Thursday, May 6, 2010

The Gunslinger by Stephen King


The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.

I have mixed feelings about this book. Despite the fact that it was really slow at the beginning and frustrated me to anger for the first two thirds or so, it has a much better aftertaste. Also, as Jim pointed out, it has one of the baddest ass opening lines (quoted above) of any book I've read in quite some time.

The Gunslinger is the first book in Stephen King's Dark Tower series and follows the gunslinger, Roland, as he chases the man in black, searching for answers. The frustrating part of the beginning of the book is that not only are we in the same position as Roland, desperate for answers, we don't even know most of the questions. This book intrigued me because it was so different from anything else I've ever read by Stephen King (which is at least 18 books, btw). It was much more serious, much more focused on character development than his other novels. Like I said before, it takes awhile for anything to really happen. Eventually, however, King reveals some of the puzzle pieces, even if he doesn't necessarily show us where they go. It is enough, though, that I downloaded the second one and am going to bring the third and fourth books in the series back to DC with me (I think I might have read one of them out of order at some point, but I can't remember). Also, once the frustration from the beginning of the book sort of melted away, it became easier to focus on the fact that Roland is a straight up BAMF, and that's awesome/makes me want to read more about him.

7 comments:

Brent Waggoner said...

I really liked The Dark Tower series until the 6th book, which was awful. The 7th is pretty good though, barring a few rough spots. The writing style definitely becomes more Stephen King-ish as the series goes on though, for better or worse.

G.R.R. Fotley said...

Fiedler, J., concurring with Scott, J., and Waggoner, J.

I think the series peaked on Number 4. I find the series interesting because as it develops it becomes Stephen King novels for Stephen King fans.

Christopher said...

None of your names start with J.

billy said...

chris, the C stands for judge or justice. randy forgot the C, for chief, before my J. should have read fiedler, j., concurring with scott, c.j. and waggoner, j.

Christopher said...

Jay Fiedler. Charlie Scott.

G.R.R. Fotley said...

Is it lower case? I forgot my blue book...

Brent Waggoner said...

Order.