Comments on: The Gunslinger (review)

By: Bill Ward

Bill Ward — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 06:30:17 +0000

I liked The Waste Lands too, I think the first three are the strongest. The rest are worth reading, but the final three, written very rapidly over a short period of time, don’t really have the same ‘texture,’ in my opinion, if you know what I mean.

Also, after Waste Lands, you start getting all the crossover stuff with King’s other novels — and the real world — that some people don’t like. I liked it, but I just felt with every book more was explained and less was left that was a mystery — which was exactly the vibe I liked best to begin with.

By: PaulMc

PaulMc — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:05:03 +0000

I don’t know which edition of The Gunslinger I ‘read’ – I listened to the audiobook a couple of years ago.

I enjoyed it right until the end. The long conversation between Roland and the Man in Black got so metaphysical and unclear that it seemed that King was offering a backdoor for himself by letting the reader know the series might go one for a long time and never really reach a definitive conclusion. (I don’t know if it does, I have only read the first three.)

Drawing of the Three was interesting and very strong storytelling. (The first 100 pages all take place on the airplane but it never got boring.)

I really liked The Waste Lands. I don’t know if the series gets better or worse from there, but it certainly seems a high point for me, as a reader.

By: Bill Ward

Bill Ward — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 02:21:32 +0000

Excellent! — let me know how you like it, Dave.

By: NewGuyDave

NewGuyDave — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 01:47:33 +0000

Thanks to you two, I picked up a copy of Gunslinger today. Cheers!

By: Bill Ward

Bill Ward — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 18:46:45 +0000

It blew me away when I first read it as well. It was so different from everything else, and really captured my imagination. The rest of the series steadily became less ambiguous and more conventional, even though they maintained an impressive level of imagination and complexity. I don’t really plan on rereading the whole of The Dark Tower, but I’m sure I will reread The Gunslinger many more times; as well as The Drawing of the Three, which I feel is another minor masterpiece though thematically different.

By: K.C.

K.C. — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 20:42:02 +0000

King and I are the same age; I was 35, in 1982, and already a King fan, but The Gunslinger blew me away. Visceral is a good word for it. I read the following books with interest, although I must admit that I was terribly disappointed with the last one. But that first one was something special. It was a writer,arguably one of the best storytellers of our time (please note I did not say best author), flexing his writing muscle and saying, “Look what I can do!”