I finally decided to get back into some of the big fantasy series that I started and haven't finished yet. I'd been reluctant to resume The Dark Tower because Stephen King is such a hit or miss writer for me; sometimes he's brilliant and sometime he bores the hell out of me. And this book honestly managed to do both for me in equal measure.

For starters, I know this was originally published in 1987, so a feeling of things being a little dated was inevitable... but Stephen King has a way of writing that sometimes for me feels stuck in the 1960s and 1970s, and this book was certainly no exception. Some of the vernacular and pop culture references he used were dated even for 1987, which always adds just a slight degree of difficulty to my reading enjoyment because I instinctively go, "Wait, he calls flight attendants 'stews'? WTF?" And, "Was that song the character is referencing even popular in the 80s? Seems way older than that..."

The good part of the book is that when things actually come together (like when Eddie, the first prisoner, and Roland finally work together to take down the drug dealers), things fly along at a rapid pace, and King manages to insert his usual humor and style into it. There were several of those culmination points in the book where I found myself flying through 50-100 pages in the blink of an eye.

Unfortunately, that brings up the other negative part of the book... which is the places between those culmination points. King is often guilty of droning on at length about minor details and things that don't really move the plot forward, and this book was certainly no exception. The point at which Roland discovers the first door and starts to get a sense of what's going on with Eddie takes forever, and there are times where it feels like King is just stalling or trying to inflate his word count for no reason. The end result is a book that alternates between "OMG get on with it already" and "OMG I can't put this down." Given the page counts of the future books in the series, I have a feeling that's a trend that's likely continue... and if it does, I'm probably likely to try and find areas to skim as I complete this series.

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Created Jan 18, 2025 at 7:51pm • Submit your own review...