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The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower, Book 1)

The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower, Book 1)

List Price: $15.95
Your Price: $10.85
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: What can you say, it doesn't get better then this
Review: There's nothing to say. The land of the Gunslinger is a land right out of my dreams (Nightmare?). I dont know who else could have created it except King. Excellent book

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Powerful
Review: Awesome start to the Darktower series, here we learn about Roland- the last gunslinger, learn a little of his past and get a glimpse into a dusty, dying world where time is skewed-different from our own, but what also seems connected to our own. We meet Jake, who is thrust into Rolands world from our world by the man in black, and learn of beings much more powerful than the man in black. Roland is shown a vision of his world and universe, and the possibility of infinite universes, his own place in time and space, and learns how his own world is dying. Its a mix of sci-fi, fantasy, and western with a touch of-or even underlying- romanticism.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: An Acceptable Beginning......
Review: The first book of the "Dark Tower" series. You've probably read all of the other reviews, and know a little of the background, so I won't get too much into that. I just want to warn that this book is very unusual, mostly in a good way. It is quite wordy, and you'll probably have to refer to a dictionary for a good handful of definitions to a few of the more obscure words. It also doesn't flow quite as well as one would expect it to, you have to really dig your heels in and focus. In fact, it is almost as though the story takes place in a dream, where events can sometimes seem muddled by the lack of comprehension. One thing that I didn't really understand is, how could Roland feel practically no remorse for killing the woman whom he slept with a number of times and lived with briefly, and yet, whenever the boy Jake dies, he is terribly upset? In other words, Roland isn't quite so well balanced here, although he has plenty of room to improve. I will admit that I read through this book as briskly as I could, for there are a lot of dull parts. It's probably his shortest novel, and yet, as he admits in the afterword, took the longest to write. I'm just on book two of the series so far, but trust me, it gets much better. It was an early effort, though, and it isn't so bad considering how old King was when he wrote it. A unique blend of fantasy, western, science fiction, and horror, you might just want to check this out, see how you like it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: King, but not entirely like King. One of the 10 best
Review: "The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed." For whatever reason, it's the most memorable opening line I've read.

This is the first book in King's post-apocalyptic/parallel worlds Dark Tower series. The gunslinger is a character inspired by the Man with No Name that Eastwood played in the cinema. Certainly he is one of King's best characters.

This story melds magic and firearms in an unforced, entertaining way. It's written in a dry, dusty style that suits the gunslinger perfectly.

Aside from the fact that the book is very entertaining in its own right, King fans simply MUST read the Dark Tower books, because these days, ALL his other books at least make reference to the Tower, if they aren't extremely intertwined, like Hearts in Atlantis and Black House. These references in other books are like big fat Easter Eggs; you're finding unexpected rewards everywhere!

This book is one I'd never do without. Go get it!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: A so-so start to a great series
Review: This book was one of King's first, written his senior year of college and it has all the flaws of a budding novelist. The language is sometimes verbose and the imagery is a bit abstract, but all in all this is a good first chapter to the Dark Tower Series and a must read, if only for Walter's diatribe at the end of the book.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: good booke for good people
Review: I read this book over the last week and it was the best book i have read in a long time. If you like to read then you would like this book, The story and the way Stephen king writes just makes you want to keep turing the page. This book is a good read for teenagers and adults.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Introduction
Review: This book is a very strange book. Stephen King can write strange stuff but this is way out there. It takes place in a parallel unverse to ours, I think. This book is an introduction to the Dark Tower series of which there are 4 books so far. This one tells part of Roland's (the last Gunslinger) journey across a vast desert to catch up with the man in black. He meets a boy, Jake, from our world and befriends him. Most of it is the Gunslinger reflecting on some of his journey and some of his childhood. There isn't too much action until the last 50 pages or so. Alone it isn't too good but it fits in with the series.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great Start to the Dark Tower series
Review: Displaying elements of modern culture intermingled with a story which is part Fantasy, part Science Fiction, part Horror, and overall Western is a weird feat only achievable by Stephen King. He manages to put together the most unlikely of stories with a good mix of horror, humor, action, and a high gross-out factor in parts.

This is the story of Roland, the last of the gunslingers as he pursues the mysterious Man in Black across the desert and over the mountains, striving to reach his ultimate goal, the Dark Tower. Why? I have no idea. What he plans to do with at tower when he arrives is a topic to be discussed in future volumes. In the meantime, enjoy the action as Roland encounters a talking bird, drops acid, is designated the Antichrist, discloses the secrets of his past, and encounters a succubus (but not necessarily in that order).

This unabridged audio version was read by the author. I had previously mentioned that Stephen King is a better writer than reader in my review of "Blood and Smoke", but my opinion of him moved up a notch here. His reading here was still not the best I've heard (Frank Muller is a master here), but better than some professional readers. This story ends on an open note which piqued my interest in following Roland to the second in the Dark Tower series, "The Drawing of the Three".

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Hero?
Review: Even though it is somewhat disjointed and occasionally some of the seams show (The Gunslinger was actually written and published as several short stories/novelettes in F&SF over a several year period), this is an excellent read. In basic format it is a classic 'quest' fantasy (as it should be, being based at least partially on the Childe Roland epic poem). Where it differs, startlingly so, is in its protagonist, a 'noble' knight remade in the image of an impossibly competent Old West gunslinger. Unlike much of the other King material I've read, Roland is almost totally defined as a character by his actions. His decision to remain in a town he knows is a trap (and leading to his slaughter of the entire town), his method of fighting in his 'coming of age' test, his sacrifice of Jake -- each item adds to the defined character, and it is not a very pretty picture that gets painted. At the same time, his very stubbornness and single-minded continuation towards his goal, regardless of obstacles, is a traditional picture of a hero type.

The world that Roland inhabits and his 'man in black' quarry reminded me a lot of some of Zelazny's work (like Jack of Shadows and ...And Call Me Conrad) -- not quite our world, hazy, different, but with some recognizable sign-posts along the way that connects in some form with our mythos/archetypes. In some areas, it's a little too hazy, most especially in not giving the reader a roadmap to the 'rules' that govern his world - we go from everyday 'bullets work like normal' to 'raising the dead' to 'time warpage' without any real guide to what is possible or normal in this world. But the background history he gives Roland is just enough to whet the reader's appetite to look for more pieces to his puzzle world and the reason behind his quest.

Overall, not a great work, as while it stands alone, it is obviously only a part of a much larger story, and the disjointedness is sometimes jarring. Still, this is a quite memorable and different story than the average King blockbuster.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Classy
Review: I stumbled across this book...Looked interesting enough, so I bought it. At first I had doubts, it starts a little slow, but soon found my eyes addicted to its pages. Get this first of four books, read 'em all, they're awsome.


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