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Summary: Three more to be four on the quest
Review: This second volume of the Dark Tower series is essential because it sets up the team of people who are going to start the pilgrimage to the Dark Tower itself. These three people are extracted from our real world by the Gunslinger, Roland, who crosses the limit between his world and our world to choose the three companions he needs, to build up a group of four (an essential number in Stephen King's books). First a young teenager who is able to see a red rose in an abandoned lot in New York. He has the imagination of children and he believes in what he sees in his inner eye and hence has the power of childhood, a power that can transform the world. The second is a heroin junkie who is extracted from our world and has to go through a withdrawing period in his new environment, and this period is very difficult for his companions but also very instructive for the readers, and especially young readers, who discover how ugly such an addiction can be or become in some conditions. The third is a black woman who has been crippled in the subway by some criminal who threw her on the tracks in front of a train and she has lost her legs. So she is in a wheelchair. She is very bitter about the world, crime, and her handicap, and here again there is a heavy pedagogical value in this character because we discover how her new « mission » liberates her from her bitterness. This black character is also one of the very first fully developed black characters in Stephen King's books, and as such is a sign of an evolution that will be amplified in later books. All these characters have to learn how to survive in this strange and decaying world in which they are precipitated. This book, like the other volumes of this Dark Tower series, should be heavily recommended to a younger audience. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU,Paris Universities II and IX.
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Summary: Perfect follow up in this great series
Review: Amazing story telling sets Stephen King apart from many writers; he is the difference between the good and the great.
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Summary: (As Comic Guy from the Simpsons might say) Best Book Ever!
Review: Wow! I've read all four of the Dark Tower series, and this one is by far the best. While it's amount of action is not on par with The Wastelands or Wizard and Glass, King's brilliant story telling has done it again. His dark, dying world that is the only home to the Dark Tower, a safety pin that the multiverse is held together by, tells of a kind of Knight called a Gunslinger who is part John Wayne part Lancelot. The first installment throws you into an odd world, and tells Roland of the 'Drawing' he must make. The second installment really sets the tone of darkness and despair as Roland faces more hardships than any man could or should take. Visiting the minds of a New York Junkie in the Eighties, a crippled schizophrenic, and a murdering sociopath, Roland discovers the travelers that will take him on his quest to the dark tower. This book is by far the best, and I recommend it to anyone who can read. Seriously. Even those not fan of sci fi, fantasy, or horror.
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Summary: Draws Five Stars
Review: Steven King is such a large part of our popular culture that it amazes me that The Drawing of the Three is his first novel that I have actually read. Everyone has probably seen at least one Steven King movie or miniseries and yours truly is no exception. I was drawn into The Dark Tower series after listening to an audiotape version of The Gunlinger. Now I am hooked. The series so far is an eclectic mix of science fiction, fantasy, western and general quest themes. There is also King's relentless fascination with the macabre and the horrible. Following the events in The Gunslinger, Roland is attacked and gravely wounded by huge lobster like creatures. Roland must not only survive but also draw travelling companions from our world, specifically New York, of the 60s, 70s, and 80s. To do so he has to enter the minds of a drug addict, a black woman with dual personalities and a serial killer. The Gunslinger was set almost exclusively in Roland's world as it "moves on." In The Drawing of the Three the action alternates between the New Yorks and the world where Roland is near death. Roland sees our world as one of great wealth with inattentive people. He prefers his world but enter ours to draw what he needs for his quest. The Drawing of the Three is tension filled and action packed. It's enjoyment for traditional King fans as well as non-King readers such as me.
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Summary: Amazing work of art
Review: Stephen king is one of the coolest writers today. Some of the stuff he has come out with is just amazing (his best work in my opinon are tied with this series and The Stand--another great great book). He has my full respect in anything he decides to pursue. Anyway, I read this series in about a week and a half, and I was so ... sad that it ended (well put on hold anyway--supposed to be 7 books in all)--so I finished Wizard and Glass, and after that it was like I lost a bunch of friends, or was caught waiting for them to come around the bend. So do yourself a favor, especially if you like long epic serials, pick this up, buy all four novels or hit up your library, and spend an amazing time with these characters, they're wonderful bits of imagination. (from this book on, the series definitly pumps ahead, try them out, I promise you'll like them if you stick with'em)
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Summary: A faster pace than the first.
Review: Roland is back, but this time he has drawn 3 people back into his time with him who are chosen to help him with his task which is reaching the Dark Tower. Interesting reading as he draws the 3 in and teaches them some of the knowledge of the Gunslinger, you learn about each persons past, and they have a showdown with a pretty incredible "monster". A definite read as you move a step closer to the ultimate goal: The Dark Tower.
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Summary: Roland moves on...
