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Series Review: The Dark Tower Series by Stephen King (spoiler warning)
Introduction:
I post series reviews after completing reading an entire series of books. It gives me a chance to reflect on and analyze the series as a whole. These series reviews are designed to also be useful for people who: A) have read the series too and would like to read other thoughts on it or discuss it with others OR B) have not read the series yet but would like a full idea of what the series is like, including possible spoilers, prior to reading it themselves or buying it for another. Please be aware that series reviews necessarily contain some spoilers.
Summary:
“The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.” This famous opening line begins the distinctly American fantasy epic tale of Roland the gunslinger’s quest for the Dark Tower. In this fantasy, there are multiple parallel universes, referred to as whens and wheres. The one Roland inhabits that is home to the Dark Tower and beams that keep all the worlds together and operating functionally just so happens to distinctly resemble the old American wild west. Gunslingers in this world are like the knights of the round table in old England, and Roland is the last of his kind. He’s on a quest both to reach the Dark Tower and save it and the beams, as 
they seem to be breaking. Through the course of his quest, Roland draws three new gunslingers and a billy-bumbler to become his ka-tet–his family bound by ka (fate) not blood. These new gunslingers all come from America, but from different whens and versions of America. Eddie is a heroin addict. Susannah is an African-American woman from the 1960s who is missing both of her legs from the knees down and has Dissociative Identity Disorder (more commonly known as multiple personality disorder). Jake is a boy from a wealthy family in NYC that hardly pays attention to him. Oy is a billy-bumbler; a creature from Roland’s world that looks a bit like a dog with a long snout and a curly tail but is able to talk. After training and bonding together, they continue on their quest for the Dark Tower. A quest that leads them through old ruined cities in Roland’s world, gangster territory 
and rural Maine in America, a countryside farming community where almost all births are twins, and much much more. The ultimate questions of ka, how the worlds are bound together, and just what role this gunslinger has to play in all of it loom at the center of this epic tale.
Review:
The interesting thing about the Dark Tower series is that each book has its own unique vibe, feel, and style to it, yet they together work to make up a complete whole that has its own unique feel to it too. Because of this, certain entries 
in the series may appeal less to some people than others. For instance, I did not enjoy Wizard and Glass, because it was essentially a slow-paced wild west romance story, yet I know some readers enjoy that entry immensely. Similarly, I love Song of Susannah for both its horror and the way King structured it using song stanzas to correlate with the sections of the book, yet I know some people who found it too dense for one entry in the series. The thing is though, to me, the Dark Tower is more about the experience of reading the series as a whole than the individual books. I’m perfectly willing to work through a book or a few chapters that aren’t quite the genre I prefer, because I know that will change up later on and whatever is being discussed is important to the story as 
a whole. It frankly is interesting to read a series that explores so many different genres within itself. It makes the whole concept of parallel worlds more believable as each area they go through feels different.
The characterization at first seems simplistic. There’s Roland the gunslinger. He’s got a one-track mind in pursuit of the tower. He’ll do anything to reach it, even if it’s questionable. Is he justified in his vehemence? It’s hard to tell at first. Similarly, the man in black who he is originally pursuing is extraordinarily one-dimensional. He is just an evil magician, and that is all. Similarly, when Eddie, Susannah, and Jake are first drawn into Roland’s world, they are also one-dimensional. Eddie is just the junky. Susannah is the crazy woman with multiple 
personalities. Jake is a lonely, frightened little boy. Yet as the series progresses, King gradually develops the characters to be rich and multi-dimensional. Their characters are so intensely vivid, including even Oy, that I actually found myself crying as bad things happened to various members of the ka-tet. Eddie overcomes his addiction, as well as the emotional wounds inflicted on him by his older brother to grow up and become a true man. Susannah does not lose her multiple personalities, but she learns to work with them. They are a part of her, and she grows to accept that. She stops being bitter about her accident and her lot in life and comes to be self-sufficient and caring of those around her. Jake quickly grows to become a confident young man who cares for his ka-tet, but especially Oy and Roland. Finally, Roland gradually learns to open himself up to relationships. Although 
the tower still calls to him, he finds himself questioning if maybe the ka-tet is better than the tower.
The horror elements in the series definitely live up to what one would expect from King. There are disgusting moments, such as a man sick from the weed drug in Roland’s world that makes users go insane. There are also truly terrifying moments such as when a baby boy turns into a spider and eats his own mother via her breast. Then there are mentally disturbing themes such as the children who get stolen by the wolves and are returned with their brains completely ruined. It is later discovered that their brain power was fed to telepaths in service of the Crimson King who is seeking to destroy all the worlds. Whatever flavor of horror suits you best, you will find it in the series.
The themes of love and building your own family and being at the hands of fate are what truly carry the series, though. These themes are what make the reader care about the horrors that are happening to Roland and his ka-tet. They’re what makes it possible to suspend disbelief about multiple worlds being held together by a tower, a rose, and beams. The ideas of self-sacrifice, serving your purpose, and caring for others who ka has brought into your life are powerful and subtly expressed. To me the whole concept of making your own family is the most endearing part of the series, and I loved seeing it portrayed in such a subtle, tender manner.
