Have you seen the trailer for the Dark Tower movie yet? If not, check it out here:
Come on, doesn't that look awesome?
I have to confess, it was not that long ago - a few years, really - that I read my first Stephen King. I had seen a couple movies - Carrie was the first "scary movie" I watched, in the basement of my grandmother's house, most certainly when I was not supposed to be watching a movie, and certainly not one like that - but I had never actually read anything by him. I associated him with horror, and to my scaredy-cat self, he thus needed to be avoided.
And then I met this guy, who I ended up marrying, who liked very different books than me, and was quite aghast that I referred to myself as a book nerd without actually having read any Stephen King. And so he lent me Different Seasons. Wait, THIS was Stephen King? Maybe he was more than just horror.
And then one of the books that we read to each other was The Stand. So, among all of the other things, I can now thank my husband for introducing me to Stephen King, I am now a fan.
I am even willing to tackle It before the new movie comes. Probably.
But today's review focuses on the first in the Dark Tower series: The Gunslinger.
On litsy at the beginning of the year (if you are a book fan and not on litsy, you probably should be), I noticed a lot of chatter about a "Dark Tower Readalong", a super low-structured attempt to read all of the Dark Tower books prior to the movie coming out. After listening to my husband rave about the series, and reading all of the great comments from people participating, I decided to join in, and delved into The Gunslinger.
(Right around the time that the movie is released, I will be addressing the entire series, but for right now, I just want to talk about the first book.)
King considers the series his "magnum opus". That alone should prompt you to pick up this first book. And if that doesn't, again I repeat, have you seen that trailer!?
This book opens with a great line, which immediately sets up the world King has created. “The man in Black fled across the Desert, and the Gunslinger followed.”
All at once we are in the middle of something epic, some great story of Roland, the last of the gunslingers. He recounts pieces of his tale in his relentless quest for the man in black, a supernatural, evil being. Roland seems decent, haunted, but ultimately good, one of those lonely characters driven forward by something that gives him focus and purpose, but also hurts him, and those around him.
The world building in this first book is incredible, and the characters are both enigmatic yet sympathetic. I was immediately drawn to the connection between Jake and Roland, and wondered how much of Roland's affection for the boy was based on his own desperate loneliness.
Roland is driven in a way that few of us ever are, but does that make him harder to identify with? Not necessarily so.
I will say this, though: If you are looking for something that neatly fits into a science fiction category, or a drama category, or even a horror category, yeah this isn't it.
This is a tale spun out, crisscrossed over itself,and straightened out into a plot. In other words, it is a story something akin to the way a gunslinger may tell it.
The Gunslinger is not my favourite of the series so far; that honour probably goes to the third book, The Waste Lands. But the first book is definitely good, and the second book, The Drawing of the Three, is even better, and the third book is even better than that. (I am working on the fourth right now.)
The movie seems to jumble up the plots from many of the books, perhaps the whole series. It looks like it will be entertaining enough on its own (but who can tell?), but I am really wanting to finish the series before I watch the movie. I am so curious as to what they are going to do with it.
Even if you don't want to, or will be unable to, tackle the whole series before the movie comes out, this book is a quick read, especially in comparison to some of the others!
If you want to become engaged in some King writing and a world unlike anything you've ever seen - in that in some ways it is eerily familiar to many things you've seen - then I recommend this one for sure.
What do you think about the first book in this epic series? Are you tackling reading, or rereading this before the movie comes out? Or do you prefer to watch movies first and then read the book?
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