Review: Well, Roland actually moves more to the side than on in this second installment to the series called "The Dark Tower." Roland moves in and out of our world and his world through doorways which lead him into other people's minds and bodies. A junkie, schizophrenic, and homicidal maniac are the three whom Roland has to choose from to go with him on his seemingly never-ending quest. Not all three are chosen, and Roland in turn takes care of unfinished business through the body of one. This book is somewhat predictable...but predictable in a good way. All the while you are reading, your mind attempts to outsmart King, or merely guess what the next step is in the puzzle of this journey only known as Ka. While reading, one finds him or herself analyzing the every move of the characters but also analyzing the essence of King's creativity. I believe King didn't know what the next sentence would be at several points throughout this novel...I believe he sat and thought deeply on the next move of the charaters for days perhaps even weeks. This book and series is without a doubt the best work Stephen King has ever produced. Like other great creators, past and present, King did not hurry this tale...he took his time and created a work of art.
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Summary: Not Bad, But Not Great Either
Review: The Drawing of the Three is probably the least of Stephen King's Dark Tower series -- not a bad book, mind you, but certainly not up to the standards of other entires in this series. The concepts are interesting (I love, for instance, King's mindbending description of the Door which appears to Roland on the beach), and the action, when there is action, is breathtakingly good. I also liked the "lobstrosities" and their "lawyerly questions", and the eerie way they raise their wicked claws in some strange form of worship as the incoming waves strike the shore. All of these things are good, as are the two new major characters King introduces: Eddie Dean and Odetta/Detta. Unfortunately, King indulges one of his worst traits here and spends far too much time providing backstory. Doing this for Eddie and Odetta I can understand, but for characters who appear in perhaps ten or twenty pages of the story? Come on, Steve! I don't know that much about some of my own friends -- I sure don't need to know the life stories of every character in a novel! There's a fine line between characterization and overkill, and King doesn't just cross it here, he buries the damn thing. It's the novel's biggest flaw, and it weakens King's more worthwhile efforts considerably. Then there is the connection between Detta/Odetta and Jack Mort (the heavy-handed symbolism of that name is another weak moment, by the way), which relies far too much on coincidence and is one of the story's more unlikely aspects -- even for a fantasy epic, it is asking a bit much for me to believe that Odetta was victimized by Mort not just once but twice, especially in a city as big as New York. And as far as Odetta herself is concerned -- well, I'm of two minds (pun unintended) about her character. King delineates the split in her mind quite well (I wonder if he toyed with the idea of calling her Janice at some point; I wouldn't be surprised) -- in fact, the moments involving the Detta/Odetta dichotomy are among the novel's best passages -- but I have problems with the way the two sides of Ms. Walker's personality are presented. Not only is the split between good and evil too neat, too clean (nobody is either as saintly or as wicked; each should have some aspect of the other in her), but Detta and Odetta both come dangerously close to caricature. Eddie Dean himself notes that Detta in particular is like some bizarre amalgam of Foxy Brown and Butterfly McQueen, while Odetta is the ultimate expression of King's "superblack" characters (i.e., Jack Halloran in The Shining, Mother Abigail in The Stand), a legless martyr for the civil rights battle in the early Sixties deliberately, almost calculatedly created to spark feelings of guilt among whites. To be perfectly fair to King, this is mostly or at least in part a setup, because neither of these characters is a real person; each is incomplete, unfinished, without the other to provide a real gestalt and make her into a functioning whole. But the whole thing could have been better, more delicately handled; while I was reading some passages I wanted to cringe at King's ham-handedness. Now, these moments are thankfully few and far between -- but combined with the other flaws I've mentioned, The Drawing of the Three is just an okay read, not the great one it could have been with a little more careful attention. I don't know if this was some weird form of sophomore slump, or if King was simply off his form while writing this one -- certainly the succeeding volumes in this series have perked up considerably -- but this book will never be ranked among King's most memorable work. It's second-tier at best.
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Summary: Stephen King's "The Drawing Of The Three"
Review: I found this book as compulsive to read as other king novels, but it was lacking in substance. Don't get me wrong - I enjoyed it, but it read like a bad '80's sci-fi movie, and the use of colloquialisms and conversational narration was annoying and at times redundant. As with some of King's other books, he has come up with a great idea but failed to endow it with the story it deserves. Hopefully King will do more justice to the next installment in the series, and redeem Roland in this world. If you want to read a Stephen King novel I suggest one of the greats like "The Shining" or "The Green Mile". If, however, you are a hardcore King fan, this book would probably appeal to you more than it did to me.
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Summary: and the quest continues~!
Review: Well, Roland the poor guy lost some appendages, and gained some new friends, some prodige's...hmmm I think I like that regardless. I have enjoyed this book even as much as the first if not more, knowing that ther man who tortured Detta saw a tragic end, I liked that Eddie was kicked of his habit, which would've lead to his death anyway, and I liked that SDetta became a human being again! True sometimes books are long, but I think that this one was accurate in description, character, and plot. I read in On Writing that he doiesn't think of plot before he writes his books, and maybe that is why he is so well versed! I like to think I would write books like he one day. I really enjoyed this story as much as the first, and I am in suspense as I read the third, and the fourth. I am ready for just about anything but I am sure I will be nothing more than surprised as always! Stephen King is THE MAN~! If I had one wish I would want to meet him and actually get to know him as a person!
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