has been with me through all.”n


In describing more about the atmosphere of the novel, my fellow video-gamers are going to be at an advantage here. As I was reading, I couldn’t help but take note of, what I believe to be, the heavy inspiration that ‘From Software’ have drawn from King’s ‘Dark Tower’ in the creation of their infamously difficult, but highly addicting video game, ‘Bloodborne’. The Hunters are very much akin to Gunslingers and the landscape is, in both cases, one in which the “world has moved on”, leaving the inhabitants warped, deranged, and under the influence of a corrupt, cult-like religion. Add to this a dash of The Last of Us, a sprinkle of The Witcher, season with Red Dead Redemption and garnish with your preferred choice of textbooks on Astrophysics and Quantum Mechanics and you’ve got… Well, an awfully inaccurate description of what this novel is about. Helpful? I presume not.

I’ve been advised to go straight into ‘The Drawing of the Three’ without delay, so I will be doing so. If it’s half as good as this one, I’ll be a happy reader! Thanks to Kevin for inspiring me to drop everything and pick this one up!

n  ”… three is mystic. Three stands at the heart of your quest. Another number comes later. Now the number is three.”n

If I was asked if I liked The Gunslinger or not, I would say both. The Gunslinger book review is right down the middle.

The Gunslinger by Stephen King felt like a very long prologue to a much bigger story. Yes, the main plot (I used that term loosely) is the Gunslinger following The Man in Black across the desert.

There are plenty of flashbacks which flesh out the narrative – often being the more interesting part of the story – but they are there for developing the main character, rather than moving the story forward (with one exception that I can think of).

I think that my enjoyment was marred by the fact that this book was not what I thought it would be. I was told that The Dark Tower series was a fantasy series, but it’s like a mishmash of that classic style fantasy written by Ursula K. Le Guin or C. S. Lewis, and some urban fantasy elements mixed in for good measure.

That’s not to say that it didn’t work, because it did (more on that in a second), but because I wasn’t in the frame of mind to be reading that style of fantasy, it just felt a bit odd.

The writing style, however, was fantastic. If you love it when the words on the page reach out and grasp your head, surround your vision and send you flying over a new and incredible world, watching from the sky like a bird, then you would love this.

Stephen King’s mastery of language in every sentence, his choice for every word, is exquisite, and it’s what kept me reading even when I felt that the story was dragging. It kept the world alive and I bathed in it.

There is very little, to no, characterisation, and when the book ends it feels like a beginning to the larger narrative rather than the end of its own story. Like I said, it’s more of a prologue, an introduction, and I wish it had been sold to me as such rather than the first full book in a fantasy series.

I am looking forward to reading the next book, actually following a plot and learning more about the main character as a person, being introduced to new ones, and diving deep into a world only hinted at in The Gunslinger.

View the full review at The Fantasy Review

A Gunslinger, a Man in Black, a Child Out of Time & Space, the Beginning of a Cryptic Saga...

A Second Read. the first time: unimpressed, bored, agitated, gave up. the second time: so much better, a lot to consider, an enjoyable experience...

A Strangely Sparse Narrative, perhaps too much mystery, perhaps too much of a tease and not enough action, perhaps too much to think about, a frustrating lack of detail...

A Tarot Card: THE HANGED MAN...
Sacrifice... Renunciation... Contemplation... Waiting...

n  n

A Brilliant Passage detailing the life and death of a boy from 1970s NYC...

A Pretty Good Passage detailing the strange beginnings of a gunslinger from Gilead, a knight from Inner-Earth...

An Enjoyably Creepy Passage detailing the death of a town...

A Tarot Card: DEATH...
The Ending of a Cycle... Transitioning Into a New State... Regeneration... Goodbyes...

n  n

A Poorly Characterized Villain, too many arch comments and rote phrases, villainy by numbers...

A Kind of First Novel, recently upgraded, impressive in conception, less impressive in execution, and yet...

A Good Start: despite the flaws, despite the thinness: a beautifully written and intriguingly mythic start to a series, one that i will continue reading, i need to see the end of it all...

A Tarot Card: THE TOWER...
Chaos, Sudden Change... Crisis, Revelation... Disillusion, Crash... Ruin, Explosive Transformation...

n  n

Gloriously moody and atmospheric!

The Gunslinger is high plains, lonely traveler, John Wayne-in-a-post apocalyptic dystopia goodness.