Of course what really brought the series to a whole new level for me is the ending. It blew me away. It was completely unexpected. Roland reaches the tower after having lost his ka-tet. He goes in and climbs with each floor displaying items and smells to represent each year of his life. He reaches the top door and pulls it open only to realize, horrified at the last moment, that he is being pulled through back to the desert where the series began. The voice of the tower speaks to him about his journey. That he’s done it before. That he’s learning a little each time. It points out that Roland realized his mistake in not taking a few moments to pick up the horn of Eld, so this time, it is strapped to Roland’s side, where it wasn’t originally. For a moment Roland remembers what has just occurred, but soon he just feels it was all a mirage. A heat-induced daydream of finally reaching the dark tower. He continues on, ending the series with the same sentence it began with.
Personally, I feel that this puts the series in a whole new light. Who exactly is this Roland that he is so important that he has to redo this quest until, presumably, he gets it right? Why did King choose to tell us about one of the times he didn’t get it right? What did he get wrong? What lessons is Roland supposed to be learning? Will Roland ever escape the cycle or is it some sort of hell punishment he’s doomed to repeat forever? Of course, it all reads a bit like the belief in reincarnation and learning something each life cycle. In any case, it made me personally want to immediately start rereading the series, searching for clues about the repetition of the journey. It brings the series to a whole new philosophical level that truly elevated it in my mind from a fun fantasy to an epic.
Overall, there are parts of the series I didn’t enjoy, and due to the vast variety of genres represented in the series, most people will probably dislike or struggle with at least bits of it. However, when the series is put together and all the pieces click together in your mind, it becomes an unforgettable, completely American epic. A wild west fantasy is unique, and the themes and philosophical questions explored underneath the entertaining prose make for something even deeper than that. I am incredibly glad I took the time to read this series, and I would recommend it to anyone. It is well worth the time invested.
5 out of 5 stars
Source: borrowed, Harvard Book Store
Books in Series:
The Gunslinger, review, buy it
The Drawing of the Three, review, buy it
The Waste Lands, review, buy it
Wizard and Glass, review, buy it
Wolves of the Calla, review, buy it
Song of Susannah, review, buy it
The Dark Tower, review , buy it
Book Review: Wizard and Glass By Stephen King (Series, #4)
Summary:
Roland and his ka-tet escape Blaine the Train, but they accidentally wind up off the path of the beam and in yet another alternate version of Jake, Eddie, and Susannah’s world. They start following an interstate, heading for a palace and hoping therein lies the solution for returning to the path of the beam. One night while traveling, Roland finally tells them what has been haunting him all this time with the story of the summer he was 14 years old and his first love.
Review:
As with The Waste Lands, this book reads like multiple books in one. I was expecting that, since The Waste Lands ended abruptly without solving the problem of Blaine the Train. This book takes care of that storyline, then jumps into a flashback that lasts almost the entire book then jumps back to the present and attempts to solve a big problem. It’s a lot for one book to handle, and it would have worked better if Lud and Blaine the Train were one book taking place after The Waste Lands but before Wizard and Glass. If after doing this, King had shortened the flashback, The Wizard and Glass would be an excellent book. Of course, he didn’t do it that way.
Now that I am this far into the series, I’m seeing that King, whether intentionally or not, is writing different bits of the series as different genres. This could be why it holds wide appeal–if someone doesn’t like the genre the story is currently being told in, it will change soon enough. The first book is mainly a travelogue. The second a horror story. The third is a mix of scifi with the time paradox and horror again with Lud and Blaine the Train. Here, we get partly fantasy with the current issues for Roland’s ka-tet, but mostly a medieval romance–the story of Roland and Susan.
That medieval romance starts out well. King sets up three dialects–High Speech, In-World Speech, and Mejis accent–very well. All three are easy to differentiate, and yet are easy to read. Roland’s world is a wonderful mix of the knights of Arthur and the fabeled American west. It’s fun to read, but only when something’s really happening. That’s the problem with the flashback. It feels too long, because very little happens in large portions of it. Roland, Cuthbert, and Alain must spend most of their summer in Mejis waiting, and instead of telling the reader “wow, they waited a long time,” King makes the reader wait too, and it’s fucking boring and annoying. I seriously wanted to give up, and right when I was about to, the action started again. Finally. The action makes excellent use of this mix of fantastical and wild west, but it really takes too long to come about.
As far as the characters go, I know I’m supposed to feel for Susan, but I honestly found her annoying and dull, which is problematic since she’s Roland’s first love. Also, after all this time of Roland stating how Eddie is almost as funny as Cuthbert, I was expecting Cuthbert to be, y’know, funny. He’s not. He acts like that boy in school who used to pull your braids and think it was funny. He’s just juvenile, not witty. On the other hand, the character of the witch Rhea is excellently done. She’s simultaneously disgusting and intriguing, and she’s one of the few who manages to out-wit Roland, partly because he underestimates her since she is an old, disgusting woman. If only Cuthbert and Alain had been so vividly drawn instead of wandering shells of people for Roland to talk at.
