Cite?
Quoted for truth. And to King: your whole dickish theory that only lusers like the destination and don’t savor the journey? I hope you spend your next vacation trapped on an airplane just circling the airport, never actually landing.
The circular ending wasn’t that big of a deal for me, but the author’s note REALLY pissed me off. (On the other hand, was that ending written by “Earth-Real Stephen King” or by “Earth Dark-Tower Stephen King”, who kinda was a dick?)
My biggest complaint though, about the whole Dark Tower series was the fucking insanely huge cop-out with all the threads/prophecies/ties/etc from all his OTHER books. He spent nearly 40 years weaving a tapestry where all these disparate threads were coming together from other books (Insomnia especially, but IT, The Stand, From A Buick 8 etc) and rather than…y’know…resolve them, he just says (more or less) “Eh. Booor-ing. They were echoes or…something.” and after forty (40!!) years of buildup, that’s a cheat and lazy writing. Imagine a 10,000 page mystery novel, where, around page 9700, the detective says “I’m bored. Um. None of you did it. It was a suicide. How do I know? I just do.”
I have mine ready to go.
I liked the ending. I was prepared to feel angry because although I didn’t know how it ended I was told to prepare to be furious. I wasn’t. I laughed, actually.
I know I am in the minority but I really liked Wizard and Glass. Aside from the love story that entertained me, I liked how it humanized Roland for me. Previously I had had moments where I thought “god you are such an asshole that I hope you never find the damn tower.”
The spider - the less said the better. I imagine King was writing with “Wild Wild West” in the background.
I was pissed about one thing: I am one of the ones that hated having King in the story. I thought - OK, we have multiple worlds with different times, dimensions, places and we still have to be stuck in the freaking backwoods of Maine with King? Why don’t we all just take a little time out and run down to Castle Rock Cafe and have a coffee and discuss your accident and the last time you watch The Neverending Story, ya bastid. Cause that never gets old.
ShelliBean, that completely sums up my opinions as well. I’m surprised how many people don’t like Wizard and Glass. I loved it.
Me too. But that might have more to do with when I came into the story than anything. I started reading the series right before Wizard came out, so I hadn’t spent years waiting for it only to find out it was a flashback. I can see how that might have pissed some folks off.
For my money, Wizard is one of the best things that King has written. It might not be the best entry into the middle of the series (what with the waiting), but as a stand alone work it is really wonderful and gives Roland and the world real dimension as characters.
For what it’s worth, thank you. You just articulated the fury that overcame me upon finishing the series. I think it is worse for people who read as he wrote, versus those who didn’t have to wait decades to find out what happens.
I still like to re-read the first two books though.
I pretty much loved the entire series. There was somewhat of a decline towards the end, but not enough to ruin the experience for me. The general nature of the ending didn’t piss me off, but the specific rendering of it did.
This is probably true. Or I’d rather it be true because that sounds more well thought out than I originally got from reading it. But come on, seven books to get to the tower and this is what you give us. I mean, fine, the tower reflects Roland. And fine, it ultimately leads to a time loop. But spend more than a paragraph on it. Don’t have him just run up the stairs, wave hi, and jump into the past. Have him actually experience what is in the rooms, and show what insights that gives him. Then at the top, give him the choice of what to do, and have him choose to give it another shot.
And if the hair on your arms didn’t stand up when Roland cried “Hai Gunslingers, to me! Kill them all!” then you are a robot or not paying attention.
I have quite a few friends who aren’t readers, and this series of books has brought quite a few of them into the fold. One dear friend of mine, who is all but illiterate, spent two and a half years plugging away at them until he finished. Then I gave him Moby Dick and Blood Meridian and told him if he liked the Dark Tower, he was gonna LOVE those 
Also, I think Wizard and Glass was probably the strongest book of the entire series. The Drawing Of The Three and The Wastelands were wonderful character studies and adventure yarns, respectively, but Wizard and Glass was both of those and more.
For those who love the series and want more, Marvels The Gunslinger Born, Long Road Home, and Treachery are all worth the price of admission. While not of the same caliber as any of the books, Peter David and Jae Lee really do bring the Dark Tower world to life and do it justice. Give them a try. Even if you don’t like comic books, its worth seeing Sheemie go head to head with the Crimson King…
I look at it more like self redemption.
For me, it’s two and three that I’ve reread a few times.
I suspect I’d have liked four a lot better on reread. And Wolves was good too.
THIS. And frankly, I’m surprised that nobody else has mentioned it. For longtime fans that got giddy whenever they’d catch a DT reference in a regular King book (not to mention something like Insomnia), the Dark Tower series was the grand unifying narrative of King’s work. The DT actually contained all of his other novels, for the most part - he even said so. There was no greater “fuck you” to the fanbase than the Calvins explaining “uhhh, sometimes King misunderstands Gan’s words and gets muddled, so uhh, you better just ignore all of those other references in the other novels. Oh yeah, and especially Insomnia - that one in particular just goes out the window.” Not the ending, not the exploding sneetches, not the giant middle-finger that was the “oh, you wanted an ending?” note, not the fact that the final three books were inarguably rushed out as quickly as possible…this retconning was the absolute worst thing that happened to the fans.
