A fateful, Ka-filled return to one of my first, favorite series of all time.

I love the Dark Tower.

Yes, yes, I'm a fanboy. I got the audiocassettes back in the day that had none other than Stephen King, himself, reading his own work. I've spent many years tracking down every reference to the Crimson King, the Man in Black, and Mid World across the majority of Stephen King's novels. I have this IDEA of the Dark Tower in my mind that puts to shame almost all other SF tales that revolved around multiple universes.

I'm talking about SCALE.

Oh, and this little Western that poses as a horror novel couched within a massive Science Fiction universe also happens to be a rather literary and music-filled repository that shines with stories within stories within stories.

Did I mention that I'm a fanboy? Rereading this is like coming home. Like coming home to Robert Browning:

There they stood, ranged along the hill-sides, mett
To view the last of me, a living framet
For one more picture! in a sheet of flamet
I saw them and I knew them all. And yett
Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,t
And blew “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came.”



... And we shall not speak of that accursed movie.

My wife will be pleased to know: she was right (As she often is), this is a great book and what an intro to the series.

Finally after a few years of both my wife and my friends looking at me going "You need to read the Dark Tower. Yes, we know you pretty much only read military history, but seriously you need to read this." I succumbed. This year actually I fell back in love with the world of fiction and I felt it was high time I got 'round to this epic.

The first book sets the stage, the tone, and in my limited experience with King it unusually focuses on a small key amount of characters. As the props and stage are being set there is a bit of down time so to speak a bit of endless deserts punctuated by short but intense bursts of action and philosophy.

I was not expecting such a philosophical bent to the ending, there's a lot of good meat here to chew and cogitate over mentally in the best way possible.

Long Days and Pleasant Nights Roland, I'll see you soon in #2.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Genre: Fantasy + Western

Western….. Vague….. Confusing….etc
I have been warned by my real-life friends that this is not a good fantasy book and due to the mentioned above elements, I believed them. Yet, I still wanted to experience this book myself. I thought that even if they liked it I might not. But I was wrong and they were wrong too! I loved it! How and why? I don’t know.


“The greatest mystery the universe offers is not life but size. Size encompasses life, and the Tower encompasses size. The child, who is most at home with wonder, says: Daddy, what is above the sky? And the father says: The darkness of space. The child: What is beyond space? The father: The galaxy. The child: Beyond the galaxy? The father: Another galaxy. The child: Beyond the other galaxies? The father: No one knows.

You see? Size defeats us. For the fish, the lake in which he lives is the universe. What does the fish think when he is jerked up by the mouth through the silver limits of existence and into a new universe where the air drowns him and the light is blue madness? Where huge bipeds with no gills stuff it into a suffocating box and cover it with wet weeds to die?"

Luckily the only thing I knew about this series is that it is about a man in search of the Dark Tower. I had no idea about anything else. I have tried to stay away from all spoiler reviews too. I believe this is a very underrated Stephen King book. I have always seen it mentioned among the last books in the “Best of King’s books” list. I don’t blame readers though. It is not an easy book. The Gunslinger is not your conventional fun-to-read fantasy tale as I thought it would be. Nope, it is a lot more than that. A lot deeper than that. Full of metaphors. At times philosophical. It is one of the most surreal reading experiences I have had. The atmosphere of the tale is incredible, very mysterious, and confusing. It is all about the secret of life, the universe, and creation.

This is definitely not the kind of book that you could read casually. It requires focus and your full attention. At first, things seem extremely vague and you will feel lost but once you continue with focus you will start to grasp things. I think King’s main intention was to keep it all mysterious. He wanted the reader to be in the same shoes as the main character. Usually, with a book this length, it won’t take me more than two days to finish reading it. But The Gunslinger took me more than that because I found myself stopping and thinking about what I have read, whether it is a line or a paragraph. So many questions! Not many answers. It is a truly thought-provoking story.


“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.”

Keep in mind there are some brutal scenes in the book so it won’t be suitable for everybody. Like many Stephen King’s books, this has elements of horror, religion, and mystery. When I told a friend of mine that I LOVED this book and gave it a 5-star rating. He said, “What will you rate the next books which are better?” I don’t know, but once I read them I will know. But 5-star is not an all-time favorite in my new rating system. Six-star rating is. My initial plan was to read one Stephen King book a month so I decided to incorporate The Dark Tower series in this plan. However, I am not reading only the eight books in the series. My plan is to read all the related books that share the same King’s universe with the Dark Tower. In total there will be 25 books and I am reading them in a certain order. I am very excited about that.

Will I recommend The Gunslinger to everybody? I wish I could but I know this book is not for everybody. All I say is to give it a chance. I did and LOVED it.

