Stephen King's "Dark Tower" series

Cafe Society
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Maybe Essential DT reads:

Eyes of the Dragon : This one is where Flagg first shows up, and the 2 characters mentioned in BraheSilver’s spoiler box.

The Stand: Has Flagg in it, as well as ties to book 4. Also the Trashcan Man is neato.

Hearts in Atlantis: Flagg is mentioned in this one a few times. The first story and last in the book have DT stuff.

Insomnia: Very heavily DT related. Its got me in it, its got all sorts of wacky Tower stuff in it, but… I thought the book was garbage myself. Still essential reading, but I think it was a weak book.

The Little Sisters of Eluria: This one is story about Roland that takes place before DT 1. Some characters from this story appear in Black House. It was first published in a book called “Legends”, a fantasy story collection by various authors. It was also in King’s latest story collection, Everything’s Eventual.

Black House: Yep, key elements. Its got a character from Hearts in Atlantis, Crimson King, and probably one of the other characters will appear in a future DT book. But to understand everything you have to read The Talisman first, which isn’t that DT related.

Salem’s Lot: You’ll want to have read this one before you read DT 5.

I think the connection in IT to the DT books is so small its not worth reading.

The Regulators and Desperation are both good, but not really Tower related. They both feature the same characters, but are set in different locations. Maybe you can call it set on different levels of the tower. Still it is fun to read one and then the other and catch all the little differences.

I can’t comment on Bag of Bones as I have not read it.

All the above stuff came from my brain, so its subject to being way wrong. I don’t have all the books with me now, so I can’t verify the stuff I wrote. And I haven’t read all of King’s books, so there could be many more DT crossovers.

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It goes way back. This guy…damn. If you read his notes in each of his novels ( and, I ALWAY read them, more than once ), you will find that he began the Dark Tower series on some mimeograph paper of an odd color that found its way into his hands…in either High School or College.

What greater pleasure than to pepper ones entire ouvre with foreshadows and remarks that will support or feed into the D.T. series.

I haven’t actually read Carrie since 1977 or so. I get the feeling I ought to spend the next year re-reading everything I’ve got by him, in order to better understand the clues and inferences that are popping up.

If nothing else, it’s a diabolically brilliant way to make his readers do exactly what I just said I might do- go back again and again, to re-read parts or all of his published works.

I love it.

Cartooniverse

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Aaaah! You’re so right. There’s even that great illustration with Eddie in the tree and Susannah perched on Roland’s shoulders. ::hanging head in shame:: Now I’ve got to re-read them, I’m forgetting stuff dammit!

tangent–the list TCK gave would be pretty much what I’d recommend as well. Also, any of his new generation of works, from about Doloros Claiborne on, can be pretty much guaranteed to have at least a few DT references. Rose Madder’s title character visits a world much like Roland’s, so I’d probably add that one to the must-read list also. None of the others are essential, per se, just add little details that help flesh out the overall story. Unfortunately TCK’s dead on about Insomnia, it’s long, dense, and plodding. I read it out of a sense of duty more than anything else, but I am glad I did because there’s lots of tie-ins.

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Oh! A voice of dissent pops up…
I really, really, enjoyed Insomnia. Perhaps it is my penchant for unlikely heros, or just that I like to see people who don’t usually get to kick ass doing so (oldies in this case), but I enjoyed it very much.

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As someone who’s read King only sporadically (INSOMNIA, a few stories, his book on writing, and one or two others I forget), and as a big fan of Browning’s poem, I gotta say that THE DARK TOWER series gives me a huge pain in the keester–melodramatic, self-important, grueling, slogging work to get through. YMMV, and it surely does, but I must say I’ve gotten very pleasure from reading King, though he’s obviously capable (when writing about himself, his career, writing in general) of writing lucid prose. He just prefers to muddy most things up. And boy does he write LO-O-O-O-O-ONG.

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Thank you for the tips, Crimson King and Belladonna.

I have read most of King’s older stuff (pre-1993?) so I am familiar with some of the tie-ins from *The Talisman, Eyes of the Dragon, The Stand, * etc. You mentioned Salem’s Lot and that surprises me. I’ll have to go back and read that again. I’ll definitely pick up Black House and Insomnia, too. I’ve also read Little Sisters… and printed off the DT:V prologue available online, but I haven’t read it yet.

