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Summary: Be sure to start with The Gunslinger
Review: While I'm far from being a fan of fantasy and sci-fi, 'The Dark Tower' series has captivated me for over 10 years. I picked up 'The Gunslinger' in high school out of boredom, and I have now read the first four volumes of this series three times and am currently reading the long awaited fifth volume, 'Wolves of the Calla'.
The way these books are written, you can imagine yourself walking along with Roland, Eddie, Susannah, Jake and Oy on their quest to find 'The Dark Tower'. While reading, their quest may even become your own. You can feel Roland's pain as he's being attacked by the 'lobstrosities', and the homesickness felt by all of his companion's. This story is full of twists and turns that connect many different worlds in many different ways, yet remains easy to follow.As a huge King fan, this series is far and away the most shining example of his storytelling prowess. Everything is described in just enough detail (from the landscape, to the characters and beyond), to force the imagination into use, and it's very easy to get those wheels moving, no matter how long it's been since you've last used it. I promise you, you will get lost in this story which is part fantasy, part western, part love story, part sci-fi...and the list goes on. Whenever someone asks me a good book to read, I recommend anything from this series (which was inspired by Robert Browning's narrative poem, 'Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came'), and have yet to receive anything but positive feedback.
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Summary: What happened?
Review: This series was doing so well! The first book, I liked a lot. The second (The Drawing of the Three) took some getting used to, but then it all came together in the third (The Waste Lands), and then this dropped. This book, to which I was looking forward because it would explain more deeply Roland's youth and what society was like before the world moved on, but it was really, really, boring. I skipped to the end, skimming occasionally, and never looked back. Unless you must have completeness, and say truthfully that you have read the whole series, let this book go.
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Summary: outstanding addition to the dark tower series
Review: This story is another example of why Stephen King is the best. He can change directions with the story and still keep you very interested in the out come. A must read in the series. My third time reading the first four and I am getting ready to start on five. Cant wait for six or seven.
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Summary: what i think of it.
Review: I loved the dark tower 4.This was the best book so far.the way roland explained about his lost love susan and about the Marlyns rainbow intrests me the most.I would like to have the black 13.I didn't like how they killed susan or how roland killed his mom that is sad.Roland did the most adventure in his younger days.I don't think everyone in his ka-tet will live to see the dark tower or help roland "beat"it i think some will die helping him.I also like the way(this may be #5)they made the color gate with the little creatures on the bars it was cool.once i started reading the part about susan i was like get back to eddie and suze and roland and jake but once i finished i wanted it to go back to the story about susan.e-mail me and tell me what you think.
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Summary: The Best of the Dark Tower Series
Review: If you're like me, then by the time you get to this point of the series you'll be very curious to know about people from Roland's past such as Cuthbert, Alain, and Susan. Well, that's what about 500 of the 672 pages in this book deals with. And that tale of Roland's youth is an excellent one. We learn of what he and his friends get involved in in the Barony of Mejis, not long after Roland becomes a Gunslinger. There is great insight into who Roland was and how he became who he is. We see Roland not as the hardened man of The Gunslinger but as a boy, and we see the beginning of the events that would eventually turn him into that cold, imposing figure. Not to say that he is soft and weak here. Even at fourteen Roland is a born leader and a great fighter; he just hasn't shut away his emotions yet. Around the flashback, we also get the excellent conclusion of the Blaine escapade on one end and the next part of the journey towards the Tower at the other. The Wastelands comes very, very close, but ultimately I have to say that this is my favorite book in the series thus far. A must read for anyone who has read the previous three books.
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Summary: KING'S CROWNING ACHIEVEMENT
Review: Quite simply, this is not only the best of the Dark Tower series to date (number 5 is good but will be better appreciated along with 6 i feel) but the best book King has yet written. Great western elements, great characters and at least one moment that brought tears to my eyes. The only thing is that you NEED to read the (brilliant) series in order for it to become worthwhile. Please read them all!
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Summary: Fantastic and engrossing
Review: A masterful work that is epic, engrossing, and nary a dull moment to be found.
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Summary: The Best of the Tower Series
Review: I have always been a fan of Stephen King, but I have not jumped aboard the Dark Tower series as many others have. The series has always struck me as a bit pretentious, and I think that Roland's character has changed more times over the years than Michael Jackson's nose. He has gone from being the distant, dangerous, and single-minded force of nature to the two-fingered raving sick man to the get-along guy of the third novel--the ultimate team-player and all-around reasonable chap. I preferred his first incarnation, although I found the storytelling in The Gunslinger a little shallow and presumptuous. But in this work King has returned to the full-fleshed characters of the second book, The Drawing of the Three. Yes, this work does little to advance the overarching storyline, but it goes a very long way toward helping us understand the man Roland. The story reads a little like a Louis Llamour novel, except with wonderful characters and a much more deft hand guiding the plot. It is a classic tale of doomed love, and even though you know the outcome through knowing Roland's future, it is no less heartbreaking. One of the strongest characters in any King novel is the witch Rhea, she is the ultimate villain and I loved hating her. Apparently she will yet play a role in the series. King is at the top of his mature form in this novel, with the work being nothing short of breathtaking in its breadth and depth. Yes, we do have to spend a little time at the first of the novel finishing with that embarrassing nonsense of a dangerous and crazy monorail that asks riddles (?!), and a little time at the end meeting the "tick-tock" man in a very anticlimactic showdown. It is the story of Roland and Susan that makes this novel. You could never have read a Dark Tower book in your life and that would be a tale well-woth getting into.
