July is incredibly tough month for me at work, in a good way, so I haven’t been reading as much as I do the rest of the year. Most of my reading the last three weeks has been audiobooks on my commute and when I had a few moments to unwind at home I chose television over writing reviews. When I saw the first post about Cannonball Bingo I got excited because now it looks like I saved my backlog of reviews for the contest and not general laziness.
Stephen King’s The Gunslinger fits a couple categories for me (ex. The Book was Better and Not My Wheelhouse) but I’m going to use the And So it Begins category because I think it is an appropriate start to this new CB challenge. I have tried, on so many occasions, to fall in love with Stephen King’s books the way I have fallen in love with many of his film and television adaptations. I really felt if there was one book that would finally push me over the edge it would be The Gunslinger because everyone I know is obsessed with the Dark Tower series. Alas, I cannot be swayed.
“The greatest mystery the universe offers is not life but size. Size encompasses life, and the Tower encompasses size.
Roland Deschain is the Last Gunslinger in an apocalyptic desert in a world that, while it resembles our world, is not. The Gunslinger’s sole purpose in life is to pursue his arch nemesis, the Man in Black, and to be one of the most boring heroes I’ve ever had the chance of meeting.
Roland meets a boy from our world, Jake, a wealthy kid from New York City who was killed and resurrected by the Man in Black inside this alternate universe. The Gunslinger senses Jake will be his downfall but still takes him under his wing and they begin travel together. The story culminates in a meeting between the Gunslinger, Jake and the Man in Black.
I think the biggest problem with The Gunslinger is it is very oblivious a first book in a series. There is a lot of world building and it felt like an incredibly long winded first chapter of a potentially better book. Unfortunately, King chose to bloat his prologue into its own story and diminish my desire to read the rest of the story.
This novel is insanely different from the ones that follow it. The fourth one is my favorite of the series but it’s never been a series I have felt comfortable recommending despite its crucialness in King’s cannon because this first one is a slog. And some of the later ones are legit crazy.
I hear you — this one is tough and Roland has very little to offer in terms of a hero.
But honestly, the whole series changes immediately with the second book.
Roland will never be my favorite character, but the series eventually became my favorite set of books.
I would say read the second book, and then if you still don’t like it, you can give up. This one is tough, and I really ended up liking the series.