The Gunslinger • The Dark Tower #1

 The Gunslinger

(The Dark Tower #1)

2/10

So after 14 or so years that I've know about "The Dark Tower" by Stephen King, I picked up "The Gunslinger"

All I have to say is:

I have NO CLUE

HOW

THIS

SERIES

REACHED

SEVEN

BOOKS



I realise I might lose followers about this review but seriously it was so bad.

SO BAD.

Go after the jump for the review and crude language. Possibly spoilers too. 

I had so much hype built for this book and whomever I asked they were like "Ooooh wait till you get to book 3 it's amazing"

WTF??? Am I now supposed to waste so much time building up to a promise of a good plot?



I mean ok Dresden 1&2 weren't the best literature ever and I'm guilty of telling people that the narrative and plot quality get much better in the third book but stuff happened in Dresden.

There was a plot. The characters had personality, like them or hate them. I didn't care about Roland or the boy at all. All important things that should have been shown in this book were instead served like cold hard facts "Roland loved the boy". Yes but WHY? And is this the way you treat someone you love? Seriously? Seriously???

How can this happen? How can one writer produce so flat characters in a series of book yet have it considered his magnum opus? The narrative was slow, the plot was all over the place. There seemed to be things in the book that read like inside jokes, but the only person who laughed at them was Mr. King himself.

Now don't get me wrong, I've read a bleeping 80% of his books. I've borrowed everything from the library, I bought his books second hand or brand new from the convenience store paid with my meagre pocket money. I still can't forget paying 2000 drachmas (which is about 6 euros nowadays but back then was HUGE MONEY) to get "Bag of Bones" and I read that book a gazillion times and bought it again when it was too tattered to read anymore. Hell, I've even incorporated phrases from the book in my everyday speech. DAMN.

What I am trying to say is that I've been a Stephen King fan since forever. (Alright since 1999 but it does seem like forever, doesn't it?)  AND I. AM. DISAPPOINTED.

It might be a fucking opus as a whole but you didn't give me a reason to want to read the next one?
I wanted to love you Dark Tower, I really did. I can't understand how it took off as a series. It baffles me. It was slow, it was boring. I ached to finish it and it wasn't even a big book. If this was a show and this was the pilot I'd probably have stopped watching after this.

I know King's style is a bit like that. He tosses info at you and explains a lot much later. In "Salem's Lot" in the first half of the book almost nothing happens. You meet the locals, you get to know about the crazy bitch that abuses her baby, the poor nerd that everyone bullies, the cute (inevitable love interest) girl and you start to wonder what the fuck is this book about. And then it all comes together and all hell breaks loose and, fuck me sideways it's one of the best frigging horror books I've ever read.

And I can still remember it after 13 years that I read it.


In the "Gunslinger" stuff happened but I didn't care at all about them. The only interesting part was Tull. After that  I was thinking of going back to do a re-read of "The Old Man and the Sea". That's how bored I was.

So I asked on Bookface.

And everyone is like "Yeah it might be horrible as a first book but wait till you read the next one!"

Why on God's green earth would I want to read anything related to the Dark Tower after the fiasco the Gunslinger has been for me?  And I repeat: