The Dark Tower Thread

[Dick Sirloin]

I've been reading this series since I was ten and there were only three books out. I read each next one within a week or two of when they came out. I bought the final installment the day it hit shelves, read the first 100 pages...

...and suddenly didn't care any more. I don't know how the whole thing ends, but I heard it sucks.

 

[Lies and Perfidy]

The actual ending is fucking genius. It's how he gets there that sucks.

 

[J.]

i liked how he got there up until the encounter with Mordred, stopped caring and then started caring again when the Crimson King was erased.

 

[dorian gray]

dudes. Ending sucked. Book 1 can stand on it's own merit. The next two are great. The rest are crap.

 

[J.]

tell me you didnt like father callahan. c'mon! and Ted Brautigan! i loved how it all tied to hearts in atlantis and salems lot.

ive yet to really see how Black House and Jack Sawyer really fit in. i get that Munshun was a Crimson King agent, and that boy was a breaker, but eh. Sawyer needs to get involved more.

EDIT: dorian, you just said the one with roland's teen years ruled. well that was book 4. how can books 1-3 rule and the rest be crap?

 

[Karmic]

Is it even possible to get the non-revised versions?

Finished The Wastelands recently, just need to find the rest of the books.

 

[dorian gray]

tell me you didnt like father callahan. c'mon! and Ted Brautigan! i loved how it all tied to hearts in atlantis and salems lot.

ive yet to really see how Black House and Jack Sawyer really fit in. i get that Munshun was a Crimson King agent, and that boy was a breaker, but eh. Sawyer needs to get involved more.

EDIT: dorian, you just said the one with roland's teen years ruled. well that was book 4. how can books 1-3 rule and the rest be crap?

LOL you bastard! I was just talkin shit. Seriously though, it's been quite awhile since I've read them but I recall becoming very irritated with The Wolves of the Calla and the ones that came after.
In all honesty I didn't like the Callahan part and I don't like Ted Brautigan or Hearts in Atlantis. Salem's Lot, now that's a different story. Fucking awesome. Black House is fucking terrible. The Talisman is ace. Basically, all King's shit he wrote when drunk and stoned is awesome while everything after he sobered up is pretty good and everything after he almost got killed is pretty meh.

Btw, I'm impressed with your memory of these books. I dont even recognize some of the characters you mention

 

[dorian gray]

Is it even possible to get the non-revised versions?

Finished The Wastelands recently, just need to find the rest of the books.

Used books stores. I once found a second printing hardback of Salem's Lot still WRAPPED IN PLASTIC in a used books store.

 

[Karmic]

righto.

but for example, what would be the largest difference in for example The Gunslinger between the two? I believe the one I read was the revised one, but I'm curious to what's different.

 

[Lies and Perfidy]

The Gunslinger is the only one that's been revised. Basically, he just

AH JESUS CHRIST I NEED TO SCROLL DOWN, your signature is way too distracting

Anyway, King just went back and revised a couple things, particularly a lot of Walter o' Dim's dialogue, to make it fit better with the later books cause so much changed. The story pretty much progresses the same way; the difference is laying groundwork for some of the weirder shit that comes up post-Wizard and Glass.

 

[dorian gray]

I've never read the revised version.
The thing I remember reading about the Gunslinger was the negative criticism. I don't have anything to quote but I recall people being generally unhappy with the style and the fact that it was more sci-fi than horror. That's why I put it off for so long, then one day I had run out of books to read and picked it up. It was fucking brilliant, drug and booze-fueled genius. "The Way Station" is one of my favorite chapters in any book I've ever read.

 

[J.]

In April 2009, both Abrams and Lindelof revealed that they would most likely begin adapting the series when Lost concludes in 2010.

In May 2009, rumours emerged that Christian Bale was the top contender to play Roland.

hmmmm, personally, i think roland should be played by an older dude

 

[swizzlenuts]

I just started reading this. I'm excited.

 

[Divine Victim]

Yeah I need to read this at some point.

 

[Chromatose]

I couldn't make it through book 4, what a snoozer.

 

[J.]

yeah, easily the most boring, but 5-7 move real fast.

i still say The Wastelands was the best.

 

[Chromatose]

The Wastelands is for sure my favorite from the first 3 and 1/2 that I read. The writing conveys a lot of intensity and horror in some of those scenes, like with the robo-bear fight and later the "haunted house." Also, mutants!

So I've always wanted to finish this series, would it really be any harm to just skip the rest of book 4 altogether? I don't see how it could impact the story much, maybe some foreshadowing...

 

[J.]

In May 2009, rumours emerged that Christian Bale was the top contender to play Roland.[19]

In November 2009, Abrams stated that he would not be adapting the series. During an interview with MTV Abrams made the following comments: "The Dark Tower thing is tricky. "The truth is that Damon and I are not looking at that right now." Furthermore, in an interview with USA Today Damon Lindelof stated that "After working six years on 'Lost,' the last thing I want to do is spend the next seven years adapting one of my favorite books of all time. I'm such a massive Stephen King fan that I'm terrified of screwing it up. I'd do anything to see those movies written by someone else. My guess is they will get made because they're so incredible. But not by me."[20]


In an interview in March 2009, King stated, describing an idea for a new short story he recently had: "And then I thought, 'Well, why don't I find three more like this and do a book that would be almost like modern fairy tales?' Then this thing started to add on bits and pieces so I guess it will be a novel." According to King, the idea is a new Dark Tower novel. King said, regarding the Dark Tower series, "It's not really done yet. Those seven books are really sections of one long über-novel."[4]

Stephen King confirmed this during his TimesTalk event at The TimesCenter in New York City on November 10, 2009, and the next day King's official site posted the information that King will being working on this novel in about eight months, with a tentative title being The Wind Through the Keyhole.[5] King noted that this novel should be set between the fourth and the fifth books of the series.

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I really dont know what to think yet.

 

[swizzlenuts]

I'm currently on the last book. I'm loving the series. Old Long Tall and Ugly is too old for Christian Bale, but it could work.

EDIT: for the novel in between 4 and 5, is it supposed to be about them meandering in between Calla and Kansas? Or will it not be anything to do with the main characters?

 

[J.]

dunno. when he mentioned betwwen 4 and 5 i got a bit confused, since 4 was the flashback book except for the awesome end where they talk with Flagg and end up in the same flu ridden world of The Stand (if you didnt "get" that, read The Stand, awesome book). so yeah, probably there adventures after Flagg's meeting and The Calla.

Swizzle, did you read all the companion novels?