The Dark Tower series (seven books):
The Gunslinger
The Drawing of the Three
The Waste Land
Wizard and Glass
The Wolves of the Calla
The Song of Susannah
The Dark Tower
This is one of the greatest series in American literature. I have read the series three times, will do so again, and listened to it on audio book. I have it in hardback, paperback and kindle. It was my first Kindle purchase in 2007. It represents a different genre for King, but it is his magnus opus. It is finely wrought literature, splattered with King's hallmark mayhem . . . but the characters . . .oh the characters, you come to love and hate them. He takes a page from Tolkien as he patterns his fantasy on Tolkien's definition of "Faerie" - that is a one degree shift from reality so the reader always feels that they have one foot on familiar ground and the other somewhere in another world. I use the same definition for my fantasy series The Jade Owl Legacy.
The sample you downloaded represents an Amazon percentage of text. The Gunslinger, the oldest and the shortest of the series, is prefaced with three author explanations (one for each revision - thus the sample is robbed), including his brilliant bray on the number nineteen "Being Nineteen."The Gunslinger is the oldest of the series, revised twice and written in 1982. While the last book was published in 2007 - so the writing and King's own writing development of The Dark Tower spans 25 years. The Gunslinger is the most erudite of the works, tight - literary, filled with a younger King's bid for top shelf writing. Some people don't survive the first book thinking that the literary style cannot be sustained over 3,000 pages BUT, listen to me. The journey within the pages of The Dark Tower is unique and connects the Universe that underlies King's other 64 works. You get to meet characters roaming in The Dark Tower from many other books (Salem's Lot, Hearts in Atlantis, Everything's Eventual, The Talisman). If I were given a choice as to which books I should have on my Kindle, if I was limited to three, it would be LOTR, The Dark Tower and . . . don't laugh - Pride and Prejudice. After all, Jane Austen is the father of the modern novel and one should always have a mentor at your side.
Edward C. Patterson
Hallelujah! God Bomb! (Read The Dark Tower and find out what that means)