The Dark Tower

[justcheckin]

I've read 'Salem's Lot twice this year. I think it's pretty good, but it's got some pretty crummy dialogue.

I'm now into the "Callahan's Soup Kitchen Adventures" portion of Wolves and I'm actually enjoying it this time.

I don't know... It just felt like a non-book. I can't really explain what I didn't like about it. I just felt like nothing got resolved. Haha, I know what I just said because nothing ever gets really resolved in King's books, but more so this one.

Salem's Lot is a crappy book.

OK OK, crappy was a bit harsh.

[Bloo]

A buddy of mine who has been resistant to getting into The Dark Tower (he was having trouble with the conflicting motifs ant thought King was being weird for the sake of being weird) just read Wind Through The Keyhole and loved it and is now reading (or rather listening to) The Gunslinger. I'm excited for him.

And I dig Salem's Lot, but I dug King doing a take on Dracula. Has he ever done a similar take on Frankenstien I can't recall

[caruso_stalker217]

Well, I finished Wolves of the Calla today and incredibly it may be my new favorite DT book. I never would have said that eight years ago. Probably wouldn't have said it two weeks ago.

Even though I know this thing is going to fly off the rails very soon I have to say that the characters have never been better. Roland has never been more human, but is still one hard son of a bitch (and even gets some overdue lady-action). I love how Eddie really comes into his own in this book as Roland's right hand man and a bad motherfucker in his own right. Susannah never comes off at all cartoony as she sometimes has in the past and we even get some coming-of-age shit with Jake. Even Oy is better written here.

So there. If I can love and embrace Wolves then maybe I'll even enjoy Book Seven this time.

[caruso_stalker217]

Song of Susannah is finished and now I'm almost two hundred pages into The Dark Tower.

Still have pretty much the same opinion of Song as the first time I read it. It's a quick read and has a pretty different feel from the other DT books, I think mostly because it's set in our world. I dig these kinds of stories where your heroes all get separated and have to battle adversity and so forth, but it's still kinda sad when they're not together. Although it's short, I got the feeling that this book was a little padded this time around. The "writer's journal" coda itself is pretty unnecessary and doesn't provide much insight. But really the worst offender here is the chapter "Trudy and Mia" which is a redundant and pointless twenty pages centering around a character we never see again. This material really should have been condensed and merged with the next chapter which tells the exact same event but from Susannah-Mia's point of view. But I guess King really needed that thirteenth stanza.

A small complaint I have is there is not enough Team Jake-Callahan! Those motherfuckers really had their shit together and just like when I read this eight years ago I was bummed how little they are in the book. This leads into my next complaint which is that the climax of the book is obviously when Jake and the Pere enter the Dixie Pig, but the last forty pages or so are about Susannah and Mia. I think it would have been more boner-inspiring if the last two chapters were swapped around. Jake and Callahan preparing to go kamikaze is just so badass, why wouldn't you end the book with that?

Those small complaints aside, though, I think it's a solid book. Calvin Tower is probably one of the more loathsome creatures King has ever created.

As for The Dark Tower, I've just reached the point when the ka-tet has reunited (and it feels so good). The book is fine so far and Mordred's birth scene is still pretty fucking crazy and I felt sorry for Nigel the Robot Butler. That guy was alright in my book. But something feels off here. Maybe it's because I know where this shit is headed. Still not sure I'm gonna like it this time. We will see.

[justcheckin]

Song of Susannah is finished and now I'm almost two hundred pages into The Dark Tower.

Those small complaints aside, though, I think it's a solid book. Calvin Tower is probably one of the more loathsome creatures King has ever created.

He's very wimpy and whiny for a hero and ultimately, he does sort of become one.

[caruso_stalker217]

Song of Susannah is finished and now I'm almost two hundred pages into The Dark Tower.

Those small complaints aside, though, I think it's a solid book. Calvin Tower is probably one of the more loathsome creatures King has ever created.

He's very wimpy and whiny for a hero and ultimately, he does sort of become one.

Eddie giving him a verbal pimp-slapping is a highlight. Though I would have preferred a physical pimp-slapping.

[justcheckin]

Song of Susannah is finished and now I'm almost two hundred pages into The Dark Tower.

Those small complaints aside, though, I think it's a solid book. Calvin Tower is probably one of the more loathsome creatures King has ever created.

He's very wimpy and whiny for a hero and ultimately, he does sort of become one.

Eddie giving him a verbal pimp-slapping is a highlight. Though I would have preferred a physical pimp-slapping.

Yeah but Calvin is sort of pathetic and not really worthy of a gunslinger physical pimp-slap.

[caruso_stalker217]

I've been taking my sweet time reading The Dark Tower this time around. I just hit the halfway point. I've put it aside for the time being to begin listening to the audiobook version of Hearts In Atlantis. William Hurt's reading of "Low Men In Yellow Coats" is really very good.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll get back to Tower tomorrow but I had to stop for now seeing as how that bastard King made me cry (and I'm just man enough to admit it, motherfucker!) and I'm not in a hurry to get back to it since I recall the second half being mostly filler, unfortunately.