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Summary: A damn good novel, although it is a step back in the series
Review: Dark Tower 4: Wizard and Glass by Stephen King is good, but not the best in the series (that would go to Dark Tower 3: The Wastelands). Anyway, Wizard and Glass starts off where Dark Tower 3 left off: Roland, Jake, Eddie, and Susannah on Blane speeding 800 MPH and ready to commit suicide with them aboard, and the only way for the hero's to escape is to give Blane a riddle he cant solve! So now as time rushes on, Roland and his ka-tet are stumped, and now Eddie is the only one left to give him a riddle that he cannot solve. Of course this works, and Blane crashes, but they escape with no harm. The ka-tet then enter Kansas, but this Kansas has been wiped out with a killer virus, the freeway is packed with cars with dead bodies in them (remind of you something King fans?). So now on the side of the freeway, Roland then tells his ka-tet his tale of long lost love.
Susan Delango is her name, and she is going to marry the Mayor of this western town in Gilead; it is a post-Apocalytic town where oil is useless and people use horses for transportation. Roland and his ka-tet (not Jake, Eddie, or Susannah), but Allan and Colbert. Roland is just 14 and he settles in Gilead. As the story moves on, Roland catches Susan's eye, but the Mayor and Susan's aunt want her to have the Mayor's baby. Susan's aunt is obessed with this glass where she can see people doing what people do behind closed doors. She is obessed with the glass (like Gollum was obessed with the ring in the Lord Of The Rings triology), but she hides it away from Susan. Eventually Roland and Susan fall in love, and of course they have each other sexually. Allan and Colbert get jealous because they think that she is trying to break their ka-tet. Then in the oil fields, the man in black (Randal Flagg) is trying to start a civil war, and he is taking the oil to use for weapons. So now Roland and his ka-tet head to the oil fields, they blow it up, and Susan get's her hands on the ball. Susan then gives the ball to Roland and he uses it to his advantage and try to figure out what Randall Flagg is doing. Eventually Susan is taking to town and is burned at the stake, and her last words are "ROLAND I LOVE THEE!" Roland watches her burn at the stake through the ball. Then Roland smashes the ball so no one can use the power of the ball again. So now we enter back to Roland's world where we begin off. Now they set off to the Path Of The Beam where they run into Randal Flagg again telling his ka-tet that they should stop now for the quest of the Dark Tower. They then tell him no, and so once they are back where they were, and they head to the Path Of The Beam. Wizard and Glass is a good novel, long, but it is still worth reading if you got the time and also the patience to go through this whole novel. Keep up the good work King.
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Summary: King writes Horror, Drama, Fantasy, Sci-Fi and now Romance!
Review: "Roland, I love thee!" screams Susan. Readers will all come to love Roland through this insightful look into his past at what made him the man he is today, the last gunslinger of Gilead. Book 4 satisfies us first by resolving the cliff-hanger from Book 3, "The Wastelands" that left us on the suicidal Blaine the train. They end up in a Kansas of another world devastated by Captain Trips, the superflu from "The Stand." They continue walking on their quest for the Dark Tower. Off in the distance they see an emerald palace, much like the one from the book, "The Wizard of Oz." On their way there, one night they hold palaver. Roland tells his ka-tet of times of old, when Gilead still stood and a war was just being waged by a John Farson. As a teen, just after passing his test to become a gunslinger, his father sends Roland and his two closest friends, Cuthbert and Alain away to the town of Mejis. This is for Roland's safety, for we learn that his father's magician and advisor, is out to kill Roland. It's a very complicated entanglement and it seems best all around that Roland leave Gilead for awhile, until tensions calm. While undercover in Mejis (the boys had to assume names and a cover story for their protection) Roland meets Susan, the love of his life. Unfortunately, Susan is promised to be a gilly (mistress) of the mayor. All bought and paid for with dishonest money. Susan only agrees to this deal so that she can regain her late father's land for her family. Mostly, she is goaded into it by her aunt Cord, a greedy spinster. Roland and his friends maintain their cover of "counting" supplies for the barony, however while doing so, they uncover evidence that the men in power in Mejis has taken sides with Farson, "The Good Man." Mejis has been used as a storage area for Farson's horses and weapons, tanks from another time or world. Little do the boys know that the real secret weapon is one of the wizard's glass, an orb that allows one to see events of the past, present, and future. It's too late for them to alert Gilead and send for help so they must take action themselves. There isn't much time, Farson's men will be coming soon to collect their supplies. Roland vows to protect Susan, who is now carrying his child. The two of them plan for a fairy-tale ending. Things don't always happen the way we hope.
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