The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower, Book 1)

Roland, the last gunslinger, pursues the man in black across a Western landscape, a land where time is winding down, meets up with a woman and a kid (from our world), and flashes back to his past and his destruction of an entire town. While the story has potential and intriguing imagery, it is written in so convoluted a manner that the characters and story suffers. I've been told that the sequels are much better, so I will try them. Grade: C

"The Gunslinger" is the first volume of Stephen King's epic, seven volume, "Dark Tower" saga, and like the first volume in any series of books, serves primarily to set the scene for the later books in the series. As a result, very little happens in this book. We are introduced to our hero, Roland of Gilead, the last gunslinger, who is a cross between Clint Eastwood in "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" and Aragorn from "The Lord of the Rings", and follows him across the desert, over mountains and through an abandoned subway tunnel, in his pursuit of "the man in black"; a pursuit which culminates in the commencement of his journey to the dark tower. However, very little is revealed in this book. By the end of the book, the reader is still not told exactly what the dark tower is and why Roland is traveling there. We have to wait for later volumes for this information.

I am generally a fan of Stephen King's writing. I think he is one of the most underrated authors of all time. Nevertheless, the multi-part format of "The Dark Tower" books just doesn't work for me. I have never been a big fan of multi-part novels, since the fact that the story is drawn out of such a large number of pages annoys me and makes me want to stop reading, and "The Gunslinger" is no exception. It is unnecessarily slow moving and could have benefited from a bit of editing. Another down point to this book is that it is essentially comprised of five short stories that are run together to form the narrative, making the storyline episodic and somewhat disjoint.

Overall, I didn't hate this book and I think the idea behind this series has enough potential to make me want to read volume 2 sometime in the future, but I suspect that point in time will be the distant future, rather than next week.

I'd always wanted to read some Stephen King, but I scare far too easily. A friend suggested this, and I was instantly hooked! I'm not usually a fast reader, but I finished this in one weekend...One of my fav's now!

This is one of my all time favorite books and finding an extremely cheap copy in such great condition is a rare and lucky purchase. Thank you so much

While reviewing the first book, "The Gunslinger", of Stephen King's "Dark Tower" series, I am trying to not let the brilliance of the subsequent editions cloud my judgment on this one. I am a "late" fan of King (still working my way through all his novels), and I finally decided to begin the journey to the Dark Tower. However, after reading this first installment, it took an editor's note from King himself to get me excited about continuing with Roland on his quest.

The main problem I had with this book is that absolutely no context is given for Roland's world on his travels as the book opens. Roland is wandering through a land that looks like our own but definitely is not, contains mutant monsters, and for some reason a "Man In Black" that Roland is compelled to follow.

As I continued reading, those mysteries were only beginning to be touched on as the novel came to a close. Thus, I spent way too much time trying to figure out just what the heck was going on (a task that is nearly impossible without reading the next few installments anyway) and less time just enjoying the adventure.

At the conclusion of my reading, I wondered exactly how Stephen King was going to make an interesting story out of this. Little did I know that King is actually utilizing a form of background storytelling, where the events in this book are not fully explained for two, three, or even four books down the line. I did not care for this type of narrative, as it creates way too much confusion and too little of the mystery that King likely was gunning for.

So, if you are looking to start your own quest for the Dark Tower, you still need to read this book, but keep firmly in your mind that the series absolutely explodes in the next few books, which is far different from the glacial-like pace of this first try.