Rating: 
Summary: Badass book; nuff said
Review: Well, maybe there is more to say cuz this book is one pardon the phrase "badass mofo". It has it all: action, drama, suspense, romance, just everything you think of when you think of a hardcore Clint Eastwood Bonanza movie vibe. Roland is a great main character too, real fresh-faced killer mentality with a hint of compassion at the same time for the less fortunate along the way in the journey, or his love interest Alice who he has to end up killing ironically. To sum this piece up a must read for those hardcore King fans like myself or just if you like a good mysterious plot-twisting tale of dark wizardry and zigzags throughout. Good stuff and I'm not even an avid reader either, imagine that, it's just that easy to get involved, go hed phonics monkeys, join in. lol peace out
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Read, but don't start here!
Review: When I first ventured in to the realm of Roland of Gilead, it was thanks to an audiobook I received from my cousin at Christmas time. When I learned the title, I can, without any shame, say that I was less than enthused. That book was, The Drawing of The Three, the second book in this amazing masterpiece of American literature. From just the "Argument" section of DOTD, I was hooked. Upon completing the book, I was desperate to know more about the mysterious Roland: where he came from, what made him so driven? I immediately procured "The Gunslinger" and must say I enjoyed it thoroughly. It does answer many questions, but in typical Stephen King fashion, leaves many more to be answered. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that I believe DOTD is the place to start. Begin there, get sucked in to this amazing world, then backtrack and read the Gunslinger. All hale the King!
Rating:
Summary: Second Time was the Charm
Review: my 1st attempt at The Gunslinger was on audio-tape @ work. I promptly began to nod off before the 1st tape was finished. I swore off the book.months went by, and desparation for ANY listening material led me back. i don't proclaim to know what had changed for me, but suddenly I found myself trudging the desert with Roland, eager to see where each step would take us. the entire Dark Tower series is a part of my world. i re-read it as a whole about every 1 1/2 years (and a part of me still thinks that maybe he will catch the boy after all.....). I recommend that king fans (and any avid readers) who may have struggled getting into the story to be patient. Put it away for a few weeks or so & then try it again.
Rating:
Summary: Love at first sight
Review: Well, I have to say I've finished the fourth book a week before and deceided to jump into the revised version of The Gunslinger. And let's just say there was a lot more to tell. The unedited one was as clear as mud sometimes, but the revised one helps out here and there. Roland is the man, and that's all I have to say.
Rating:
Summary: Not the Best of the Series, but Still Magnificent
Review: With "The Gunslinger," Stephen King set out on one of the greatest epic journeys of modern literature. Each subsequent novel in The Dark Tower series picks up right where the last one left off, meaning that The Dark Tower is not really a series at all, but one monstrous novel. Upon its completion, with the publication of DT7 in 2004, I think King will have engineered one of the greatest achievements of our time. "The Gunslinger," even in its new, revised form, is the weakest book in the series if you're talking about the style and diction. But keep in mind, he wrote most of the novel when he was 19. Could you have written this well as a teenager? I couldn't have. And the plot of the novel more than makes up for the style. If you are not intrigued by Roland, the last gunslinger of Gilead, you are one seriously unimaginative person. In any case, if you are a little put off by the rough style of this novel, keep on reading. Each book in the series gets better than the one before it, and the excitement and suspense builds as Roland his band of pilgrims draw ever closer to the Tower. Hamlet, Jay Gatsby, Holden Caulfield, Atticus Finch, Aragorn, Hannibal Lecter. They are among the greatest characters in literature, and someday Roland Deschain will rightfully hold a place among them.
Rating: 
Summary: Hope it gets better...
Review: Well, I've never read the rest of the books in this series, but if they all read like this book I think I'd rather stab myself repeatedly in the eye with an icepick than continue. This book would be sooo much better if I could figure out just what in God's name King is talking about!! He gives little background to ANYTHING, refers to objects and places casually like you know what they are (when you don't), and drags the plot out way too long. But, King has always had a problem with spending too much time explaining stuff you don't need to know about. The only thing that kept me going was the hope that the other volumes would be better. Thankfully, you other reviewers out there have given me reason to keep hoping. But in comparison with masterpieces like "The Stand" and "Needful Things" this in no way measures up. If "The Drawing of the Three" is this bad, I just might shoot myself in the "heada" with a "gunna". Ugh.
