For some of you out there, you might have picked up a book one day that was written by a author by the name of Stephen King and been swept away. I know that I was. One dusty summer I was spending at my dad's place, I was rooting through a stack of books and found a Stephen King one. I had read IT the previous winter and was amazingly in love with it. This one was a little different. This one was called The Gunslinger.
I read it, and all at once, I didn't like it. THe man in the book, Roland, seemed too hard to me. A throwback from the wild wild west that shouldn't exist. But that was the point.
I left the book alone.
Enter some four years later and a hefty amount of reading gone when I come upon a book called the Wastelands. After reading the first bit, I realized that the first bit was about the same hard man with the guns. So, I went back to the Gunslinger and never looked back.
20 so years (closer to 30 I believe) later, in Septemeber, the long awaited end to the Dark Tower cycle had arrived. The Dark Tower VII: the Dark Tower, landed on my lap for christmas. Big hardcover books are not really in the budget, but I was raring to see how it all turned out. I belong to a group affectionatly known as Tower Junkies. I know most of the connections between sai Kings' other books, and I wanted to know what it was all about.
After the semi-diappointing conclusion of Dark Tower VI, Song of Susannah, where King wrote himself into the book, I was fearful that it would happen again. That the books were nothing more than a excuse to give King a god like feeling. It wasn't enough to make the books, but to be in it. It was only after I began my journey near the last part of the road that I understand.
The seventh book is everything you would expect ot be, but less. It is still a good story, and the endingplays out almost as you would to expect. The Ka-Tet saves the Tower, frees the Breakers, and most of the party dies. Roland does indeed reclaim his tower from the evil reoccuring character the Crimson King, and thyen finds out his pursuit is all in vain. For those that haven't read it, leave this part alone.
His being, his purpose to find the dark tower begins anew at the top. The door opens to the desert where it all began. That is Rolands destiny for surviving everyone and sacrificing everything to claim the Dark Tower. A eternal loop. Now, it isn't a good ending, as the author himself agrees, but it is the right ending. For those that expected it all to work out, in a way it does.
The sad part is that the story is done. Much like Lord of the rings was a epic for a generation, I really beleive that the Dark Tower is the epic of my generation. If you like a blending of many genres into one fantastic woven stry, try out the Dark Tower cycle.