A few people have mentioned not liking Wizard and Glass as much as the other DT books. I have to say it might be my favorite so far. I loved reading about the young Roland and his buddies on their early adventures. It was great to get that insight into his past and what has shaped him into the mysterious gunslinger we know from the first three books. Plus, it had a lot of the “old west” feeling about it, which is one of the big attractions for me.

Say, do any of you know of any other fantasy/sci-fi series that use old west/cowboy/gunslinger type settings? I don’t read a lot of fantasy so I’m not familiar with other authors/series out there. I’ve read LOTR and DT and I’m thinking about starting into Discworld, though I don’t know a whole lot about it.

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I loved Insomnia. In fact, I was so surprised by the negative comments that I’ve seen about it on this board that I went and re-read it. I liked it even better the second time around. I guess I’m a weirdo. :wink:

Yeah, I’m a Dark Tower fan, too. Would you believe I even tried to read Shardik by Richard Adams? Man, what a boring book! I put it down halfway through.

As far as Wizard and Glass–I disliked it the first time I read it, but liked it much better the second time through.

I always saw Mid-World as our world in the far far future. The changing distances and directions could be explained by plate-tectonics! I’ll have to give the other interepretations some thought, because they make more sense than my interpretation.

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I am such a fool.
I just realised that what I was referring to as “The wizard and the glass” throughout this thread was actually The Gunslinger. Thats the one I referred to as being the least accessible and more like a prolonged prologue to the books. W&G is more like a prequel then :slight_smile:

wanders off to beat self around head

PS Green Bean, the isue of distance is a lot clearer in the Talisman (if these are indeed the same worlds, which I am slightly doubtful of). I find it helps to visualise one wireframe globe inside another, with the inner being a scaled amount smaller.

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oooh… maybe the world-moving-on refers to like when a star goes supernova, it condenses in upon itsself! That would make sense from a conceptual (if not logical) point of view no?

legs it before one of the scientist dopers comes in here, or worse one of the hardcore sci-fi fanboys

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As usual, I’m completely unsure how much to put in spoiler boxes and what to leave out …

About our world and Roland’s world and the Territories:

Even after Black House, I’m not at all convinced that the Territories = Roland’s world. If the Tower is the lynch pin holding all worlds together, and something’s wrong with it, then it would make sense that related bad stuff is happening in our world (which would then explain just about every SK plot ever), the Territories, and Roland’s World. And all THREE worlds can have some similarities and overlap if they are relatively close. Flagg could very well be working on multi-levels at once. A fourth world could be the Eye of the Dragon world, because surely Dennis and Thomas could be chasing Flagg across different worlds (if they tried hard enough).

I’m convinced that I saw a SK quote once saying that Roland’s world is definitely, most positively, NOT the same as the Territories, but that was before Black House so I guess he could have changed his mind.

Personally, I’m not sure if SK is ever going to explain exactly how Roland’s world is related to our world. I think that “it’s just kind of like our world” might be enough. This might be one of those things where every reader has his or her own way of visualizing how the various worlds intersect, and any explanation of it in the text could end up being long-winded and not satisfying.

Some more thoughts on DT in general:

I think it’s interesting that at some point, Eddie mentions the movie The Shining (talking about the Overlook Hotel), which would place The Shining as fiction, but then there’s a link from The Shining to IT which links to Insomnia which links to DT … so is Eddie’s world the same as the world of the Shining or not? Or in Eddie’s world, is the movie The Shining based on a true story?

I am a chronic nitpicker, so if you don’t like nitpicking, skip this part – but two glaring errors (well, they glare at me) are that 1. Eddie’s sister’s name changes, and 2. the color of Jack Mort’s eyes changes. (and not when Roland is present, which is when they’re supposed to change, I mean how his eyes are described when Roland isn’t in his head). This always makes me wonder if they are simply mistakes not caught by an editor (probably) or if somehow the things that Roland and co. are doing are causing changes to happen in the past.

The Waste Lands is absolutely my favorite book of the series, mostly because I find it to be the most humorous. I love when SK slips some comedy in, and the parts about Jake and the storybook about the train are enough to make me fall off my chair from laughter. This book is one of my favorites of all of SK’s work, because it really goes from comedy to tragedy to sentimentality to horror and all sorts of other stuff in between.