With a survivalist main character and a dependent boy at his side, fighting mutants and what were human beings against all that wealth of stark nothingness for scenery, it felt very akin to Cormac McCarthy's The Road, which I'd read somewhat recently and loved. Mysticism and Biblical references abound and at points threaten to muddy the narrative waters, but never fully mire it into unhealthy miasma depths.

I loved the main story and regretted any departures, but King generated enough interest in his main character to hold this reader's attention through some lengthy flashbacked backstory.

King's writing still suffers here from his over usage of modifier short cuts. He occasionally will "-ly" himself out of a description of emotion or action, which would've taken a few minutes at most to rectify...although, who has time for such things when you're writing thousands upon thousands of pages at such an infamously breakneck speed that SNL fits it into a skit (http://www.hulu.com/watch/280366), and well, who am I to judge when your books are flying off store shelves at unheard of rates?

I almost enjoyed the complete heck out of this to the point of a 5-stardom rating, but the showdown left me a little flat, as sometimes happens with books that are to-be-continued...

...oh but it shall be continued, oh yes, the reading will recommence!

Dark Tower, here I come!

This is the first installment in King's The Dark Tower series. I knew roughly what to expect (Wild West setting, a gunman, a bad wizard, a boy) but didn't know about any of the details.

I must admit that I needed a bit to orient myself because this multiverse is quite demanding. We get flashbacks and sometimes even flashbacks within flashbacks, which makes the layering of the story onion-like. Moreover, it's a very bleak setting, at least in this first book. Western-like, yes, but also much more desolate than your stereotypical Western. Everything is dead. Or, as they put it in the book: "the world has moved on" (only, the process got sped up somehow). We get remnants and some crossovers from our universe (burgers, beer, old machines like our gas stations etc), but we also get demon-worshippers, oracles, talking ravens and actual magic. Nevertheless, the world is pretty much dead. Not dying, dead. And it shows in the minds of those still wandering it. Roland is no exception.
We get a few glimpses at the Gunslinger's childhood and how he was taught the ways of the Gunslingers - and let me tell you, those people weren't entirely right in the head either. All that was back in Gilead, however, were things are supposed to have been better. Well, except that his mother obviously cheated on his father - though I still don't understand why since she seemed afraid of Martin/Walter and he even beat her up.
So now? Now, our "hero" (who is also haunted/tortured by his past and dreads the future) is consumed by his quest to catch up to The Man in Black, the wizard (a guy who can at least resurrect the dead and keeps trying to trap Roland).
So it's a race, basically, across a desert, with lethal obstacles.

One question that popped up in my head almost violently was Why trying to trap Roland if he was going to die from dehydration anyway? If it wasn't for Jake, Roland would be history and the Man in Black would have won.! But then I remembered that he might need Roland for something AND he couldn't have known Roland would die from dehydration back when he caught Jake and took him to the world Roland is in - sucks to be a wizard but not knowing any tracking spells. *lol* So yeah, the delicious devil is in the details.

Can't say I liked Roland too much. It's obvious that he has been through a lot but I get the feeling that he was never rainbows and sprinkled cupcakes. I'm sure there will be hellish good reasons for all the awful things he's done (matricide would be one), but at some point one has to contemplate if all that really excuses a person's actions. I presume we'll be getting a sort of redemption story in the follow-up volumes, too. Or maybe not. SK has always been unapologetic about his asshole-characters. *lol*

The ending blindsided me. I mean, here I was, racing alongside a psychopath, getting all riled up for the big showdown and then they have a fucking heart-to-heart!!! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! That was a really nice mindfuck for the readers. Me likey.
I certainly didn't expect Walter to hold a lecture on everything from philosophy to astrophysics.
I'm still mad as hell though that Roland just gives in to "destiny", or ka, and actually let Jake die so he could get to Walter though that wasn't really surprising. Surprising was how much I cared already at that point. Well done, Mr. King!

So did I love it? Hard to answer, that one. I have to say that I did, because otherwise Stepheny will do unspeakable things to me (and I believe her because she's learned from SK himself). ;)
What has been clear right from the start of this novel, even without everybody's fangirling/fanboying, is that King wrote one hell of a multiverse into existence here. There will be a multitude of parallel worlds opening up (although I don't quite know how many or how yet) and if they are all as immense as this one, I shall be very impressed.
Yes, this world is dead, but there was still sooo much to discover about it and the author ensnares the readers with where we are, what's going on and what it all might mean (what the consequences are). It's like going to sleep at home and suddenly waking up in the middle of a desert yourself, with no water, no companion, only a few puzzling hints strewn across your path from time to time and you have to follow them like breadcrumbs while trying not to lose your mind.
More than that, the Crimson King that I'm now finally meeting in person, so to speak, is prominent and the implications for what he's planning, what he's already doing, give this such a scale!

