Book Review: The Gunslinger ☆☆☆

I’ll be honest, I haven’t read much from Stephen King. If I remember right I’ve only read some of his short stories. I’ve watched a few of the movies adapted from his books, but horror isn’t my favorite genre. That being said I know he has a huge following, and somehow manages to produce another huge volume every year.

The Dark Tower series is supposed to be his magnum opus, contains many of his most popular characters, and is SF/F as well as having horror and mystery elements. I’ve always heard very mixed reviews of this series with as many hating the books as loving them. With a movie, and tv series in the works I thought it was a good time to give it a read.

Well I read it, and after thinking about it for over a week I’m still not sure I like this book. The the further along the story came the less I liked the gunslinger. The world was interesting if seemingly deliberately vague. The ending gave me no real answers or sense of closure so I am left as lost at the end as I was at the beginning. I wasn’t a fan of the actual prose either, but that was more of a small irritation than a real point of contention for me.

Booktube and Goodreads assure me that this series gets better, and despite all of my concerns I want to find the answers to the many questions I have. I’ll give the next book a read, but if it doesn’t get better I might stop reading there. For now I’d have to say it is off to a rocky start.

I should also note that I read the revised and expanded version of this book. I bought it without realizing. When I read the foreword I thought of all the Lucas Star Wars edits, and cringed. I’d already bought the book with a Christmas gift card, and told my benefactor, so I just read it. If anyone has read both feel free to let me know if the original was better left untouched, or if the added passages helped.

My Rating: ☆☆☆