For such a hyped up series, this book was kind of a mess.

n  Watch my video review by clicking here.n

I just could not get into this book. Did not know what was going on half of the time. There were a few good things about this book but other than that, i did not like it.

This book is something of an oddity. That being, the first time I read it, I would probably have given it 3-stars, and felt quite generous doing so. It was really "meh" and though I was a King fan, I wasn't pleased with it after the hype. I even delayed reading Book 2 for awhile because I was somewhat turned off. I didn't hate it, but it left me ambivalent for the most part.

But this is definitely a book that gets better with time, with re-readings, and with the rest of the series. The second time I read it, I probably would have rated it 4-stars, and this was after reading Books 2 and 3 and preparing for the release of Book 4. By this time, I was in love with the series.

I read it again just before Books 5-7 came out in fairly quick succession. And yes, by then it had earned the 5-star rating you see here. For this fourth read of The Gunslinger, I'm enchanted with it even more than before.

On it's own, the book doesn't do much for me. But when you combine it with the entire series, wow! It's the essential beginning to the essential fantasy series of my generation. The Dark Tower is truly better than the sum of its parts. And as the first part, this thing is the motor that keeps the car running.

"The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed."

At a loss for words when it comes to this book. There is something that feels so new and fresh in terms of genre. Western. Fantasy. Coming-of-age. And possibly sci-fi. All things I love. And having now read this, and knowing it was first published in 1982, I'm pretty sure one of my other favorite writers, the great Cormac McCarthy, drew inspiration from The Gunslinger in both Blood Meridian and The Road. One of the most original stories I've ever read. Cannot wait to continue this series!

The man in black fled across the desert and the Gunslinger followed.

That is the line I remembered for years and years that made me think that someday I would revisit THE GUNSLINGER...As a young teenage girl I read THE GUNSLINGER and really didn't like it that much. I didn't hate it- it just confuuuuuused me. And to review this I will have to take you back to when I first read it as a teen...

Stephen King is special to me. Special because when I first discovered him- it was the first time I went out on my own and read something that wasn't influenced by anyone but me. Before then my books were all hand me downs. Books I borrowed from my brother- like John D MacDonald's Travis McGee series, or Nancy Drew from my sister, Agatha Christie from my mother- My dad loved the classics, my friends VC Andrews. I enjoyed them all, but something told me- there was going to be an author that set me apart from the rest of my friends and family- books that were going to be alllllllllll mine.

One night I watched the movie Dead Zone. In the credits it said written by Stephen King- and a whole new world opened up to me. I read Dead Zone, I read Salem's Lot. I read The Shining, The Stand...Firestarter...Carrie. I got used to his writing, and I was thrilled with it!!! Then I picked up THE GUNSLINGER and all hell broke loose. What the hell was this? It didn't fit. I didn't get it. It scared me that this was going to be what the rest of his books were going to be like. As a young girly girl I wanted nothing to do with westerns... I wanted nothing to do with Roland Deschain.

Thankfully more Stephen King came out that made me happy...Christine, Pet Sematary. The Talisman, Thinner, It...and so many others. I forgot about The Dark Tower and THE GUNSLINGER and went about my merry way. But that line always stayed with me...

The man in black fled across the desert and the Gunslinger followed. ...



Fast forward September 2014... two of my favorite Goodreads friends Stepheny and Jeff were reading about Roland- THE GUNSLINGER. I decided it was time I tried to get past my confusion and move forward. "Can I join in?" Of course you can...Let the buddy read begin.



Roland Deschain travels across the desert with his mule in search of the man in black. There he comes across- Brown, a farmer, and Zoltan, his crow. Brown offers to put Roland up for the night...Roland's past becomes clearer as the story is told.

His past in Gilead...



In Tull...



His meeting with Jake- a boy that Roland grows attached to- much to his dismay...



...And his future told by the man in black...



Thank you Stepheny and Jeff for opening my eyes to a book I once dismissed. I look forward to the rest of the series. What a great new beginning. :D

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Reviewed by: Rabid Reads

So here's the deal . . . THE DARK TOWER obliterated my long-running book funk. I read all ten of the original series graphic novels, then I read the five from the spinoff.

FIFTEEN graphic novels. In three days.

Then I had to read the real thing. #cantstopwontstop

You: Why?

B/c after reading all FIFTEEN of the graphic novels, Roland still hadn't made it to the tower. *bangs head against wall*

And after reading THE DARK TOWER (the novel), I discovered that with the addition of a few flashbacks, probably from later installments, all TEN of the original series of graphic novels were based on this first installment of the books.