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I started reading The Gunslinger yesterday, it’s funny I came across this thread. It’s a quick read-I should be done it tonight. It isn’t a great book, but a good intro to The Dark Tower.

Out of those DT-related books, are there any that I should read before the DT books? That’s a lot of reading, but I should know better knowing King, that he weaves many characters thoughout his books.

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Glad I found this thread. I started to read The Gunslinger around the time it came out and stopped out of boredom, confusion, and general not caring. I had read almost everything from King up until then and was very disappointed. I shoved the book among my bookshelves and didn’t give it another thought until my mother gave me Wizard and Glass how ever many years later, just because she happened across it in the store and knew I used to be an avid King fan. So I picked up The Gunslinger, dusted it off, and gave it another shot. I really enjoyed it. I then read the others in order. After reading this thread, I realize how much I have forgotten. Not sure if I have the energy/inclination to read all four again before the fifth makes its appearance. I might, though.

Thanks for initiating this thread, tarragon918. And thanks to those of you who posted in response.

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Well, I don’t know that there’s any you have to read. If you’re feeling ambitious, then The Stand and Eyes of the Dragon would probably be good, but definitely not required. Part of the fun of Roland’s world, IMO, is that when you’re reading King’s other works and a tie-in pops up you get to go “Hey! I know what that means!” and feel all smug.
Like Cartooniverse said above–seeing those tie-ins can also be a powerful trigger to go back and re-read the DT series. I’ve probably read it at least six or seven times now, and I get something new out of it each time. I almost envy you the experience of reading it for the very first time. :slight_smile:

Enjoy!

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Huge Dark Tower fan checking in.

Someone raised the question regarding the necessity of reading Dreamcatcher before the Dark Tower series. Not only should you avoid Dreamcatcher as a necessity for understanding DT, you should avoid Dreamcatcher as a literate human being. I’m not sure what King was thinking when he wrote that festering pile of crap. If ever a book had “contractual obligation” written all over it, it was that one.

Regarding Salem’s Lot, I doubt it’s necessary to read that one to get a better understanding of the DT world. However, one character from SL is gonna appear in DT5, based on the online preview I’ve read, so if you like your literature duly footnoted, you might want to read SL for completeness’ sake.

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Not really, you can read the series before the others. My favorite DT-related one would be Insomnia. It also has a link to Pet Semetary. Actually, the links are more obvious after you read the series.

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Also, Bag of Bones is not connected to the Dark Tower storyline. If anything, it is an homage to Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier (he mentions this book about a thousand times in BoB – just in case you’re not well read enough to pick up on it for yourself :rolleyes: ) I did enjoy the tale and it didn’t turn out how I expected, and that’s all I really ask of SK!

Dreamcatcher sucked and now they’ve made a sucky movie of it. Hurray.

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Agreed on the Bag of Bones thing. I have only read that once, and I read most of the books I own at least once a year.

Sounds interesting, but please tell me that he isn’t going to do something bizarre like tie in all of his other works into the last 3 books in some convoluted way?! panics
Plenty of his novels have no connection to the tower, and no need to either.

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Kings, Monarchs…They’re all Royalty. :wink:

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I am about halfway through Dreamcatcher…it was very slow going at the beginning, and is not much better now. I will slog through it, however. There are some good scary moments. But—I saw the trailers for the movie on Friday—scary stuff! In-your-face-make-you-jump stuff. I’ll watch it even if it does suck.

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Wait a minute…aren’t Jack Mort/Jake, Eddie, and Susannah all “drawn” from our world in The Drawing of the Three? In which case, yes, Eddie’s world and The Shining’s world are the same - ours. I think that this is King commenting on his own popularity - for you and I and a whole bunch of people, Jack Nicholson and the movie The Shining are a big part of our pop culture. If King wants to write about a character, Eddie, that’s part of this reality, that character is going to know that part of the pop culture phenomenon (that and Star Wars and the Beatles). The character wouldn’t be believeable if he didn’t. So Eddie is a part of our world and knows about The Shining as the fiction it is here. I think the other links are just King’s way of having fun.

Snicks