By the way, King was obviously inspired by this poem (that I hadn't known about before) as well as the Grail Quest and possibly J.R.R. Tolkien. To take inspiration from such different places and combine them all in such a way (and spice them up with all those cultural references, apparently also a lot of music) is very impressive too.
Brad and I have an interesting conversation going on, by the way, about the nature of King's version of the Grail Quest and him obviously wanting to fuck with his "hero" as much as possible. Brad, probably correctly, ascertained that King wanted to turn the tale upside down as much as possible by not letting the most noble being fight the ultimate evil, but instead showcasing that only a corrupted "hero" can actually go up against the ultimate bad. I mean, all the other Gunslingers ARE dead (if they were ever "good"). We shall see.

And to think that all this was just to set up the actual story ... *shivers*

King is a gifted writer and has constructed a sort of intertwined "multiverse" (thank you Albert Einstein and Michael Moorcock)for his novels. It is compelling, detailed, gritty, and flawed. I have observed before that I can't really call myself a King fan. He seems unable to conceive of what I might call "actual good" or "altruistic good". His protagonists are usually terribly (even fatally) flawed in some critical way. In this I don't mean the in the "I'm human with feet of clay" type of flaw, but the "I'm also perfectly capable of stomping a puppy if I have a weak moment" kind of flaw.

Still this book, its sequels and the other tie-ins that help create the said "multiverse" are compelling. I read the series, but I don't believe that I can be said to have "enjoyed" the experience. They will lead you down a dark and dangerous road where you will be enthralled, fascinated, and absorbed. You'll get a view of certain places in the human heart where maybe we haven't looked a lot. Be ready for a dark, bloody, mucus smeared world where evil henchmen eat bloody secretions and you find that, "The heart of man is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: Who can know it?" (-Jeremiah 17:9)

King says he worked at this (the series) for years and had multiple influences. (From The Lord of the Rings, and the Arthurian Legend to Clint Eastwood's man with no name. He mentions giving a nod to Robert Browning's poem, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came.) It is a fairly unique read and worth it, if it's what you are looking for. It will definitely not be some people's cup of tea while others will love it.

I suppose the correct term here would be, I like or I appreciate this book. When I say the book or the story is "crude" I'm not referring to the writing. The prose is at times almost inspired, Mr. King is an excellent writer. No I mean the characters live in a crude world. It's a world of slime covered evil, creeping infectious debauchery. But, I actually like much of the book and story. It's another one of those stories I sort of got "trapped" in. The character Roland (ironically the name of arguably the first Paladin) (and I didn't miss that King probably chose that name deliberately. He mentioned, as noted before when writing about the book that another of his inspirations was the poem "Childe Roland to the Dark Came". Roland is also the name of Charlemagne's best known Paladin.) is a well constructed one and I must admit to loving the line: "The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed." I read somewhere that it was "the hook to end all hooks". I agree or at least would agree that it's "a hook to end all hooks". As I said, some of the prose is inspired.

So, while a lot of the needless "crudity" puts me off and tends to greatly lessen my liking for the book(s), I go with 3 stars and recommend you "might" try reading them for yourself and see what you think. It will strike different readers in different ways.

A solid, "pretty good" or "excellent in places" from me.


Originally reviewed in 2009. Updated 2013.

Nothing beats the real Wild West, except a dark fantasy infested badass Kingian character exposition starting one of the best fantasy horror hybrid series of all times.

It reminds me of the style of some of his short stories, in fact, it are 5 short stories put together to a short novel and young Kings´ writing was darker, more direct, and epic, different than during his drug years and again different than in the period after when he kind of calmed down (not got old, because he is the King!). One could call it the 3 main periods of his work, as it´s done with painters, but I´ll keep that one for later in the review of the last part.

I remember when I first read this novel after something between 10 to 15 King novels from different decades and was awed by the completely different style, brutality, and epic badassity of this one, there is no useless ballast (no, he didn´t become too wordy, every word has its legitimation). It´s the ultimate Hold my beer, Chuck Norris mixed with horror elements to get the septology (the one between doesn´t really count, it´s great, what else, but not a part of the series for me) started.

