I am stuck at sea on a particularly boring four month trip at the moment (work not pleasure) I have had the Dark Tower books by king sitting about on my computer for a while but unsure if I should start reading them. I like certain King books, the stand was really good, the shining I liked. From what I know they are a strange sort of fantasy world that ties in most of his books? Is there a coherent narrative or is it all a bit surreal? I have no problem with long series just prefer something that fits together…
Cohesive narrative. Worth reading for sure. I read all 7 a few years ago and enjoyed them a lot.
You should absolutely read them. Especially if you already have them. Do yourself a favor, though, and don’t watch any video recreation of the books until you’ve finished, or decided that you’re not gonna read them. (Thems damn videos are a great way to fuck up a Stephen King book.)
It’s a heavy commitment of time and attention to get through the entire series, and, in the end, it simply isnt worth it. I love me some Stephen King (read It or one of his short story collections [Different Seasons and Skeleton Crew are great]), but the poorly handled ending and the inconsistency of the books make the series very hard to recommend. There is just so much better stuff out there to read that the Dark Tower series is really a waste.
I recently finally got around to reading the entire series (I’d read the first three years ago then decided not to read any more until he completed the series and then put it off for another decade after that).
Each book was worse than the previous in my opinion. Then when a certain person appears as a character it went completely off the rails for me. But I was committed to finishing so I did.
But lots of people like it from end to end.
The first four books are exceptional. The Gunslinger is my favorite novel of all time.
The latter books are weak.
I am getting mixed messages here… I suppose my main issue with them is I’m just not sure what the hell they are about. I know there is a gunslinger chap who has a quest type thing and that he has people help him. But in what context? The world touches on and is influenced by other King books? paint me puzzled.
I am a huge lifetime King fan, and recall reading the first few books many years ago but never finished the series.
In the prologue to Book 4 he explains the near 10-year delay between books, which explained my forgetting about the series.
I am now on Book 5 and enjoying the series VERY much. A definite must-read for a King fan.
I read the first book years ago and just could. not. get into it. I forced myself through it, but for some reason it just bounced off my brain and didn’t sink in. Easily my least favorite book by King, and I’ve read about half of his entire output.
So that put me off the series for a long time, but then just recently I tried reading book 2, and found it decent enough—slow in points but certainly readable and with some good stuff. And I kept on going with books 3 and 4 and found them definitely worth reading. There are obvious influences all over the place but they’re not quite like anything else I’ve ever read; and they’re definitely King but not “typical” King, if that makes sense. I’ll probably try to finish the series, but I’m taking a break from it right now. From what I’ve read the consensus seems to be that I’ve been through the best part of the series and it kind of goes downhill from here.
Well, I really enjoyed them. I think the quality drops off in the last couple of books, but at that point I was invested enough in the characters and story that I found them to be worthwhile reads.
I think you should read the first book. Make sure you’re reading the revised version (King made edits to fix some continuity problems) and if you don’t like it, quit with a clear conscience. I think books 2 and three are better, but not so much so that you need to slog through something that you don’t like to get there. They’re all of the same piece.
About all I’ll say of the setting is this; the world that the books take place in is very similar, and in some ways very near to our own. In the story itself ties into just about every other Stephen King book in some way or another. This is the series that loosely ties almost everything he’s written together, if that’s the thing you’re into.
The main character is based on Clint Eastwood’s ‘the man with no name’ movies. If you ever wondered what it would be like to read what happens after the ending of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in which Clint’s character travels through post apocalyptic wastelands and sees some trippy shit, this is the real deal.
It’s worth reading them for as long as you’re having fun, but the consensus from many people that I’ve talked to is there’s not enough payoff to justify slogging through them if they’re not your thing.
Gunslinger starts it off pretty good - I remember liking that one and it’s certainly worth giving it a shot.
The next two books are OK. I didn’t particularly like any of the companions that Roland meets up with, and the story just isn’t terribly coherent.
