The Dark Tower

Over the weekend, I finally began reading The Dark Tower, the seventh and final book in Stephen King's masterful epic fantasy of the same name.

For my money, King is probably the best fiction author since Shakespeare. All of his stories, horror or other, just have a way of putting the reader inside his characters' heads in such a way that they seem true to life and really stay with you after you've finished the story. This is such an exceptional gift, and even moreso in a fantasy work like the Dark Tower series, where the characters are less like anything readers would find familiar.

I read the first book in this series (The Gunslinger) when I was not quite twelve years old, so I've been waiting for quite literally 14 years for the end of this story. (And it was first published in 1980, if my memory is correct--so a lot of folks have been waiting even longer than I have.) Amazing, really. I can't think of any other stories from when I was that age that still hold my interest to this day. (Star Wars might be the exception to that. Might.)

In fact, Star Wars is even a valid comparison--last year, King went back to to the beginning of the series, and revised, expanded, and updated it to bring it in line with the rest of the series, both in terms of "voice/theme" (vague concepts that I'm fairly sure only English majors can define in words, but most readers notice if a book is lacking in either of these) and to fix some errors in continuity with later works. So of course, I had to start over from the beginning of the series, just to make sure all the details were fresh in my mind before beginning the tale's end, and I'm pleased to report that unlike George Lucas's meddling, King's changes will probably not piss off a significant portion of his fan base. The plot is left unchanged (a few small incidental scenes are added, but there's no "Greedo shooting first"-style nonsense) and the "flow" (another one of those abstract terms) is much-improved, but that's about it.

For those who haven't delved into this series, I heartily recommend you start, especially if you're a fan of King's other works, because a good portion of them (well over half, I'd estimate) overlap with this series in at least some small way. Four in particular are "must-reads", however, for this series. I'd recommend reading The Talisman and Black House together (both are co-written with Peter Straub, and the latter is a direct sequel to the former) between the time you read The Waste Land (Book 3) and Wizard and Glass (Book 4). 'Salem's Lot is a must-read before Wolves of the Calla (Book 5), as there are parts of Calla that follow directly from 'Salem, making it a sort of half-sequel. And before entering the final volume of the Tower saga, be sure to read Hearts in Atlantis. Atlantis is really four novellas that follow along a story thread, and Dark Tower 7 follows one of those stories closely enough to be called a true sequel to that book, as well as to the other books in its own series.

I'm only about halfway through Volume 7 at this point, but without giving anything away, it's every bit as good as I expected. Highly recommended to King fans as well as sci-fi/fantasy junkies.