Analyzing how King evolved while writing this project is a bonus to the unique and amazing entertainment it provides, a masterpiece of one of the greatest literary geniuses of all time if not even the human writing the best literature ever. Next to Pratchett. When King was young, he wrote harsher, invested more time and space in detailed descriptions, worldbuilding, and less focus (but still more than many other authors) on characterization and focused on one plotline. One may find it hard to say if it´s the same author when reading one of his first and one of his newer works, as he changed to focusing on characterization and complexity and didn´t care so much about the epicality of the world and outer plots anymore. Or he just got too lazy to do all the extra work this brings with it.

However, why are you still wasting your time reading this drivel, immediately start reading one of the best fictional series of all time!

Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...

“I don’t like people. They fuck me up.”

Roland Deschain, the last of the Gunslingers, is after the Man in Black. Along the way he meets a young boy named Jake, who appears to be from a world that is different to Roland’s.

Ah, Roland. I had forgotten how difficult it was to like you in The Gunslinger. Some of your decisions are questionable, but that is the price of obsession.

The Gunslinger is so unlike King’s usual style of writing; the prose is beautifully poetic as we are introduced to a world that is starkly different to ours, yet some similarities remain. The differences in language and terms used, as well as the general workings of this world, are a bit jarring on the first read, but a reread is really so satisfying and rewarding!

The Gunslinger works perfectly as a prologue to the series itself. It’s an introduction to this other world, and Roland himself - we get glimpses into his past, his present, and even a few subtle hints into what his future may hold. Roland is initially portrayed as the strong silent Clint Eastwood type (thinking of Tony Soprano here LOL), but over the course of the series he becomes so much more than this, and evolves into one of the most complex characters I’ve ever encountered in literature. Thank you, King, for such a fantastic character.

I will never cease to be amazed and intrigued by the world that the Dark Tower series is set in. And although I feel like The Gunslinger works as a pretty great prologue and sets the scene for the series, there are still a huge number of parts that are iconic to the story itself. We have Roland's past in Gilead with his mother and friends, we also have an epic demonstration of his gunslinging abilities in Tull, and of course, our introduction to Jake Chambers and his journey with Roland through the mountains, which is eventful in itself! And then the book culminates with the Man in Black having a palaver with Roland, where he is told his future. This part in particular is so enjoyable on a reread, picking up on the different predictions mades and ALLLL the foreshadowing. It's fantastic.

On my first journey to the Dark Tower, and also on this one, I read the revised edition of The Gunslinger, as King went back to the original and made some some amendments to make it both an easier read and to fix some consistencies. I really want to get my hands on a copy of the original version so that I can compare!

Such incredible world-building and I feel like King intrigues you enough to make you want to pick up the next book right away. But I won’t be... as I am waiting until February - like the good readalong host that I am! *Yes I deserve some credit*

I’m giving this rating only because I know what is yet to come... can't wait to carry on with my reread of my most favourite book series. 4 stars.

This was a really cool story. I enjoyed all the elements, the characters, and the plot. Stephen King did a great job of creating a unique story. It's a cowboy High Plains Drifter-type Western with elements of fantasy, science fiction, and subtle links to our understanding of the world.

The world has 'moved on' and now there is a different future centered around an American 'Wild West' setting. The story presents itself in time-lapses and flashback sequences blended with fantasy, magic, and science fiction while the main character, Roland (a cowboy-type gunslinger) 'chases after the man in black'. Who is the man in black? Why did Roland become a gunslinger and why is he on a mission to get him? The simplicity of the writing forces you to use you imagination to fill in the gaps and enhanced the story (for me at least).

Overall this was a fun story and I was hooked the entire time. I have not seen the movie and I have nothing else to compare this to. I would recommend this to any Stephen King fan and I look forward to reading the next book. Thanks!

Leí este primero de la serie hace tanto tiempo, que no tengo argumentos para hacer reseña.
Recuerdo que me gustó, aunque lo encontré bastante desconcertante. Luego, dejé pasar tiempo para leer el segundo... y a día de hoy permanece sin abrir. Y, me gustaría, pero me da pereza, con tantos libros que tengo pendientes. Siempre me han gustado más las obras sueltas del maestro. ¡Qué le vamos a hacer!
Pero no descarto liarme la manta a la cabeza y proseguir con esta serie. O no.