The fourth book… it doubled down on the flaws from the prior books and I never finished it.
I don’t like King’s novels. I feel he’s a better short story teller. However, I did like the world that he created for the series. Kinda like Rowling’s Potter novels, I could easily enter the world’s headspace and get into the stories, even when
King wrote himself into the fucking books.
Yeah… ok… I can work with that, though.
However, I do recommend **not **reading to the final ending. I didn’t like the ending, but it wasn’t so bad that I wanted to throw the book across the room like so many of his other novels. However, it still was shit. As such, my recommendation on how to handle the ending of the book:
Look, the point of the series revealed early on is Roland is trying to get to the Dark Tower. After 7 fucking novels, if Roland didn’t get there, fans wold have done more to King than run over him with a van.
So Roland reaches the Dark Tower. Once the doors open and he goes inside, stop reading. Close the book. Step away. Let your mind imagine what happens next. Just don’t read what King wants to have happen next.
It’s like Calvin’s infamous noodle incident. It’s never revealed what it is, but whatever it is, what you think it is is better than anything Watterson could have written so you don’t really want to know.
I read the entire series recently and thoroughly enjoyed it. Do it.
Long ago, I read The Stand and was spoiled for everything else he’s written. He’s too wedded to formula for my taste (though I did really like The Bachman Books). I read the first few in the Dark Tower series and lost interest.
Right. Like I would describe it as the bastard child of an old Eastwood / Sergio Leone spaghetti Western and Samurai Jack. An odd post-apocalyptic mishmash of mysticism, fantasy, sci fi, pop culture references and historical anachronisms.
but what is it about? Lord of the Rings is about Frodo and Sam having bit of a cross country trek to destroy the one ring, ASOFAI is complicated, the Expanse novels are fun. I just don’t understand what the Dark tower books are about: spoiler me, I know there is a spider.
It’s based on a Robert Browning poem that King read, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, which in turn is a reference to a line from King Lear and likely to The Song of Roland. It’s effectively a knightly quest brought forward into a highly surrealistic world, but substitute a gunfighter for the kanigget. It’s an odd animal to describe because it’s such a mishmash, but that gives you a beginning idea.
P.S. Your handle immediately made me think of Captain Trips. 
The quest takes the gunslinger chap to multiple different worlds, some which are a part of the overriding King mythos. He visits “our” world a couple times (although at different points in history) and accumulates a group of people and experiences. Some of the people and experiences are well told, fully developed characters you care about, and others are nothing more than page filling nonsense. The series is radically fluxuating in tone and quality.
But, since it is a quest story and the first bit of the series is quite good, it sucks you in. And then the quality devolves (there are some good bits in there), and, as a series, it builds itself to a climax. You care about the characters, and the plot, and what happens next.
And, the ending is entirely unsatisfying. And that’s putting it nicely. I would rather use words like “garbage” or “story tease” or “I hope the author of this crap gets hit by a car … oh … wait”, but I’m being kind.
bugger it i’ll give it a shot…
Up to you. But just so you know, there are hundreds of other books/series/epics that you could read that have all the pluses of the Dark Tower, without all the horrible negatives. The Passage by Justin Cronin starts a good, solid trilogy of post-apocalyptic survial books. If fantasy is your thing, the Wheel of Time, while horribly over-written, is tons better than the Dark Tower. If you are patient, and have the fantasy vibe, Game of Thrones is pretty good. And, of course, the classics Lord of the Rings or Narnia are better.
My biggest problem with the series was that it was, in the end, a waste of time. There are so many better options of books/series to read that I felt robbed wasting my time reading … and waiting to read … the Dark Tower series.
If I were you, I’d do a search of book/series recommendations on this board (there are a ton) and find something that suits your tastes. But if you do choose to read and finish the Dark Tower series, please bump this thread let us know what you thought of it.
You’ll love the first few books, and then find the majority of the rest of it a bit of a slog that leads to an ending that you’ll either hate or convince yourself that you can deal with..