They were pretty much the same story. Verbatim. Maybe that's common in this scenario. I don't know. I don't think I've read a graphic novelization of an existing book before.

But here's the thing: whether it was the additional background or the gut-wrenching illustrations that accompanied Roland's trials and tribulations (of which there are many), he's a much more likable character in the graphic novels.

In THE DARK TOWER (the novel) . . . Roland is kind of an ass.

Not kind of. Really, really an ass.

Which is a symptom of the bigger problem: there is a severe lack of character development.

There was insta-love.

You: In a Stephen King novel?

Me: Not in the traditional sense, but YES. There was.

You: O.o

Me: I know, right?

And that was after he went back and edited it for rerelease. B/c apparently if you're Stephen-effing-King, you can do that. #itsgoodtobeking

BUT.

I'm still hooked. I'd bought and downloaded #2 somewhere around 75% into #1, b/c I gots to know, I gots to. *shakes fist at curiosity gods*

Do I recommend it to anyone else? Not yet. We'll see. I hear it gets better, but for now I'm shelving it as what-the-hype.

I read the first half of this when I was in seventh grade. I bought over a dozen Stephen King books at a garage sale and laid out a plan to complete the entire Stephen King catalogue. This was even more foolish than my more recent attempt to read the entirety of In Search of Lost Time in one year. (I didn’t). Not, of course, that it can’t be done, only that I have proven myself—over and over again—incapable of following through with my grandiose plans, however comparatively-to-others’ modest they may be. I started several of his books as planned—IT, The Dead Zone, Cujo, The Skeleton Crew, this one—but after however many pages I realized how long it would take. Besides, The Simpsons was on. Nevertheless, I frequently carried his books around with me; at school, at church (was asked not to), at extended family gatherings. Between that, my Misfits hoodie, and my ostensible resting bitch face, my outsider status experienced its genesis. I was silently exiled from my table at lunch, sitting solemnly alone for the rest of the year, perusing my cinder-block sized tomes bearing the commandingly enormous printed name of the master of modern horror. My tastes have evolved, naturally, but I have Stephen King largely to thank for that enduring legacy (and I do thank him).

Returning to this story was a fascinating experience, taking into account the age of the author at the time of its creation (and his subsequent forwarded disavowal of some of the prose within), the time that has passed since its publication, the revisions on the original text, the scope and anticipation of the volumes to come in the series, and the retrospectively obvious influence King had (and probably still has) on my own writing. King himself would probably disagree that this is a five-star book, but reading it after all this time reminded me why I got into him as a youth in the first place, and how truly disturbing some of his descriptions can be. (I read Pet Semetary at an even younger age than The Gunslinger, and in both of them, King does not spare us the true-to-life terror of a child out in the street).

t

“Jake?”
t“Uh-huh?”
t“Do you want to remember this when you wake up, or forget it?”
t“Forget it,” The boy said promptly. “When the blood came out of my mouth I could taste my own shit.”

t
The Man in Black is an iconic adversary, the likes with which King has demonstrated that only he has been able to indelibly stamp. He is a devious villain, pretentious and obtuse; dropping hints of foreboding and soliloquizing on cosmic insignificance to terrific effect without (yet) relying on gun slinging (like our rather simple-minded protagonist, Roland), roaring, or hell raising. He invites madness with a deliciously smooth subtlety.

It’s very easy to recognize that King—like any modern horror writer—was highly influenced by Lovecraft earlier in his career, not only regarding the adjective-laden purple prose (guilty), but thematically as well, as with the aforementioned atmosphere of cosmic terror and inconsequentiality. Without question, King has matured and honed his skills as a storyteller over the decades, and many readers have followed him for nearly as long. Some of the writing is good for such a young writer, much of it is good for any writer, and, to be sure, some of it is hilariously overwrought and silly. My favorite simile-example: “Volcanoes blurted endless magma like giant pimples on some ugly adolescent’s baseball head.” Such distracting goofiness notwithstanding, the book is filled with wonder, and extols it in the contemplations of time and the grand cosmos (perhaps circumscribed by The Dark Tower off in the distance, both all-encompassing and yet eternally outside our physical and cognitive limits?).

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

A simple taste of some Lovecraftian quaintness (and not the best one), but widely resonant and colloquially articulated almost as if from a Richard Linklater film. Either I get King, he gets me, we both just get Lovecraft in that existential adolescent way, or this is all far more common than my narcissistic, pseudo-precocious, immature and masturbatory mind gave other people credit for.

Whatever the case, I had a hell-of-a-good experience this time around. I owe a great deal of my life-long love for literature to Stephen King, and this has brought me right back to the fundamental reasons why.

