The Gunslinger

A friend of mine recommended The Dark Tower series to me almost 7 years ago, but I’ve only recently begun reading it.  I put it off for so long partly because I’m not much of a Stephen King fan, but the first two books in the series (The Gunslinger and The Drawing of the Three) were a pleasant surprise.

The story isn’t particularly novel, but that doesn’t hurt the books.  They pull from a lot of different genres, which makes the story feel new and the world the story is set in feel both strange and familiar.  The characters, especially the main character, Roland, are very interesting.

Roland isn’t a character I can identify with at all.  It’s hard to understand how he works and why he does what he does.  And that makes him seem a bit unpredictable and is utterly fascinating.  He can be hard to like, but is very easy to respect.

I’m hoping I’ll get the third book in the series soon through swaptree.

Any thoughts from those of you who’ve read the books?

Comments

  1. Mike says:

    I’ve read all seven of them.

    The first three are excellent. After that, they start to go downhill a bit, in my opinion — though they are still worth reading.

    What I love about The Gunslinger series — even the later, lesser books — is that feeling of strangeness and familiarity that you mention. I’ve never seen another author achieve that so well, even any of the “greats.” It feels like our world rotated through the fourth dimension.

    Also, the first line of the first book, “The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed,” is one of my favorites of all time. It just brings you right into that world immediately.

    Wait till you find out, many, many thousands of words from now, where the gunslinger’s guns come from. 🙂

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