I like books. I like reading them and I like talking about them. Title: The Gunslinger
Author: Stephen King
Setting: A post apocalyptic limbo-ish parallel world type place with a desert, a mine/railway station, and a town on the edge of the previously mentioned desert.
Characters: Roland, the Gunslinger; The Man in Black, but not Titus Welliver (sadly); Alice, a barmaid in the town, and Jake, a young boy.
Sorry Smokey, maybe you’ll be in the next book.
WHY ISN’T THE READ MORE FUNCTION WORKING!?!?! SORRY EVERYONE. SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILER
Main Problem/Conflict: The Gunslinger is pursuing the Man in Black through the desert, but is quite a ways behind him. Along the way, he stops over in a run-down town where the Man in Black had been a few days prior. While there, the Man in Black reanimated a dead man whose name is not John Locke. Weird! The Gunslinger has a bunch of sex with a barmaid named Alice. But the townspeople turn on Roland! Oh nos! Fortunately, because Roland is a Gunslinger, he is capable of killing everyone! Yay! He continues into the desert, meets a kid who remembers being alive in New York City. Together they continue walking through the desert until they reach a mountain with an abandoned mine inside. They ride a cart through it but then! Slow Mutants! Who, despite being slow are still a formidable enemy. Will they make it through the mines of not-Moria? Will they escape the not-Orcs? Will Roland ever find the Man in Black?
Put away that bow and arrow! You’re the Gunslinger, silly!
Conclusion: Kind of, yes, and yes. And when he does catch up to the Man in Black, they have an extended pow-wow. The Man in Black does a tarot reading, tries to dissuade Roland from finding the Dark Tower, and Stephen King write about the first time he got high and realized how HUGE the universe is and how SMALL we all are in the grand scheme of things. I mean, think about it, there could be, like, an entire universe in the atoms in our fingernails! Weird!
Did you like this book/Would you recommend it to a friend: I feel bad. I feel like there must be something broken inside of me. Because, despite my love for fantasy, despite hearing for years how awesome this series is, despite countless recommendations, I really just did not like this book. I found it… dull. Uninspired. I was relieved when it was finished because it meant I could finally read something else. And considering I read the book in roughly 24 hours, that’s pretty terrible.
I don’t get the following this book has garnered. I don’t get the enthusiasm people have for it. I just don’t get it.