[justcheckin]

I've been taking my sweet time reading The Dark Tower this time around. I just hit the halfway point. I've put it aside for the time being to begin listening to the audiobook version of Hearts In Atlantis. William Hurt's reading of "Low Men In Yellow Coats" is really very good.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll get back to Tower tomorrow but I had to stop for now seeing as how that bastard King made me cry (and I'm just man enough to admit it, motherfucker!) and I'm not in a hurry to get back to it since I recall the second half being mostly filler, unfortunately.

I think I cried more about Oy and how Roland sat with him... I'm tearing up right now thinking about it. You aren't the only one...

[caruso_stalker217]

I've been taking my sweet time reading The Dark Tower this time around. I just hit the halfway point. I've put it aside for the time being to begin listening to the audiobook version of Hearts In Atlantis. William Hurt's reading of "Low Men In Yellow Coats" is really very good.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll get back to Tower tomorrow but I had to stop for now seeing as how that bastard King made me cry (and I'm just man enough to admit it, motherfucker!) and I'm not in a hurry to get back to it since I recall the second half being mostly filler, unfortunately.

I think I cried more about Oy and how Roland sat with him... I'm tearing up right now thinking about it. You aren't the only one...

Well, it gave my heart-nuts a good healthy squeeze when Eddie called Roland "Father".

[justcheckin]

I've been taking my sweet time reading The Dark Tower this time around. I just hit the halfway point. I've put it aside for the time being to begin listening to the audiobook version of Hearts In Atlantis. William Hurt's reading of "Low Men In Yellow Coats" is really very good.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll get back to Tower tomorrow but I had to stop for now seeing as how that bastard King made me cry (and I'm just man enough to admit it, motherfucker!) and I'm not in a hurry to get back to it since I recall the second half being mostly filler, unfortunately.

I think I cried more about Oy and how Roland sat with him... I'm tearing up right now thinking about it. You aren't the only one...

Well, it gave my heart-nuts a good healthy squeeze when Eddie called Roland "Father".

Well, that is a much better place than my place.

[caruso_stalker217]

So I'm re-reading the series again (maybe this will become a yearly tradition for me). I'm working my way into Wizard and Glass right now (which means I'm a couple hundred pages in). Okay, so this is like my fifth or sixth time reading this book and I get to the part where Roland's dad has a little heart to heart with him and this suddenly jumps out at me:

I'm going to send you away, Steven had said, sitting there on the bed and looking somberly at his only son, the one who had lived.

And I'm like "What the SHIT?" Because is that saying what I think it's saying? Did Steve and Gabby sire BROTHERS Deschain? And did Son Number Two bite shit at some point and this is the only mention of him in the entire series? Or is it simply referring to Roland surviving his test of gunslingerness? Personally, I doubt that, because that's a weird way to word that shit. I mean, I kinda figured that the worst that was likely to happen was that Cort would have gimped up Roland's thigh ligaments or something, like what that angel did to Jacob, and he'd be sent West. But he'd be alive. Maybe he would have died in a figurative sense, all fucking crippled and shamed and whatnot and it would be like that WING COMMANDER movie and everybody would be like "Roland who? He never EXISTED."

Anyone got a thought on this?

[Bloo]

wow, that does sound like there were other children...I...I have no idea...

[caruso_stalker217]

It is that time of year again. It's my third annual Dark Tower Read-Off-A-Thon. Starting today the first of February I will read the Dark Tower series and I won't stop until my eyes are bleeding and my fingers are shredded from innumerable paper cuts. My original goal was to read all eight books (well, nine. I'll be reading both versions of The Gunslinger) in the month of February, but reading the whole series has traditionally taken me about a month and a half, so if I fail at this trifling goal I will not beat myself up about it. Plus I have a life or something outside of books. I may want to get laid occasionally and things like that. You know how it is.

[Ribbons]

Plus I have a life or something outside of books. I may want to get laid occasionally and things like that. You know how it is.

A likely story.

[Fievel]

I may want to get laid occasionally and things like that. You know how it is.

Of course I know what it's like to want to get laid..... I'm married.

I'll be here all week.

[caruso_stalker217]

I'll be joining the damned myself on the 13th.

[Fievel]

Early congrats!!

[caruso_stalker217]

Thank you, sir!

[Fried Gold]

A week or two ago, I started reading the series for the first time and I'm currently well into the third book.

The Gunslinger had me hooked. (I've found out after that I'd read an older version, before King had done some kind of George Lucas special edition. I don't think it mattered.)

With The Drawing of the Three I found myself really engrossed in parts and then certain passages lost my interest.

I'm finding The Waste Lands much more engaging.

One thing I can't understand is: how was Stephen King allowed to rip off so much stuff from Lost?

[caruso_stalker217]

One thing I can't understand is: how was Stephen King allowed to rip off so much stuff from Lost?

Ha!