I have been an avid reader of Stephen King books but only last Christmas / New Year break did I pick up Volume 1 of the Dark Tower series. I didn’t know much about it before hand, but was instantly impressed with the tale of Roland of Gilead “the Gunslinger”. The Dark Tower series is 7 volumes long – each a very solid novel in their own right – and after picking up that first book in January, I have finally finished all seven volumes.
And the ending… um, wow. Typical King mastery.
I am not going to bore you with the plot, but what impresses me is that this series – which he started writing as a 19yr old in the 1970’s and concluded in 2004 weaves in and out of nearly every other Stephen King novel written. Randall Flagg, Father Callahan, Ted Brautigan, the Clown from It, the Red Plague and other references and characters from The Stand, IT, Salems Lot, The Mist, Insomnia etc all make a compelling tie to what is the King “universe” or “multiverse”.
After reading the Dark Tower series, it makes you wonder about parallel universes and how the differing worlds could hang together on the “Beams” and that “Ka” governs all that we do.
Highly recommend the books, now I just need to find something else to read, but I am tempted to go back and re-read some of the other King novels given I have a different view on how the stories now hang together.
2 comments:
Clay, check out the Malazan Book of the Fallen series by Steven Erikson - it's by far the best fantasy I've ever read, to the point where I now have trouble reading other stuff due to the way my expectations have been raised by this.
Chunky
I checked it out (link)
Another massive series... I will peruse the book stores mate, thanks for the tip.
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