Can you expand on this? I mean, clearly DT included elements from his other novels. Randall Flagg or other versions of him have been in many novels. The Salems Lot priest is a major character in DT. Ted Brautigan shows up. The turtle has been seen other places. Stephen King himself shows up. What exactly was the nature of the retcon?
Actually, Euthanasiast, I take it back. Kings ending is almost exactly like you (and jackdavinci)suggest. Except that Roland had HUNDREDS of other doors to go through, but instead of choosing one of them, he chose what was at the top of the Tower. He stopped in a few rooms and reflected on them, but ultimately he just raced up to the top and bypassed the rest. So by the time he reached the top, he already made his choice. If Roland spent more time facing each room and reflected on his life, by the time he got to the top he probably would have wanted nothing more than to be able to go back and fix things. And the Tower probably would have let him.
In fact, Roland thinks “this is a place of death…every room, every floor” To which the Tower replies “only because your life has made it so.”
I mean lets not forget how much of an asshole Roland really is. For all his talk about Cuthbert, he doesn’t even bring his horn with him? He lets Jake drop into a bottomless pit while chasing Walter/Flagg? Dick.
I think the big one was Insomnia - it’s the non-DT book that most directly ties into the series, even introducing Patrick and (at the time) offering tantalizing clues to events that would go down later in the series, truly introducing the Crimson King, etc. - and then it’s the book that’s specifically mentioned by name and dismissed as being muddled and full of King “misunderstanding” and scrambling up Gan’s messages. Whoosh! The entire book, as well as its characterizations of the Crimson King, explanations of DT cosmology, even Patrick and the hints to his later role, is completely written off. Total horseshit. And there was enough of a disclaimer that “other books were suspect” that it allowed King to completely ignore stuff like Thomas and Dennis from Eyes of the Dragon, all of the stuff from The Talisman and Black House…the stuff that the real fan-nerds were just waiting for.
I also liked Wizard and Glass. It’s my favourite out of the books of the series I have read so far.
It’s not just a fan-nerd thing though. If the DT stuff weren’t central to the understanding of the other books-several key scenes in IT makes NO fucking sense if you haven’t read the DT stuff*, Insomnia makes no sense without the DT stuff–and Insomnia has no resolution: it’s the first half of a story that was supposed to be finished in the Dark Tower series. Hell, King did that very cool (IMO) scene in um…Wolves I believe where the characters get their hands on a copy of 'Salem’s Lot and we’re TOLD how important the clues in the other books would be. This isn’t just fan-nerd wankery where fans are quibbling over nitpicks–King made those clues and ties central to the understanding of many, MANY of his works.
This is closer to say, the TV show LOST suddenly having a character wake up in bed, smack his forehead and say “Wow! What a crazy dream!”. It flushes everything that’s gone on before, it doesn’t resolve any of the mysteries set up in all the earlier parts, it doesn’t fulfill (or even deal with) the foreshadowing that was painstakingly set up–plot threads (especially from Insomnia) are just ignored and the whole rich backstory was dismissed with as little thought and as much contempt as “And then he woke up and it was all a dream. Fooled ya.”
To see how MUCH of his work involved set-up for the Dark Tower series, check out This chart–and it’s not even complete (it’s missing The Tommyknockers for one). But it’ll give you a feel for how many books involved either set-up for or had the broken promise of a resolution in the DT.
*Primarily the whole “Turtle” bit–I missed the second DT book when it was new (remember, it was a limited edition originally) and at the climax of IT, the characters are all going on about how “The Turtle” can’t help them any more. If you read the DT stuff, this made sense of the whole scene. If not, the scene is gibberish (“What turtle? Who? There’s no turtle in the last 800 pages.”), the dancing elves on the wallpaper bit, the image of the singing rose, and so on.
I very much liked the ending.
The FOUR books prior to that I could have done without. All were dreadful.
Get ready for it, because Lost is going to do exactly that. No, it won’t be a dream, but they won’t answer 96% of the mysteries.
What wasn’t resolved?
I mean I don’t expect Stephen Hawking to jump out at the end and explain why exacty the Nexus of the Universe is represented by a bunch of Roses and Dark Towers with Beams feeding into it.
I thought a lot of it was metaphorical anyway. Roland’s Dark Tower is probably a real physical structure like 2 Hammarskjöld Plaza is in our world. But it was built because it happens to be where the Beams intersect or where the Roses are. The Beams are basically some sort of natural magical/psychic/spiritual/temporal phenomenon similar to electomagnetic force lines in the Earth’s natural magnetic field. Except Positronic Corp tried to replace them with artificial ones based on technology and screwed things up. Kind of like diverting a river with a bunch of canels and drainage culverts. The Roses are basically the points where the universes intersect somehow and that’s the best our brains can perceive them as.
As for what the Dark Tower really is, I think it’s whatever you bring to it. I would be very disappointed if it was some sort of Mission Control center for the universe or if there was some big room at the top with God in it waiting to give Roland his Architect and Neo speech.
I think of all the shows similar to Lost, Lost will be the one to do it right. They’ve got a specific end date, and they’ve been steadily answering mysteries one by one. I don’t see any reason for it not to work out. And really there’s not that many big mysteries left. We still need to know what the smoke monster is, the general history and nature of the island, who Jacob is, and what exactly happened when Danielle arrived. Most of the character mysteries have been answered, as have some of the island mysteries.
And what could the smoke monster be anyhow? It’s probably just some cloud of nanotech that they were developing.