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Summary: King is THE KING of fantasy
Review: After recuperating from the final door confrontation (see THE DRAWING OF THE THREE), Roland trains Eddie and Susannah on how to survive as gunslingers. All goes well until a seventy 70-foot-tall bear attacks Eddie. Susannah and Roland team up to kill the bear, who actually is one of the twelve guardians of the beams.The gunslingers follow the bear's trail, which takes them to a portal that enables the trio follow the Beam, a line of energy that connects pairs of portals with the center being the Dark Tower. They now know the way, but it may be too late. Roland seems to be losing his mind as a paradox he caused by saving Jake's life on earth has begun to eat at his brain because dual memories of death and rescue seem impossible. They need Jake to complete the team, but to do so they must construct a door where a demon resides. The third book in Stephen King's great Dark Tower series continues the adventures of Roland, but this time he has associates to help him complete his quest. Though well written and quite exciting, THE WASTE LANDS somewhat feels like a middle book needed to move the tale forward. Still, Mr. King shows why he is more than just a horror guru as he displays his talent as a fantastic fantasist with this novel and the first two books in this strong allegorical series that stands up well with his best works. Harriet Klausner
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Summary: Finally on the Yellow Brick Road to the Dark Tower
Review: Book 3 in the Dark Tower Series, THE WASTE LANDS is a gem. In the mid 80's when THE GUNSLINGER was released to the general public, I read it because, perhaps like you, I read everything King writes. But I didn't get it. I tried to read book 2, but couldn't get through it. In November 2001 a friend brow beat me and said, "You gotta read these books." I did. I am so glad. But, if you haven't stated yet, I'd recommend reading The Drawing of the Three first, The Waste Lands second, Black House (not part of this series) third, and the best book of them all Wizard and Glass fourth. Get all them behind you and then for background read The Gunslinger. I think it makes more sense this way. If you read King much you know Flagg is everywhere, but I never really drew the other connections between Flagg and Walter and The Crimson King, and Jack's flip universe in The Talisman, and the Low Men in Hearts in Atlantis, and ... you get the idea. Steve's got a theme going here, get on board. It's worth the plunge.
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Summary: Great but not better than the second book
Review: The only reason I don't think that this book was better than The Drawing of the Three is because it lags a lot at the beginning. But then it picks up the pace that made Drawing so good. In this book you have the completion of the ka-tet and they start on their journey towards the Dark Tower. They run into some bumps along the way and it is a very well written book. The end leaves you a bit angry though (I won't reveal why) so expect to pick up Wizard and Glass, the fourth book, as you get close to the end. Another great chapter in the Dark Tower series.
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Summary: "We are ka-tet -- one from many."
Review: As the third book in the Dark Tower series, "The Waste Lands," opens, Roland's new companions are learning to become gunslingers, and Roland himself is slowly going mad. Yes indeed, King keeps the story moving most admirably as his dark fantasy epic continues, and the surprises keep coming. The main conflict facing the small group in the beginning of this part of the story is twofold. They are looking for clues as to how to best begin the next leg of their quest towards the Dark Tower, of course. More importantly, they are also forced to deal with how best to deal with the growing rift in Roland's mind, a doubling of memory caused by his travels in our world in the second book. In one track of time, the boy Jake was killed in New York and somehow brought into Roland's world. In the other track, Jake never died at all, thanks to Roland's actions in our world. Roland is aware of both timelines as real, and this conflict becomes the heart of the first act of the book. Jake himself is also aware of the split. Still alive in New York, he nevertheless remembers his death under the wheels of a Cadillac, and his subsequent time with the gunslinger in the Great Western Desert, as a parallel track of memories to his memories of spending the same time, after not being hit by a car in New York. And just like Roland, the rift in his memory is driving Jake insane. Resolving this disparity of time and memory causes great difficulty for Roland and Jake, of course, but also requires much of Eddie and Susannah, the two companions Roland drew from our world into his in "The Drawing of the Three." Before facing this, however, the new companions must deal with Mir, the great bear, a relic of the world that has moved on. Mir is one of the Guardians of the Beam, and the Beam will eventually lead them to the Tower. The second act of the book