Chris Ward's Blog - Posts Tagged "stephen-king-dark-tower"
My Journey to the top of Stephen King’s Dark Tower
Introduction
I just finished reading the entire series back to back. This is the first time I have done this for a major fantasy/sci-fi epic ever. And it was quite a journey. I’d like to share a few of my thoughts on the series here. However, if you haven’t read the series and want to, you might want to stop reading now, because I’m going to talk about the end. Just to clarify, I will write about SPOILERS, including THE END OF THE BOOK.
There, now that’s out of the way, let’s begin.
Six months
It took King 34 years to write the Dark Tower series (and judging by the new book he’s got out soon, he’s not going to give up yet). I read the whole thing in just under six months, which for a slow reader like me, is an incredible achievement. I figured it would be easy to see the changes in King’s writing style over the years by reading it that fast, but it wasn’t that easy. It seemed to split neatly into two sections of three books, the Gunslinger, Drawing of the Three and The Waste Lands, then Wolves of the Calla, Song of Susannah and The Dark Tower, with Wizard and Glass sitting somewhere in the middle as a bit of an interlude (albeit a very long one).
The first three were just action-packed and very streamlined. There was very little fluff in the writing. Of the latter three, in particular Wolves felt overly drawn out, while Song of Susannah did very little for me, stretching out a day into 430 pages. The final book, I felt, was like King trying to write in the same way he wrote the first three, but unable to shake the shackles of his later, more garrulous works. The result was a fast-paced but 1000-word monster.
The best book?
It’s a tough one, but I would have to go with The Waste Lands. It was just relentless all the way through. Hardly any backstory or grinding exposition, just story, story, story, and action. It was great and really made me respect King as a writer. The whole Lud part and Blaine the Mono, was just excellent. Second would be Wizard and Glass, which I really expected to suck. It didn’t and was glorious, a sprawling, action-packed Western/Sci-fi adventure sandwiched between two sections of the main story, the first of which was great but the second, in the emerald castle, was a bit meh, losing it a point.
SPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERS
(Yes, here they come. Did you see what I did there?)
The characters
For the most part I really liked them. Eddie was cool, Susannah sassy, Jake earnest. My favorite was Oy, and the part in the last book where Oy swears in the car was probably the funniest moment of the whole series. I was really hoping Oy would survive, but well. That was probably the only downside to everything, the way King felt it necessary to jettison these central characters so quickly. Oy had a useful death, so did Jake. Eddie just popped it at random but Susannah was the strangest – suddenly she realises she can leave, so … she does. A bit like, thanks for the last five books, I’m off now. What? Roland is left to reach the Dark Tower in the company of a character who had only been in the book for about 100 pages, Patrick Danville. Um, what? More on him later.
Stephen King as a character
King has taken a lot of flak for this, but I actually quite liked it, even if the execution was a little clunky at times. I could see what he was trying to do – something different, something that would set the Dark Tower series apart from other fantasy/sci-fi series in the same canon. He was trying to break the fourth wall as they say in the theatre business and see if he could get away with it.
And did he? Well, I thought certain sections, such as Jake’s death to save King’s life, quite good. Others were a little convenient, like the way King “wrote in” a note for Susannah to save her from Joe Collins/Dandelo. If could do that, why not just write in other stuff? Why not shift the Dark Tower a hundred miles closer? It didn’t make a lot of sense.
Patrick Danville?
Apparently the star of Insomnia (which I read about fifteen years ago and thought sucked), Patrick Danville randomly showed up as a captive in Dandelo’s basement (with very little explanation) and then was able to “draw” the Crimson King out of existence. I loved the character, I thought he was great (even if Insomnia sucked so bad I couldn’t even remember him), BUT I felt it was a cop-out. Big style. Dropping him in there right at the end, implying too that we needed to read Insomnia to understand what was going on (after I had just read the first six Dark Tower books) was a little frustrating to say the least.
Roland in the Tower/the end
Before you read the final section Stephen King drops in an afterword to “warn” you that you might not like the end. He says that readers should take pleasure in the journey, not the end. While I understand his point, it’s not an end, but rather a conclusion that the reader wants. I actually thought the whole Ka-as-a-wheel thing was really clever, however, less clear was why the Tower felt Roland was deserving of such punishment. However, the fact that he begins the next journey with the Horn of Eld made a lot more sense, and you get the impression that eventually on one of his cycles he will have everything he needs to finally bring the cycle to an end.
Conclusions
Overall, I really enjoyed the series. There were some low points – the rubbish battle at the end of Wolves, the reliance on items from other writers' series (sneetches, lightsabers) and the whole Susannah/Mia dirge section which took up most of part 6, but in general it was an excellent read. I think time will judge King on whether or not he has pulled off what he was trying to do, but I personally think it is a massively impressive piece of work, one any writer should be proud of, and if a few fans don’t like it, then so be it. I felt that King achieved what he wanted, and as a writer I know that the hardest person to please is often yourself.
What do other people think? Please feel free to leave your comments below.
Chris Ward
If you are interested in my own writing, I have a book coming out soon called The Tube Riders. It’s not as good as the Dark Tower but it’s pretty damn good so look out for it.
