Best Dark Tower book

[Tito_Villa]

Since the last re-read my order of favourites goes ...

1. Wizard & Glass
2. The Wastelands
3. The Wolves of the Calla
4. The Gunslinger
5. The Dark Tower
6. The Drawing of the Three
7. Song of Susannah

[ozmosis7]

An interesting order there.

[Tito_Villa]

An interesting order there.

Why's that then???

[ozmosis7]

Oh, LOL. Nothing to read into there. I was just saying it was an interesting order is all, and trying to consider what my own order might look like. I guess it would be this...

1. The Gunslinger
2. The Drawing of the Three
3. Wizard & Glass
4. The Wolves of the Calla
5. The Dark Tower
6. The Wastelands
7. Song of Susannah

But then again, I haven't read them for some time, so that might change if I did so.

[Tito_Villa]

Haha no worries. Which do you prefer (if any) out of the original and the revised Gunslinger?

[ozmosis7]

I couldn't say. I've only ever read one version and since I bought it right away I am guessing it is not the revised one?

[Tito_Villa]

I think the revised was published just before the release of 'Wolves of the Calla', so yeah i guess you read the original (which i admit to never reading).

[srboone]

One of the things I like about the original was it's little inconsistincies with the rest of the series. Ex. Roland's father being Roland the Elder in the original and Steven in the rest of the books. Later, when King becomes a character, he admits that he sometimes misinterprets Gan's voice and gets things wrong. I thought that added a little texture to the whole reading experience. But I can understand why he revised it.

[frik51]

Join the fun, Squire!

http://www.thedarktower.org/palaver/...d-Glass-(1997)

sk

[TerryE]

Siep, old friend, where have you been hiding? Lots of people here have missed you.

[frik51]

Hiding?
Nah, you've just not been looking in the right places...

sk

[bookworm 1]

Good to hear from you again.before I figured out how to use this forum I enjoyed following your posts and looking at your collection.

[theenormityofitall]

Good to hear from you again.before I figured out how to use this forum I enjoyed following your posts and looking at your collection.

Yeah frik I wondered where you went to also. I miss the arguments we'd get into. LOL that's probably not the right word, let's say "disagreements", that's more politically correct I think.

[Teriw]

I don't know if King ruined it that way.
For some people he did, for others, he didn't.
Personally, I wish he hadn't put himself in this series.
I'm pretty sure if he hadn't had his accident, the final three volumes would have turned out much differently.

sk

I believe if he had not had his accident the final three books might not have been written at all, or would have taken him alot longer to get around to even doing. I think putting himself in there was genius. With all the other worlds out there and knowing that Jake's and Eddie's worlds were not really "our world", throwing himself in there made the writer think more about the possibility of our world being just one of many, thus helping submerge the reader further into the story.

[srboone]

I've just finished The Wind Through the Keyhole and I thought I'd try to insert in my rankings.

1. The Drawing of the Three. Narratively, imaginatively superior to all the others.
2. The Wind Through the Keyhole--simply a joy to read; narrativitely simplistic, but the depth and passion of King's vision is unsurpassed in this seemingly unlikeiest of sequels.
3. The Wastelands. The first half continues the narrative of TDot3. The second part is not as good, but still scores narratively.
4. Song of Susannah. Exciting and revealing with an unique structure compared to the rest.
5. The Gunslinger. Narratively simplistic, but well-written and exciting.
6. The Dark Tower. A satisfying conclusion to the series..and a beginning.
7. The Wolves of the Callah. Well written and exciting, but a lack of creativity keeps it at the bottom.
8. Wizard and Glass. Narrative problems, combined with an unreliable narrator and a lack of creativity.

Spoiler!

Are you sure?

Spoiler!

Ok...

Spoiler!

In TWTTK, King returns to his ka-tet as the leave the Green Palace at the end of W&G (and aren't glad to be rid of that chore!) Not much happens in the story along the Path of the Beam in this book; the focus is on Roland and the stories of his youth. The story is bookended by the journey from the Green Palace to the land of the Callas, across the river Whyie. Along the journey, they seek shelter from the Starkblast--a sudden onslaught of destructive cold that billy-bumblers are specially attuned to. During the storm Roland tells a tale of his first mission after his exploits in Mejis. The two parts of his tale bookend the story's primary tale of TTWTK, a story that Roalnd's mother would read him from the Great Book of Elden Tales. So you've got bookends within bookends holding up a fairy tale.

King doesn't really give us much more understanding of Roland here. But he does introduce a fascinating meteorlogical element of Mid-World--the Starkblast; and the bill-bumblers affinity for predicting it. At one point in the tales, the billy-bumblers stay poised with their snouts in the air as the storm passes, even though they must know that death awaits the. It almost seems that the starkblast is the main purpose of the bumblers. Jamie DeCurry is Roland's ka-mate for this journey--and this is the first time he's been in the forefront in print (though i've not read the comics). Then the tale of TWTTK is related--a tale of the only gunslinger not of the line of Eld.

King says in his forward that the book can be read as a stand alone novel. I suppose, but anyone attempting to do that will be missing out on the richness of King's Mid-World, particualy the language. And it's nice to see King acknowledging his own failings: As he begins his tale, Roland says that when he first started out, he wasn't good at telling tales, but he got better at it as time wnet by. And having read W&G, I know what he means. The storytelling techniques are used to much greater effect in TWTTK. The narrative voice is consistent, going from third person, to first, then back to third. And he doesn't interrupt his own tale, as he did an annoyingly many times in W&G. Plus, Roland is not unveiled at the last minute as an unrelaible narrator this time, giving the whole work a flow that doesn't make you want to stop reading (and at 330 pages, I could have read the whole thing in one marathon sitting if I'd been able to.) All of King's talents as a writer are on full display in this book; and it gives hope for more DT tales because TWTTK is but one of the tales from the Book of Eld.

King dedicates this book to Robin Furth and the gang at Marvel Comics--and it reads like a comic book.

I warned you.