details Roland and his companions passing through Lud, a ruined city which has been further torn apart by the generations-long war of its inhabitants, the Grays and the Pubes. Run by ancient machinery, the city presents its own unique challenges for our heroes, and also provides them with the next step in their journey: Blaine the Mono. Blaine is a monorail train which runs along the path of the Beam, deep into Mid-World. Riding Blaine comes with its own price, though -- "Blaine is a pain, and that is the truth." "The Waste Lands" lives up to the quality King has established so far for the Dark Tower series. The story moves along at a brisk pace, making you want to keep reading to find out what happens next. "The Drawing of the Three" was a slightly better book, in my opinion, but only by a little. The characters which were built so well in the first two books are developed further here, and the new characters that are introduced (some only to tantalize for future developments, it seems) are equally well realized. All in all, this third book is a fitting continuation of an excellent series. It answers a few questions for the reader, and poses many intriguing new ones. A word of advice for the Constant Reader. Have a copy of the fourth book, "Wizard and Glass," at hand by the time you finish "The Waste Lands." Trust me on this: you'll want to dive right into the fourth book after finishing the third.
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Summary: Solid continuation of the Dark Tower saga
Review: The third installment of the Dark Tower saga features strong characterization and some well-staged horror/action set pieces. Without a doubt, the characters are the stong point of this novel. Eddie Dean's wisecracks may be somewhat annoying, but the rest of the characters, especially Jake and Roland, are some of the most in depth people that King has ever written. One drawback is the plot does not move as swiftly as the previous installments, and most of the book focuses mostly on side quests instead of on the Tower itself. The last third of the book is very strong, though, and it will leave King fans hungry for the next book, Wizards and Glass. Recommend to King, Dark Tower and fiction fans alike.
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Summary: Best beware of Blain the Choo-Choo train
Review: The Waste Lands is a direct continuation of the events that occurred in The drawing of the three. Roland, Eddie and Susannah have moved away from the beaches of the western sea and into the great forest about 60 miles north. As they cross the forest, the three are etching further along one of the 6 beams leading to the dark tower. Roland continues to be plagued by nightmares and voices about Jake, the young kid he was separated from at the conclusion of the first volume. Jake is alive and well but he is nowhere to be found in Roland's world as he is instead back in his world, the NYC of present time. He too, is plagued by nightmares and voices about his lost companion and he is desperately searching for the door that will lead him out of his world and back into Roland's... Whereas the second volume was drawing the group and setting things up, it is in this third volume of the series where the "ka-tet" is making leaps and bounds and etching ever closer to the tower. Eddie and Susannah are no longer reluctant and pessimistic about the strange world they were thrown into, they now accept this adventure as being their fate and Roland as their friend. They are now fully trained gunslingers and ready to face the perils that lie ahead. The New York chapters in this entry are even better than the last one, as we follow Jake desperately trying to find a way back in into Roland's world. It was kind of neat how Roland and Jake were both simultaneously going insane while apart from each other. Once Jake finally manages to make it back into Roland's world and join his travelling companions to the tower is once the pace accelerates in dramatic fashion. Over several days, the Ka-Tet travel through the great forest, across the desert, stop into strange towns, cross a perilous bridge, pick up a new travelling companion and much, much more. The Waste Lands is high adventure unlike anything witnessed in the previous two entries of the series. Again, King leaves the reader with a bunch of head-scratching thoughts throughout. Most intriguing to me is trying to make sense of wether some of the characters in Roland's world are parallel versions of King characters in others of his novels. Is Walter, aka the wizard magician aka the man in black, in effect Randall Flagg? Is the tick-tock man the trash can man in the Stand? After all, we are told straight up that Charlie the choo-choo train(in our world) is the equivalent of Blaine the monorail(in Roland's world). Hopefully we will have definite answers by the time the series wraps up. The most adventuresome and high-octane entry in the series so far, The Waste Lands is where this series really starts to get interesting. If any of the other entries end up being better than this one, I might very well be out of breath and at a loss for words by the time the ka-tet finally reach the dark tower.