Rating:
Summary: Not my favorite in the series
Review: This is the first book in the Dark Tower series, and my personal least favorite book in the series. I read this when I was in high school, or was that junior high? Either way, I read this book when I was really young. I didn't like the story much then. It seemed like a painstaking process getting through the mundane beginning. Recently, I read the revised version of this book. The Gunslinger is the story of Roland of Gilead. Roland is a gunslinger in a world that is dead (or dying, depending on the reader's point of view). He is chasing the man in black, who Roland believes knows all the secrets of the Dark Tower. He plans on making this ambiguous man tell him what he wants to know about the tower. This story still started off pretty slow for me. I was almost tempted to put it down, but I stuck it out. The action picks up after a few pages though, but it's not consistent. You get a little action, then bits that could bore you to tears, then more action. It's not an awful read by far. This story is essential in introducing you to a desolate world, to Roland, to the man in black, etc. I really love how King can make the despair and desolation of the land so tangible in a reader's mind. I could imagine the land with a vividness. When I first read this, I don't remember feeling as blown away by some of the descriptions as I feel now. I, also, enjoyed how bits and pieces of the hero's life is scattered throughout the book. Though as my friend pointed out the book can be very confusing at parts. Sometimes, King would suddenly shift into a flashback, and at first, you wouldn't even realize it. Then, it could get quite wordy in a couple of places that didn't really need to be. A dictionary is a nice asset to have while reading this book, too. I had no idea what a poultice was until I read this book. Anyhow, I probably won't read this book a third time, but I enjoyed it much more this time. I always thought that King did a good job of mixing different genres (horror, fantasy, western, sci-fi) with this - and the rest of the books in the series. Not a bad revision for a novel that nearly ended up in my grandparents fireplace almost a decade ago.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent improvement!
Review: I have just read the new, expanded edition of The Gunslinger. It was incredible the difference that King was able to make from the original. I used to view the first book as completely seperate from the second, third, and fourth, books. It was my least favorite of the series. Now, however, I find that I cannot make a decision between it and The Waste Lands. Each character seems to have been made more real. The story flows much better than before. Not to mention, the descriptions have grown much more easy to picture. If you have ever read the original version of The Gunslinger, read the new one. You may not see a huge difference, but I do not know how anyone can say that there is no improvement, let alone that it is worse.
Rating:
Summary: A Wonderfully Written Piece of Lit.
Review: From beginning to end, this book kept me completely immersed in a fantastic adventure. At the point when we first meet the mysterious gunslinger, Roland, we are thrown into a world of shrouded past and undetermined future. Set in a land that strangely resembles our own, Roland journeys to catch the elusive Black Man. Facing several challenges along the way, we can't help but be compelled by the excitement...I only hope that King's series ends as well as it started.
Rating:
Summary: Peaks the Curious, But Overly Vague
Review: Stephen King obviously started this out to be a series, as there are very few things to explain the kind of world Roland lives in or what has happened in the past. (And the fact that he claims that it's all one book is complete BS. He says himself that even after the fourth was done, he still didn't know how to end it. If it were all one book, he would have written it all at once and not made multiple releases over time.) "The Gunslinger" stands out among King's work. While most of this novels contain many different main characters, this book centers mainly on one: Roland of Ilead, the last gunslinger. He comes from a world similar to ours, and may even BE in a world similar to ours, but there is nothing to explain what has happened or what rules this place goes by. Nothing even seems to have a purpose in his quest until the end, and it still seems overly disjointed. It's so vague, the reader doesn't even see Roland's name in the text until a third of the way into the book. Up until then, he's referred to as "the gunslinger," appropriately. The book starts with Roland walking through a barren wasteland in pursuit of the man in black. He meets a farmer, who is somehow growing crop out in the desert, and decides to stop for the night. He then explains to the farmer how he'd spent a few days in a town that was no more. Eventually, he meets a boy named Jake from New York City and begins traveling with him. At different times, he goes into flashbacks of his childhood in Ilead, on his way to becoming a gunslinger. It's these flashbacks that hold what merit the book has. One involving he and his friends' eavesdropping of the cook is sound. Later, when they are at the gallows, the scene of an actual hanging and what Roland thinks as the bottom drops out really sounded with something I'd realized a ways back. And Roland's actual trial to become a gunslinger is riveting and heart-breaking at the same time. I'm intentionally writing this without having gone very far into the next book simply so that my opinion of it can be unbiased of what is to come. And "The Gunslinger" standing alone does not stand well. I did find it to be worth-reading, if only for the gunslinger's flashbacks, and the area with the Slow Mutants was right on par with what one would usually expect from King. While it will probably be some time before I pick this one up again, be sure that I plan to press on with the Dark Tower series. This one is worth reading, but it might be a while before Roland's past allows the interest to flow into his ka. -Escushion
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