I just finished reading the entire series back to back. This is the first time I have done this for a major fantasy/sci-fi epic ever. And it was quite a journey. I’d like to share a few of my thoughts on the series here. However, if you haven’t read the series and want to, you might want to stop reading now, because I’m going to talk about the end. Just to clarify, I will write about SPOILERS, including THE END OF THE BOOK.
There, now that’s out of the way, let’s begin.
Six months
It took King 34 years to write the Dark Tower series (and judging by the new book he’s got out soon, he’s not going to give up yet). I read the whole thing in just under six months, which for a slow reader like me, is an incredible achievement. I figured it would be easy to see the changes in King’s writing style over the years by reading it that fast, but it wasn’t that easy. It seemed to split neatly into two sections of three books, the Gunslinger, Drawing of the Three and The Waste Lands, then Wolves of the Calla, Song of Susannah and The Dark Tower, with Wizard and Glass sitting somewhere in the middle as a bit of an interlude (albeit a very long one).
The first three were just action-packed and very streamlined. There was very little fluff in the writing. Of the latter three, in particular Wolves felt overly drawn out, while Song of Susannah did very little for me, stretching out a day into 430 pages. The final book, I felt, was like King trying to write in the same way he wrote the first three, but unable to shake the shackles of his later, more garrulous works. The result was a fast-paced but 1000-word monster.
The best book?
It’s a tough one, but I would have to go with The Waste Lands. It was just relentless all the way through. Hardly any backstory or grinding exposition, just story, story, story, and action. It was great and really made me respect King as a writer. The whole Lud part and Blaine the Mono, was just excellent. Second would be Wizard and Glass, which I really expected to suck. It didn’t and was glorious, a sprawling, action-packed Western/Sci-fi adventure sandwiched between two sections of the main story, the first of which was great but the second, in the emerald castle, was a bit meh, losing it a point.
SPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERS
(Yes, here they come. Did you see what I did there?)
The characters
For the most part I really liked them. Eddie was cool, Susannah sassy, Jake earnest. My favorite was Oy, and the part in the last book where Oy swears in the car was probably the funniest moment of the whole series. I was really hoping Oy would survive, but well. That was probably the only downside to everything, the way King felt it necessary to jettison these central characters so quickly. Oy had a useful death, so did Jake. Eddie just popped it at random but Susannah was the strangest – suddenly she realises she can leave, so … she does. A bit like, thanks for the last five books, I’m off now. What? Roland is left to reach the Dark Tower in the company of a character who had only been in the book for about 100 pages, Patrick Danville. Um, what? More on him later.
Stephen King as a character
King has taken a lot of flak for this, but I actually quite liked it, even if the execution was a little clunky at times. I could see what he was trying to do – something different, something that would set the Dark Tower series apart from other fantasy/sci-fi series in the same canon. He was trying to break the fourth wall as they say in the theatre business and see if he could get away with it.
And did he? Well, I thought certain sections, such as Jake’s death to save King’s life, quite good. Others were a little convenient, like the way King “wrote in” a note for Susannah to save her from Joe Collins/Dandelo. If could do that, why not just write in other stuff? Why not shift the Dark Tower a hundred miles closer? It didn’t make a lot of sense.
Patrick Danville?
Apparently the star of Insomnia (which I read about fifteen years ago and thought sucked), Patrick Danville randomly showed up as a captive in Dandelo’s basement (with very little explanation) and then was able to “draw” the Crimson King out of existence. I loved the character, I thought he was great (even if Insomnia sucked so bad I couldn’t even remember him), BUT I felt it was a cop-out. Big style. Dropping him in there right at the end, implying too that we needed to read Insomnia to understand what was going on (after I had just read the first six Dark Tower books) was a little frustrating to say the least.
Roland in the Tower/the end
Before you read the final section Stephen King drops in an afterword to “warn” you that you might not like the end. He says that readers should take pleasure in the journey, not the end. While I understand his point, it’s not an end, but rather a conclusion that the reader wants. I actually thought the whole Ka-as-a-wheel thing was really clever, however, less clear was why the Tower felt Roland was deserving of such punishment. However, the fact that he begins the next journey with the Horn of Eld made a lot more sense, and you get the impression that eventually on one of his cycles he will have everything he needs to finally bring the cycle to an end.
Conclusions
Overall, I really enjoyed the series. There were some low points – the rubbish battle at the end of Wolves, the reliance on items from other writers' series (sneetches, lightsabers) and the whole Susannah/Mia dirge section which took up most of part 6, but in general it was an excellent read. I think time will judge King on whether or not he has pulled off what he was trying to do, but I personally think it is a massively impressive piece of work, one any writer should be proud of, and if a few fans don’t like it, then so be it. I felt that King achieved what he wanted, and as a writer I know that the hardest person to please is often yourself.
What do other people think? Please feel free to leave your comments below.
Chris Ward
If you are interested in my own writing, I have a book coming out soon called The Tube Riders. It’s not as good as the Dark Tower but it’s pretty damn good so look out for it.
