Hi friends, happy Friday! I hope you’ve all had a good week. Today I’m back with another King read in my Stephen King Project –book one in the Dark Tower series, The Gunslinger, my 8th novel in this project.

I (re)read this from January 8, 2023 – February 26, 2023 (2 1/2 months)

The Book (1982)

• This starts with a lot of storytelling, which the reader doesn’t mind; it helps introduce the world building and King’s very descriptive writing mesmerizes the reader. The foreshadowing is good and the little nods to his other work is fun too.
• King is a good storyteller & his writing is immersive & detailed but it’s full of foreshadowing that is confusing to read. We get lost in stories within stories it’s hard to find the present anymore. There are so many mentions of things that have happened that the reader doesn’t know how it’s connected to what is happening now. He’s trying to create this world but so far the set up has been lacklustre.
• We’ve met this kid named Jake and not really sure how he fits into everything… just like everything else. Maybe he was just someone the Gunslinger met as he was passing through? Again, the foreshadowing was upon us and they’re running from the ominous man in black. It’s definitely piqued the reader’s interest, we just want it all to make sense.
• We’ve had our first mention of the Tower that they are heading to, but this chapter just felt like mumbo jumbo in the fact that all these things were happening, but we’re not sure if it’s really moving the plot forward. The good thing though, is this is really fast paced.
• We are getting somewhere! We learn that Jake’s purpose is to help the gunslinger find the Dark Tower; we also learn and meet the man in black. Things are starting to come together in a very slow and gradual pace. King is back to describing things in minute details, which is great for the world building but slows the plot a bit.
• The plot is slowly moving. Jake and Roland are on route towards the tower, but before we can get anywhere close we have to dive into a flashback of Roland’s before he was a gunslinger and when he was a child. Not sure exactly how this plays into the overall plot, but looking to find out!
• We almost lose Jake on their travels as they head closer and closer to their destination. Some of the story progressed the plot, but most of it felt more like purple prose to fluff up and give more to the setting. There’s one chapter left and we’ve just reached the Man in Black, the reader is ready for a climatic ending.
• The Man in Black just talks in riddles to Roland about the future and the tower that he is destined to go and find, for what purpose we’re not sure just yet, but we feel that it’s coming in the next book. This book ended with just enough setup to keep the reader invested to keep going.

Final Thoughts: I still stand by my review below that I wrote in 2017, but to add to that this novel was good because it was fast-paced and sucked the reader into this world. Despite the amount of foreshadowing this had it ended up working because it builds the world up for what we’re hoping is an epic journey ahead.

Roland is one of the last of his kind and is known as the gunslinger. As the gunslinger he is set on protecting whatever good is left in the world in which he lives. He’s on pursuit of the man in black, trying to restore everything, but the man in black has other plans, with all his secrets and the reveal of the Dark Tower. This novel was captivating from the very first moment, right until the end; it actually got really good by the end that when the novel just ended, the reader just craved more. On top of a really good story, the writing was also really well done; the choice of words was enthralling, and entrancing. The characters were also crafted well, and the relationships between everyone was so well done, especially Roland and Jake. It is obvious that there is a lot more to come in this series as this just scratched the surface as to where things are going to go, and it all looks really good.

I also filmed my thoughts on the book if you’d like to check that out:

Up Next: Different Seasons