Stephen King The Dark Tower Series

Stephen King first started writing The Dark Tower series in 1970, when he was a incredible writer with a lot of ambition. While he was still attending the University of Maine, he wrote the first couple chapters of the first book in the series. The project didn't move to fast, as there where 6 year gaps between some of the books. in 1999, just after his near fatal accident, King turned his whole attention to completing the long dragged out series. He completed the last three books in the series very quickly. Filled with true narrative magic, these novels are absorbing and constantly surprising. But they are a good ending to the long dragged out series of novels.

The primary source for these novels was a poem called "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came' written by Robert Browning. This poem provided king central, recurring theme, and his character Roland Deschain of Gilead. J.R.R. Tolkien, L. Frank Baum, Clifford D. Simak and the work of filmmakers such as John Sturges, Akira Kurosawa and Sergio Leone were other sources used by King. Leone's "spaghetti western" "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly," created the template for Roland and the brutal beautiful land that he journeyed through.

"The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed." is how he opened the journey Roland took. Roland is the last gunslinger in a rapidly decaying world. He was heading for the eponymous tower, which is in a place where there are an infinite number of parallel worlds binded together, the tower is in the middle of all of them. The tower is held together by a number of intersecting poles. It is also under attack by the Crimson King, who plans on riping the tower down and rule in the madness that will follow. Roland's goals are to preserve the tower and make it to the room at the top of the tower. In this room and unknown fate awaits him.

To draw a trio of prospective companions from three different versions of 20th-century America is what Roland tries to accomplish in the first few books. Eddie Dean is the first character to come into the books. He is a heroin addict who has very little hope and is on his last chance. Odetta Holmes is the second character who is a cripple. He is a civil rights activist who has multiple personalities. He is later referred to as Susannah. Jake Chambers is the third character in the Novel. He is an 11 year old boy who has just returned from the dead to join Roland as a gunslinger. These characters form the core of the sacred fellowship, that accompany Roland on his long journey.

King later stated that this series of books was his "Ubertale". King has always believed in the primal importance of story, and his entire career, composing of 40 novels and literally hundreds of shorter works, is a reflection of that belief. The series as a whole is actually about stories, about the power of narrative to shape and color our individual lives. It is also about the things that make us human: love, loss, grief, honor, courage and hope. "On a deeper level still, it is a meditation on the redemptive possibility of second chances, a subject King knows intimately. In bringing this massive project to conclusion, King has kept faith with his readers and made the best possible use of his own second chance. The Dark Tower is a humane, visionary epic and a true magnum opus. It will be around for a very long time." says Bill Sheehan of the Washington Post.

Me personally I think it is one of Stephen King's best book's and i would suggest that if you have the time to read them you should. They are well written and very catching.

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