DT7

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Great post Syl. I totally agree about the "alternate" New York, where everybody gets to live happily ever after.

--A

[Roland of Gilead]

In response to Cail's post regarding the story would have been better had King not been run down by the van . . . possibly true, but I fear the thing might never have been completed at all without the near fatal accident. It woke King up to his own mortality, and I think it prompted him to get off the stick and write the final three volumes pronto.

I can't agree with those who are saying the deaths of Eddie and Jake were contrived. To me, Eddie's demise had a terrible feeling of inevitability to it, inexorable and relentless. Great writing during those sections, I think, similar to the Red Wedding in George R. R. Martin's A Storm of Swords.

And Jake's death - contrived? As I was reading it, up until literally the last moment, I wasn't sure if King was going to knock off Jake or Roland. As far back as the afterword to the original edition of Waste Lands, King had said Roland might not survive the quest and reach the Tower. So I'm thinking, "this is it. Right here."

Some of Syl's other points are well taken, and worth further pondering. I don't necessarily agree with them, or if I do, it wasn't enough to lessen my enjoyment of the tale.

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Hile Gunslinger...it's been long and long since you graced us it seems.

Personally, it wasn't the deaths that bothered me at all, it was the "resurrections." That, in essence, they weren't dead afterall, but could live happily ever after despite them.

--A

[Roland of Gilead]

Thanks, Avatar. Yes, it's been quite awhile since I was here. I've been busy.

Good point regarding the resurrections. I guess I would personally LIKE to believe in parallel planes of existence, though, just to think that when I'm gone, some other version of me might still be plugging along, because he made a different decision at some point.

[Gart]

Just finished the series so I can finally comment

The deaths I could cope with, although Jake's felt unlikely. I could accept them as thematically necessary, at least; Roland did have to get to the tower alone.

The villains seemed like men of straw. I would have expected Randall Flagg, the Dark Man of "The Stand", the wizard of "Eyes of the Dragon", to do better against a were-spider with attitude. Even the Crimson King seemed pretty feeble in the end, although it was nice to see why Patrick was important.

As for the ending...well, I expected better. It felt to me like having built up towards the Tower for 7 books, King just couldn't find a way to do it justice in the end, and so instead decided to scold his readership for expecting a grander climax. I take his point, the journey being the thing, not the destination, but the thing is that a journey without a destination is just an aimless wandering.

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Well, I see we lost a couple of posts here. As I mentioned in the missing one, I finally got my GF to read the Dark Tower series, even though I strongly suspected she would hate the end.

Well, took her two weeks, but I was right.

She thinks that it all started to go wrong when King inserted himself in the story. As far as she's concerned, The Gunslinger was the best of all 7, King couldn't come up with anything better than that first (last) line, and he did Roland of Gilead a disservice, belittled his quest and generally, in her opinion, showed himself as an arrogant bastard.

--A

[Roland of Gilead]

Avatar, your girlfriend need to quite straddling the fence and tell us how she really feels.

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Actually, it raises a question about whether it's a good thing to have an entire series and read it at once, or if it's better (in terms of enjoying it) to have to wait for years in between the books.

As much as she liked Roland, (she agreed that he's one of the best characters ever), I feel that she didn't have the...involvement...that comes from re-reading it while you wait, all of that. She wasn't as...attached...to the series. But that's a topi for the Gen Sci-Fi/Fantasy forum I think.

--A

[Roland of Gilead]

Good point, Avatar. I've wondered that myself, if my devotion to Dark Tower stems partially from having been in at the beginning, and the delicious agony of waiting for the next installment over the many years, feeling like I was part of some character's lifelong quest.

If I picked up the series now, first-time, and tried to read it straight through, what would I think of it?

Is something similar why so many readers still vehemently defend Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time, even though others claim it has gone completely down the drain?

[Cail]

I hadn't thought of that.

But then again, I just flat didn't like DT V or VI.

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Good point, Avatar. I've wondered that myself, if my devotion to Dark Tower stems partially from having been in at the beginning, and the delicious agony of waiting for the next installment over the many years, feeling like I was part of some character's lifelong quest.

Exactly. Not to mention that we'd read all the connected ones as well. So when Roland remembers Flagg being hunted through the ruins of Gilead by Dennis and that other guy, we knew suddenly that this was the world of Eyes of the Dragon.

And when he introduces himself to Andrew Quick as Richard Fannin, we knew it was Flagg from The Stand. Just like we recognised post-plague Kansa from it. And when the can-toi where mentioned, we thought of Desperation. We experienced those connections.

It probably made quite a difference.

(I didn't mind V at all. VI was probably my least favourite though.)

The Gunslinger was the first King book I ever read, and I was 13. Like Roland of Gilead said, it was almost agony reaching the end of each book. And when I was getting close to the end of VII, I was half in disbelief that it really was finally ending. So the very end, disappointing as it might have been, brought almost a sense of relief in that it didn't really end.

(Tell you what else was annoying...because I got them as they came out, the covers of my first 3 are the old ones with the pictures, so they don't match the later ones. And that's still another topic. I'm off to go and start them. )

--A

[Roland of Gilead]

Well, I didn't start my love of King's work with Dark Tower. I got hooked with Night Shift and The Stand. Believe it or not, I picked up The Gunslinger from Michael Whelan's company, Onion Graphics, when they sent me a catalogue I requested. It wasn't popular then, 1982, and the limited first edition was still available, and apparently Whelan had a few to sell, because his artwork was in it.

So yes, I'm an "original" DT fan, but it wasn't my first introduction to King.

Also, I was an adult, not a teen like you. That's another thing I wonder about? What would I have thought of King's work, had I begun them as a teenager? Not possible, as I'm not much younger than he is, and he wasn't a published writer until I was in my twenties. But it's something to think about . . . would the graphic violence and language have turned me off

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Well, the graphic violence and language didn't turn me off, but I was already pretty back then. After reading it, I went out and read every King book I could get my hands on.

To refer back to your post in the "Series" thread though, as grateful as I am that he finished the DT series, I can't help feeling that he rushed the last 2 or 3 books. I'd rather have waited an extra few years for them.

--A

[Cail]

Yeah, no question he rushed the end of the series.

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Unfortunately. We'll never know how much better it could have been. *sigh*

--A

[Cail]

I'd just like to know what he had in mind prior to his accident.

[Avatar]

Damn good point. (Assuming he had something in mind...) No doubt it was that that pushed him into hurrying though.

And I gotta admit, when I heard about it, the first words out of my mouth were "Can he still write?" with the Dark Tower in mind.

--A