Rating: 
Summary: A Dissappointment from a Great Writer
Review: Stephen King is a terrific writer, but The Gunslinger was a disappointment. Most of the book had just enough suspense to keep one reading, but it was boring and the ending was unsatisfying. Some events, such as the characters being attacked by the slow mutants, were put in simply for suspense; and had little to do with the plot.
Rating: 
Summary: Adventurous and exciting, a fanstastic book!!
Review: This book is one of my favorite-ever books. It definatly is not for the young reader. It has some vulgar language, and many chapters are all about killing. But for the older and more matuer reader, it is a classic. The book concerns a dark man who wanders through the desert after nuclear war wiped out most of the world. He is on a quest to find the man in black, who he has been following most of his life. A mist read for science fiction lovers!!
Rating: 
Summary: Hack work from a mega seller.
Review: This is probably the worst book I've read since 'Atlas Shrugged'. I think he wrote it during commercials while watching TV. The writing in the first half was on par with most high school creative writing courses. The plot was very confusing and had a thrown together feel, like 'oh well, I'll clean that up in the next book.'The worst part is that he actually sounded like he liked the story and thought it was good.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent
Review: A great start to a great series. Roland is one of stephen kings deepest and most fascinating characters. Bravo!
Rating:
Summary: Re-read it!
Review: I read this book one year ago and was very confused. For me, King has always been a writer who created likeable characters, but this Roland seemed like a cruel lunatic to me. The story was also a bit disjointed. But, never judge a story when it has just begun. And this is merely the beginning of King's largest work (in fact, it ties together most of his other stories as well). So I read on. And after the next books (especially after "Wizard and Glass") I understood why Roland has become this "Tower-Junkie". So I went back to reading "The Gunslinger" again. (In fact, I listened to the audiobook read by Frank Muller. If you like the books, buy the audiobooks, you will love them!) And now that I see this whole work as one, I like "The Gunslinger" as much as the rest of the story. Altogether, it makes up the finest story I have ever heard. I can't wait for the final trilogy to be published in 2001, 2002 and 2003, if King stays to his word. If you like this series as much as me, don't forget to read "The Stand", "The Eyes of the Dragon", "'Salem's Lot", "Insomnia" and "Hearts in Atlantis", for all of them are very good, indeed, and crucial for the Dark Tower series.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Book because you see a writer looking for truth
Review: I read a lot for school and have the benefit of comparing "Gunslinger" with "classic literature" (Rushdie, Gatsby, Wolfe etc). Usually, intellectual types avoid discussing King as a serious writer. As you probably know, he is rarely "taught" in a college English class. Personally, I haven't had much exposure to him. But, I have to say that "Gunslinger" is brilliant and solid. It draws most of its symbolism from mythic poetry and lore (in fact, Roland is a character out of a poem) and uses sparse imagery, not far removed from the classic American Western (think John Ford or even "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly"). Most of the language is American prose and the feel of it is sparse as well. I would say that this is classic literature and if some Enlgish teachers really took the time to dissect it, they would begin to see that it is comparable to other excellent books written over the last 25 years. I would reccomend it to fans of Denis Johnson, even Ray Carver. People might say this is not great lit because it it has "stock characters". So what- so does Shakespeare. In fact, almost all of Shakespeare's plays were stories everyone knew within a very generic set of rules that governed plays of that time. Furthermore, stock imagery has always been used by classic writer, witness Mansfield and Joyce creating their own orders of mythic symbols. What I'm getting at here is that "Gunslinger" is an excellent example of someone taking a classic plot (well, there are no new stories, are there?) and using it to explore his own fears and dark side. A reader with an open mind (not someone who is looking for King "the horror writer" or King "the genre writer who will be forgotten in fifty years") can find a sense of that same struggle in his/her own mind: What is the meaning of things? What is worth keeping? Is there hope? Roland is certainly just as real a character as maniacal Captain Ahab or Rushdie's Gibreel Farishta. I say, give King his due, you can see him wrestle through this book, you can see him trying to balance th act of telling a good story against the need to explore philosphy. Well done.
Rating: 
Summary: A must re-read after the other 3
Review: What you must remember is this is a prolog. A long prolog, but a prolog just the same. It is an introduction of characaters. I read the books and listend to them on audio, ( mom has gone blind and can not read any more, she gobbled the 4 book series up. Mom liked W & G more then me.) and I really like Frank Muller. F.M. is an excellent reader, If you are going to do the series, you have to do 1. Its a little slow and when I first read was disapointed not realising it was a prolog. but I would suggest you read ( or listen to ) first before going to 3 which is great. By the way book 2 is also a prolog!
Rating:
Summary: You have to read this one a couple of times.
Review: This is a hard book to rate. It kind of starts in the middle of nowhere and the middle of nothing. The first time I read it I was tempted to give up on it a lot. I kept wondering where is this happening, when is this happening and what the hell is going on? But we meet Roland in the middle of his adventure. My advice is to read it, no matter how confused you get, then read the next 2 in the series and then re-read the first one. It'll make a lot more sense the second time around. Overall, I think it's an excellent intro into Roland's world.
Rating:
Summary: What . . . . happened?
Review: What a strange little book. The entire series is weird, but this one is just ... plain ... strange. That's not to say it's not good ... in a strange sort of way. You should read it first, just to get the feel for how strange some of the much longer (and better) books later in the series can get, but this is the poorest of the four out so far. I finished this irritated by the gunslinger (although he hadn't reached the heights of irritatingness he would reach in Part IV) and his little friend, Jake. I don't know why I'm recommending this, but I am. Strange.
Rating:
Summary: Challenge Yourself
Review: Lots of five stars here. Lots of one stars, too. Comments like "hard to follow". "Boring." "No plot." I would argue that the plot is so big, some are not seeing the forest for the trees. The books of the Dark Tower cycle are King's most important, not because they are the easiest to follow, not because they are quick reads, but because with these novels not only is the author is tapping into a collective mythology, but is tying all of his works (see "Insomnia", "It", "Eyes of the Dragon", "The Stand", and many others) together. In other words, these novels stand at the center of King's entire body of work, connecting them to itself and one another, and thereby lending deeper meaning to the whole (kind of like the Dark Tower itself, no?). This is an ambitious attempt, and one in which I believe that King is unique. And the guy is pulling it off. Now, as for "The Gunslinger." If you are one of those that were unimpressed by this offering, please follow this advice: Read the whole thing. All of it. That includes the "tributary" books like "Insomnia" and especially "The Stand." Get a feel for what King is trying to do. Then go back for a re-read. You'll be amazed. Admittedly the pace is disjointed, and if you have read King's other stuff, you won't be prepared for this. But realize that the sparseness of the prose, the disjointedness and abjectness and disaffection of the novel mirrors the desolation and madness of Roland's soul (which is in turn reflected by the desolation of the desert and the madness of the man he chases). Realize that in this novel, King is setting up payoffs that don't come until years down the road, that won't hit you until the second reading (and if that isn't the mark of a great story, what is?). Just to take one example out of many: Roland's massacre of the shanty-town of Tull seems excessive, until the end of Book IV, when we get the payoff: Tull is the remnant of the village that burned Roland's love, Susan Delgado, at the stake. The massacre can be read as Roland's revenge on the town. "The Gunslinger" is a book of subtle shades and undertones, and is not the best of the bunch (that would be "The Drawing of the Three"), but it is a perfect and impressive foundation to an ambitious and excellent tale.
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