Dark Tower - Softcover

Stephen King

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1444723502 ISBN 13: 9781444723502

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton, 2012

Synopsis

THE DARK TOWER is the seventh volume in Stephen King's epic Dark Tower series. The Dark Tower is soon to be a major motion picture starring Matthew McConaughey and Idris Elba, due in cinemas August 18, 2017.

About this title

Review

At one point in this final book of the Dark Tower series, the character Stephen King (added to the plot in Song of Susannah) looks back at the preceding pages and says "when this last book is published, the readers are going to be just wild." And he's not kidding.

After a journey through seven books and over 20 years, King's Constant Readers finally have the conclusion they've been both eagerly awaiting and silently dreading. The tension in the Dark Tower series has built steadily from the beginning and, like in the best of King's novels, explodes into a violent, heart-tugging climax as Roland and his ka-tet finally near their goal. The body count in The Dark Tower is high. The gunslingers come out shooting and face a host of enemies, including low men, mutants, vampires, Roland's hideous quasi-offspring Mordred, and the fearsome Crimson King himself. King pushes the gross-out factor at times--Roland's lesson on tanning (no, not sun tanning) is brutal--but the magic of the series remains strong and readers will feel the pull of the Tower as strongly as ever as the story draws to a close. During this sentimental journey, King ties up loose ends left hanging from the 15 non-series novels and stories that are deeply entwined in the fabric of Mid-World through characters like Randall Flagg (The Stand and others) or Father Callahan ('Salem's Lot). When it finally arrives, the long awaited conclusion will leave King's myriad fans satisfied but wishing there were still more to come.

In King's memoir On Writing, he tells of an old woman who wrote him after reading the early books in the Dark Tower series. She was dying, she said, and didn't expect to see the end of Roland's quest. Could King tell her? Does he reach the Tower? Does he save it? Sadly, King said he did not know himself, that the story was creating itself as it went along. Wherever that woman is now (the clearing at the end of the path, perhaps?), let's hope she has a copy of The Dark Tower. Surely she would agree it's been worth the wait. --Benjamin Reese

About the Author

'At the age of 19 Stephen decided he would like to write an epic similar to The Lord of the Rings. The 'spaghetti Westerns' of that time [specifically The Good, the Bad and the Ugly] and a poem written by Robert Browning, 'Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came', became the inspiration for his magnum opus. The series written and published separately over a period of 22 years consists of eight books, including The Wind Through the Keyhole, and the short story, 'The Little Sisters of Eluria' published in his collection, EVERYTHING'S EVENTUAL.' From the author's website.

About this edition

• Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1444723502
• ISBN 13: 9781444723502
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English