Book Series Review-The Dark Tower series by Stephen King

 

I am rolling through the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. I am currently on the 4th book (just started) and am loving it! I will do a combined review of the books that I've finished so far. This *may* contain spoilers but I'll try to avoid them as much as possible. 

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First impressions were a bit iffy. You basically get thrown into a world that makes no real sense when you crack open The Gunslinger. You're on a depressing journey with this guy that's looking for someone or something. He's Roland of Gilead. A Gunslinger, but you don't know exactly what that means. The story is disjointed and chaotic but something about it tickles your brain and keeps you reading. 

Roland eventually meets up with Jake, a boy who isn't from Roland's world or time line. Speaking of timelines...you aren't quite sure about that with Roland's world. When is it? Where is it? There's things that show you that they have technology, or had technology, but everything is crumbling and decrapitated. Roland's world has "moved on." This is a phrase that's said often, but explained very little. 

Roland is on a quest to catch up to The Man in Black, for some reason. It's vague. It's intriguing. It kept me reading and engaged. Things happen along the way. Action and adventure. Good stuff! 

The first line of the book sums it up perfectly. "The Man in Black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed." 

That's pretty much the story. 

The 2nd book in the series gets even more funkier with the timelines and the characters (sometimes one character has multiple personalities!) and is an even wilder ride that the first book! The writing is tighter, you get more character development. Roland gets fleshed out more. There's time travel-ish, with characters from the 60's, 70's and 80's. And then whatever time Roland is from. It can be a tad confusing before everything is pulled together but when it does it's glorious! We're introduced to Odetta/Detta and Eddie. His new companions.  More time travel shenanigans happen. Some personality shifting happens. And a lot of weirdness happens. The 2nd book was much better than the first, with better more cohesive story threads and fleshed out characters. 

Definitely a good start to a LOONG series. 

So the 3rd book takes the funky fun even further. The trio (Roland, Eddie and the newly Susannah..formerly Odetta/Detta) are on their journey to find the Dark Tower. On the way, they have to rescue and reunite with Jake...remember from the first book? Well he is pulled back into Mid-world and right smack into danger. So the gang has to get him out of said danger so all of them can get back to the tower plan. 

Again with the time travel-ish, and again with the shifting of realities. It should be getting old by now but it's not. King's writing continues to get better with each of these books. You can tell he's getting more and more comfortable with the characters and with the weirdness (I mean duh, it's Stephen King..right?) And you as the reader are also getting used to all the random crap that's being thrown your way. 

Oh oh oh and this book is where you are introduced to the bestest character ever! 

My dude Oy the billy bumbler. 

 Like for reals, once this handsome fella stepped on the scene, it became the Oy show. 

Roland who?

Also there's a talking insane train named Blaine. It's wild man, and I am on this ride til the end. 

I'll post another series review when I get through the next few! 

Have you read this series? What do you think?