Stephen King's "Dark Tower"

[Finarvyn]

Also posted to Dragonsfoot[u/]

Not the electronic game. Not the Judges Guild module. I'm thinking of the Stephen King series.

I want to like Dark Tower. I have heard good things about it over the years so I bought the boxed set of the novels. The concept seems solid for gaming, so I bought a copy of the "We Deal in Lead" RPG because I heard that the game is sort of a homage to Dark Tower. I enjoyed the movie, which I felt was decent but not outstanding and gave me a "big picture" view of what the series was trying to do. I love paladin characters, so the concept of these gunslingers (who are apparently a lot like Arthur's knights) battling evil and trying to defeat the big badguy of the Dark Tower sounds pretty neat.

In general I like the writings of Stephen King. Eyes of the Dragon is excellent, as is Salem's Lot and the JFK assassination/time travel book. I liked It and The Stand. His works are a little creepy, but I like them.

I don't think I like Dark Tower.

I read "The Gunslinger" years ago. Liked it somewhat, but it wasn't great. It was short, however. After I bought the boxed set I re-read "The Gunslinger" and jumped into book #2. Much longer book, and my enthusiasm diminished somewhat. Plowed through the thing and on to #3. Ground to a halt. I just feel like I'm forcing myself to read the thing, hoping that it gets better. Does it?

I guess I'm trying to get a feel from folks here about whether it's worth it for me to continue with the series. I've heard that it's one of the great series of all time, but I figure at the rate I read nowadays I could be months plowing through the thing to get to the end. In that time I could easily re-read Conan or Amber or Barsoom or a lot of Dresden Files or other works that I would probably enjoy more.

Is Dark Tower worth it, or should I just sell the thing and walk away? Opinions welcome.

[flightcommander]

Read a few pages and threw it across the room.

[tdenmark]

Jul 24, 2024 13:24:16 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

Is Dark Tower worth it, or should I just sell the thing and walk away? Opinions welcome.

The Dark Tower has the best, and worst, of King's writings.

1. The Gunslinger: ok start, but not great. Establishes the bleak world setting which I kind of like.
2. The Drawing of the Three: pretty good, but still kind of meh. The characters assembled here are interesting and make the book worth reading.
3. The Wastelands: Getting better. Overall this book is quite a ride (figuratively, and literally in the story), what a cliffhanger.
4. Wizard and Glass: one of the best books King has ever written, high point of the series.
4s. The Wind Through the Keyhole: optional, he wrote this after completing the series. It is ok. It is sort of 3 short story ideas King had that he wrapped into one novel.
5. Wolves of the Calla: I might have liked this better if he hadn't given the story away in the forward. It is a storyline that has been done to death by others, and better, so I really didn't care for this book at all.
6. Song of Susannah: Holy Guacamole is this book terrible.
7. The Dark Tower: I didn't think he could write a worse book than Song of Susannah, but this just might be. He uses a device no author should ever use (no spoiler). What a disappointing end to the series. A real shame because there are a handful of great ideas amid a lot of drek.

While I can recommend about 3 books in the series, you kinda have to read the whole series if you're going to commit. I suspect you could read Wizard and Glass on its own and just enjoy this weird western.

If I was to read this series again I'd just stop after Wizard and Glass. I mean you'd want to know about the Dark Tower, but that's probably best left as a JJ Abram's mystery box than what King did with it.

If you loved the Dark Tower, and many do, that is great. I wish I could have loved it, I really wanted to. And there was much in it I did really like. And if I was to run a Dark Tower campaign, to plug my own RPG, I do think Gunslinger would be perfect for it.

On a side note, there have been several graphic novel adaptations of The Dark Tower, all of which I think are fantastic. I'd even recommend them over the novels!

[Punkrabbitt]

Numbers 1, 3, and 4 are worth reading in my opinion. I left my first wife halfway through #4, and she kept the book. I never bought a new copy to finish it up, though. I started on 5 and simply couldn't.