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Summary: The heart of the Dark Tower
Review: Book 3 of the Dark Tower series, "The Wastelands" opens with Roland teaching Eddie and Susannah (was Odetta) of New York to be gunslingers. He teaches them to remember the faces of their fathers in their mission to save the Dark Tower. They soon come across their first challenge as gunslingers, one of the guardians of the beams, Shardik the bear. Roland didn't think these guardians really existed until they are faced with the dangerous evidence of such. Shardik is a remnant of a bygone era, some two-thousand years ago when Northcentral Positronics built him to protect one of the beams of the Dark Tower (it is said that this company also may have built the beams). Unfortunately, Shardik is infested with parasites that have caused his insanity. It's just a matter of time before he dies, but in his insanity he charges after Susannah, Eddie and Roland. It is Susannah's first task to destroy Shardik by aiming at his satellite dish on the top of his head. Eddie then gets the task of destroying his robot care-takers in the same way. Only through this rite of passage can they move on, for these creatures will surely destroy them if allowed to exist any longer. Meanwhile, Roland feels as if he's slowly going crazy. He committed an act in New York, while through the door of Death, that stopped a child, Jake (whom we know from book 1, "The Gunslinger") from being pushed to his death. But if he saved Jake in New York in another world from dying, then how did Jake come to Roland's world only to be sacrificed on Roland's quest for the man in black? A paradox was created and Roland's mind cannot cope. Jake of New York is suffering from the same malady. And that is the truth. Roland must now draw Jake into his world with the help of Eddie and Susannah. All this is before they move on to the town of Lud, meet Blaine the Train (one helluva pain) and travel to a Kansas filled with the dead of Captain Trips (here we go, the very obvious link to "The Stand"). This is where the going gets good. If you make it this far into the Dark Tower series consider yourself a goner. You'll be addicted and won't be able to stop yourself from reading other King books just to catch the trinkets of DT links. Such sweet nectar for the constant reader.
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Summary: My favorite of the series so far
Review: This story in the series propelled me to Mid-Earth, and kept me awake many nights. If you like Sci-Fi and Fantasy, this book is for you.
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Summary: Only Three Stars for Number Three
Review: This installment of the series is a bit disappointing. In places, the action and plotting seem a bit too much like a comic book, and the character development is a little weak. Roland, Eddie and Susannah don't come off as three-dimensional as in the last book, and the character of Jake has gone from a mysterious, compelling young man to an innocent schoolboy who makes us fear for his safety. The haunted house section was way out of place in this tale, and threw the whole story out of whack. King could have invented a better plot device here. Still, in parts the story is still strong and hypnotic, and I plan to continue along the journey to the Tower.
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Summary: More like three and a half
Review: Though this may have been much better than the frist of the Dark Tower books, I put books 2 and 4 above this. It seemed to be much more surreal than the other books in the series. Though I won't say that it was necessarily a bad thing given the genre, but it is why I put it below the others. Some of the settings in this were very intriguing, however I have a small complaint about them. We went from a society that had hardly any developement to a futuristic city without travelling from one world to another. It made little sense to me go from where people are living out in the desert, to a large city. If King had made more of a conversion from one world to another, it could have fit much better. One thing that I did truly enjoy within this story was that it showed how Roland did care about the others in his ka-tet. This truly helped me to see him as more of a protagonist that I could care about than I had in the previous books. In the end, though this book had some disappointments, it is a great book to place at this point in the series given how it can make us more anxious to find out what happens. This one will probably be where you start to get into the series as a whole.
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