صدرت بالعربية اخيرا بعنوان الرجل المسلح

n  n

Beaware that the movie's following the Ending of the Last Book!!!

But in the first book, I suffered the Hard, Dry, Boring read of following a Man in Black you don't know, in a weird hot dry desert in hot August for one reason,

To reach a Dark Tower you don't know where..or why..detailed in too much adverbs and ambiguity.
That didn't help much to start the following 2 books I already bought...

Book one was a true disappointment for me, I never thought it'd be from you, Mr. King..

I believe in Old 'Gods' of King “‘Salem’s Lot” and the new “Under the Dome”..but this really I hated..
May be just me...but here's a confession that clear my doubts..

“Stephen King, on the foreword;
The younger man who dared to write this book had been exposed to far too many writing seminars, and had grown far too used to the ideas those seminars promulgate: that one is writing for other people rather than one’s self; that language is more important than story; that ambiguity is to be preferred over clarity and simplicity, which are usually signs of a thick and literal mind. As a result, I was not surprised to find a high degree of pretension in Roland’s debut appearance (not to mention what seemed like thousands of unnecessary adverbs). I removed as much of this hollow blather as I could,...”

Yes, that's why I hate most new authors work, but really young King here followed the rules very hard..
And it doesn't seem as if he really removed much.

The ambiguity here was in the character of the Gunslinger, who by half of the book you'd get to know some glimpse of his childhood past and coming of age.
He kills, he travel for totally unknown reason till the end of this volume…
Following another ambiguous Man in Black who's ambiguity evil and the reason he killed a whole small town.

Meeting ambiguity Boy killed in our real world and somehow he's alive in this ambitious world...which is even not the Gunslinger’s original world.
A world with wired Mutants, men with birds heads, while the Gunslinger world is even weirder.

Do you have an even small explanation on anything?
No.

“Stephen King, on the foreword;
Although I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time writing these books in the thirty-three years between 1970 and 2003, comparatively few people have read them.”

No wonder, simply because this book defy the rules of First Book of a Series..
Too ambiguous...dry dry lines for a supposed epic fantasy..

I don't believe anyone felt liking “Ronald, The Gunslinger” nor being okay with travelling with a dead boy “Jack”, or would get tense that something bad may befall him...he's already dead for God's sakes..brutal death as it is.
It's hard to love the characters if you don't understand them well enough…
-----------


I'm not a fan of extreme fantasy, I love ASOIAF and Harry Pottet cause both more real than extreme fantasy, But till now I can't force myself reading Lord of the Rings..I loved the movies, And I loved the short “Hobbit” novel, it's short and the writing style is amazing but that's all.

Here's extreme strange ambiguous world and characters...in dry 19 years old writing by the rules of “how to be Shakespeare”, with all the strange old and weird language. and the 238 pages felt like 832 pages.

I find myself fast reading many lines, still I got it all..it's not too much stuff happening anyway. When now I have read the Wikipedia to write the review I find out the Summary ia totally enough, read it instead of this book and you're done with it.

“Stephen King, on the foreword;
The Gunslinger did not even sound like the later books—it was, frankly, rather difficult to read. All too often I heard myself apologizing for it, and telling people that if they persevered, they would find the story really found its voice in The Drawing of the Three.”

Well, Only 4 pages by the last chapter can gives u a glimpse of this tower request… it evolves God, religion, technology, creation, since...etc.

That's what I most cared for...that's the best scene of all the book..
Alas, The Man in Black doesn't know much anyway, so is The Gunslinger..
So do I, so do you if you only get yourself finishing this book.

I believe this book could have been way better if was just half the pages, and included in book two as 2 parts in one book.
It was 5 short stories once published separated. .God that'd have been awful.. Only the last one though making a bit good promise to an interesting adventure to come.
If this last one "The Gunslinger and the Dark Man" came second in order of chapters that may have been at least better improvement.

I've read the preview of Book Two that included here..it was 12 pages of same prolonged one man tedious walk..till the mysterious door appears and that's when everything may change for way better adventure set in our real world..
I may love it I guess., may be when I read the next 2 books -but they're in detention till next February, the Movie release- may be then I'd appreciate this first book more.

So, till next February then.

Mohammed Arabey
From 5 Aug. 2016
To 8 Aug. 2016

Next King Stop, The Stand

Enjoyed it! Glad I purchased the revised and expanded edition with the new introduction and forward by KING. (which I wasn't aware of at the time) He really set up the book enticingly. Only 6 more to go. Can't wait to see what happens next!

n  Update: May 15, 2017 - Wow! Dark Tower fans.....Check out the new movie trailer - Excellent - Coming August 4th.n