The book is a necessary read if you plan on finishing the series. It gives important insight into why Roland is the man he is today, not to mention explains how the ka-tet escapes Blain the Train and gets back on the path of the beam. I think this is the almost inevitable dull book in an overall good series. Just take my advice and skim over the dull part of Mejis until the action picks up again.
2.5 out of 5 stars
Source: Borrowed
Previous Books in Series:
The Gunslinger, review
The Drawing of the Three, review
The Waste Lands, review
Book Review: The Waste Lands By Stephen King (Series, #3)
Summary:
This entry in the Dark Tower series opens with Eddie, Susannah, Roland, and Jake dealing with the paradox created when Roland saves Jake from being killed in his own world. Now Jake and Roland are both living with the knowledge of two different ways a time period of about three weeks went down, and it is driving them both mad. They must solve the paradox before it is too late. After working out the paradox the ka-tet faces a post-apocalyptic city stuck in an age-based civil war. Can the ka-tet who fit into neither side survive? More importantly, can they hitch a ride on a long-forgotten train to speed up their quest for the tower?
Review:
This book opens with a bang. I thought King was going to gloss over the obvious paradox caused by Roland saving Jake in The Drawing of the Three, but a significant portion of this book is spent dealing with just that paradox. I think King is at his best when he writes about psychological horrors, and he gets to really exercise his hand at this with this plot point. That’s not to say there aren’t physical horrors here as well. Of course there are. They mainly show up as the guardians of the ends of the beams that function like spokes around the tower. Decaying beasts and demons haunt the ka-tet’s every move. I actually had serious issues putting the book down during its first half.
The problem arises in the second half. First of all, this book really should have been divided into two. The plots are almost entirely different between the first and second halves, and this was more jolting than if the second storyline was started knowing that it was the next entry in the series. Even King acknowledges in an Afterword that the second storyline stops extremely abruptly. I believe this is because of the sheer length the book was getting to. This wouldn’t have been a problem if this storyline was its own book entirely.
I also personally don’t like plots revolving around kidnappers out to hurt children, which is essentially what this plot is, only in a more fantastical world and with a side-mission for Eddie and Susannah. I’m sure some people enjoy this plot idea, but I personally am far too disturbed at the thought to become thoroughly sucked into the story.
I could forgive these things, mainly due to the addition of a lovable critter to the ka-tet, if it wasn’t for an event toward the end of the book that I felt was too over-top, unbelievable, and done purely for shock value. I won’t tell you what it is here, because that’d be a major plot spoiler, but suffice to say you’ll know it when you see it, and it’ll probably upset you too. It read like lazy writing, and that made me feel like I was being talked down to as a reader.
In spite of the disjointed ending that was also a bit uncomfortable for me, the beginning was truly excellent. I’m hoping the next entry in the series reads entirely like the beginning of this one, but this book is still worth the read for the first half alone.
3.5 out of 5 stars
Source: Borrowed
Previous Books in Series:
The Gunslinger, review
The Drawing of the Three, review
Book Review: The Gunslinger By Stephen King
Summary:
The first in King’s epic, Tolkien-like Dark Tower series, The Gunslinger introduces Roland who lives in a world similar to, yet different from our own. He is the last gunslinger, a kind of wild west type warrior. As he pursues the Man in Black across a desert in the first of many steps toward his goal of the Dark Tower, some elements of his dark past are revealed, as are some secrets of the many parallel, yet somehow linked, universes.
Review:
I admit it. I’m not normally a Stephen King fan, but after two people I know started devouring this series, I decided I had to know just what was so exciting.
I’m shocked to discover, I like a Stephen King book. I’m not so shocked to discover that this is an incredibly male book. Roland’s life centers around violence, guns, a quest, the women he beds, and taking care of a boy. It isn’t just the plot line that’s masculine though. The writing style is decidedly male. Roland is abrupt and to the point. Instead of talking about his heart fluttering, he gets hard-ons. Instead of his palms sweating with nerves, his balls retract up tightly against him. It’s gritty, dark, and male. And I liked it.
It reminds me a lot of watching old westerns with my father. This shouldn’t be surprising, since in the introduction King essentially says that he set out to write the American version of an epic in the style of Tolkien. What’s more American and epic than the wild west? Oh, I know, a parallel universe version of the wild west. With mutants.
It is a bit slow-moving at first. That’s not surprising, though, given that it’s the first in a series of seven. Think of it as the introduction chapter, only prolonged through two-thirds of the book. It’s not a boring introduction by any means; it just takes a while to get attached to the characters and thoroughly engrossed in the over-arching story. That’s ok though, because King provides plenty of nightmarish scenes in the mean-time to keep you reading.
I’ve always had a bit of a tendency to thoroughly enjoy more masculine stories just as much, if not more than more feminine stories. (I was the little girl who was excited to watch the war movie marathon on Veteran’s Day.) If you know that you enjoy this type of gritty story, definitely give The Gunslinger a shot. You won’t be disappointed.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: Borrowed
This work by Amanda Nevius is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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