A journey of 3854 steps (The Dark Tower Series - Stephen King in general)

Member Name: FairyWBO

Product:	The Dark Tower Series - Stephen King in general
Date:	27/01/05 (1066 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great story, Dark and interesting, Mixes the genres

Disadvantages: Losses the plot towards end, No stand alone books

When I first picked up the box set of the first 4 of this series I had no way of knowing how long it would take me to get to the end.

I have always been a Stephen King fan, and a fantasy fan, so imagine my delight in finding the two combined :o)

This is his attempt to do his own Lord of the Rings (he says as much in the preamble bit of the four paperbacks) only with a cowboy twist and a bit of King Arthur thrown in for good measure. King Arthur, another of my favourites, so how could this set of books go wrong in my eyes? It couldn't really, but it did get weird towards the end.

It also has been influenced by the Robert Browing poem Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came, but as I was unaware of this poem before starting the books, it doesn't have much meaning to me, but will to plenty of others I am sure.

King first had a short story from the first book published in 1978, so he has spent most of his writing life on this story (in more ways than one, but see later in this opinion for that) and I am glad I chose when I did to read it, so that the new books were available before I managed to finish the last, or I might have had to go back and read them over just to remind myself of what happened.

Right, I won't bore you with run downs of what each book is about, no long plot doodahs either, just me telling you about it as a whole. I am sure others will and have already told you all you need to know in those areas anyway.

This is a basic story.... man goes in search of a tower and picks up some help along the way. Thats all there is to it. Roland (the man in question) is what is known in his world as a gunslinger, sort of a knight in shining armour, only his armour is a shirt and jeans and his sword is a couple of guns. He goes from place to place righting wrongs and following a man that betrayed his family in his youth. OK thats probably a bit too basic, but it gives you an idea. The world isn't our own, but it keeps popping back to "reality" now and then to get more characters and plot twists.

Ok, so what exactly are these books that make up the set.....

Gunslinger
ISNB 0-340-82975-3 (238 pages)

The Drawing of the Three
ISBN 0-340-82976-1 (455 pages)

The Wastelands
ISBN 0-340-82977-X (584 pages)

Wizard and Glass
ISBN 0-340-82978-8 (845 pages)

Wolves of the Calla
ISBN 0-340-82715-7 (616 pages)

Song of Susannah
ISBN 0-340-82718-1 (430 pages)

The Dark Tower
ISBN 0-340-82721-1 (686 pages)


The books themselves take up 31cm... that's a foot of bookshelf! Thats 4 paperbacks in a little box sleeve type thing and three whomping large hardbacks... sorry but I thought you needed telling... suppose all in paperbacks will be smaller, but I couldn't wait that long :oP

What I like about the books themselves (this has nothing to do with story, content or anything else) is that the paperback box set each starts with a forward by Stephen King about the whys and wherefores for writing the books and ends with the first chapter of the next book (which is handy if not in a box set, and redundant in one) but I liked anyway. The hardbacks come with their own ribbon bookmark (very posh and drove me round the bend as my new kitten tried to eat them every night as I read) and some excellent colour plates. No not dinner plates! Or Orizas (thats throwing plates with a wickedly sharp edge that appear from book 5 onwards) Of course the pictures look nothing like the ones in my head, but they are nicely done. Also they all look good next to each other on the foot of shelving they take up, with the tower on the spine of each one. And for once (this maybe just me) but all the writting faces the same way, is in same style and order (don't you just hate it when they suddenly change the spines of books halfway through a set!... You should see my Pratchett collection... it's all up and down and pictures on the spine all over the place! OK that is just me then).

Also the tower on each spine changes to match the story in the book (my youngest son is facinated by this) but stays the same.

There is artwork throughout the whole set, all done by Michael Whelan, but it really comes into its own in the hardbacks. :o)

Right back to the content....

Roland picks up some help along the way in the form of three people from New York . Help isn't always the best way to describe what they give him, but overall it is in the end. It could get very confusing as they all come from different time periods but it is handled very well and I managed to keep up with what was going on 99% of the time anyway :o)

But it does get very egotistical towards the end, some may call this clever, I call it a tad annoying. King desides it's time for him to be in the book, so he brings in characters and bits from other books, Maine of course is mentioned and he even brings himself into it. I won't say how or where, thats for you to find out if you want to. Maybe this is the masterpiece, the piece all the rest have been leading upto, maybe it really is partially true. It's hard to say where writers inspiration really does come from when all is said and done.... where ever it is I know I don't have the ability to tap into it yet (but I'm working on it) King has often said that stories come to him in the form of dreams. So maybe this is the masterpiece.... ah maybe he has just sucked me into the hype, who knows, best not think about these things too deeply or it starts getting into the realms of dolalliness, and people will always read more into things than are there anyway. But enough of that before I need locking away for thinking to hard :oP

Also the writing style of the last book changes,not sure if this is on purpose or not, but suddenly King is talking directly to us, the readers. Maybe it has been there all along and it only started getting to me towards the end, but it did start to lessen my enjoyment of the books.

I am not trying to put you off reading them, it's just King did seem to lose the plot slightly towards the end. They are still good books though, but only as a set. No way could someone read one book half way through the set and know what is going on.

Also I should point out there is a fair bit of swearing and sex in this series, so it wouldn't be suitable for too young a reader, just like any other King book really. Which I have just had to tell my 9 year old, the pictures on the spines really have caught his interest it seems.

Overall I say I have throughly enjoyed the extremely long trek through Mid-World and am slightly sad its all at an end now. I haven't quite finished the final book yet, as I didn't want to write this knowing the ending, just incase I accidently gave the ending away.

So I will leave you and go back to my last few days with Roland :o)

Happy reading
Sarah :o)

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