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Post by Scott on Dec 29, 2016 10:55:48 GMT -5
I started reading this back in the 80s, but never finished it. I was lucky enough to work at a book store then and was able to get copies of the first couple books, which were had very limited print runs initially. I'm going to re-read the series and hopefully I'll finish it this time around.
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Post by Scott on Dec 29, 2016 10:57:12 GMT -5
At the time I remember thinking the first two books of the series were some of SK's best books, but the series started loosing clarity in the 3rd and 4th books. Don't think I made it to 5.
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Post by GRWelsh on Dec 29, 2016 13:23:57 GMT -5
I started the series in the 80's and read the first two books. I liked the mythic feel of the first book, where the characters seemed like archetypes, and the way it made you wonder what sort of universe this was where a gunslinger could be pursuing a magician across a desert and where you might hear "Hey Jude" by the Beatles being played in a saloon. But I didn't like the second book as much, for some reason -- it had a different tone and not the same mythic feel of the first book. I started the third book but just didn't hook me. But I've also been meaning to give the series another try.
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Post by geneweigel on Dec 29, 2016 16:23:48 GMT -5
Same thing for me. Although, I do recall reading the first and not liking so when the second book came out I was not interested. When the third came out I was still not interested. So it just kind of past me by. There were quite a lot of King fans who would push King on me in the 80's and early 90's and in my mind they sounded like a chorus: YOU SHOULD READ THE DARK TOWER SERIES THAT IS RIGHT UP YOUR ALLEY At the time, I had just not registered that "GUNSLINGER" and "DARK TOWER SERIES" were the same thing so I could have said didn't like the way it was written with lots of superfluous references to make it seem sophisticated but instead I just was at the point with Stephen King where if one more girl interest told me that I had to read a certain Stephen King book I was going to vomit. NOTE: I don't know if mentioned this but every time that I see "DARK TOWER" it always reminds me of the Dark Tower electronic game. There is a online "Flash" game version of DARK TOWER that I always start playing. Here: hofle.com/darktower/DarkTower.swf
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Post by Scott on Dec 29, 2016 17:26:17 GMT -5
The figures ended up as D&D stand-ins. Not sure what happened to the board and tower.
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foster1941
Warlock
Duke of California, Earl of Los Angeles, Knight Bachelor
Posts: 475
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Post by foster1941 on Jan 3, 2017 12:58:28 GMT -5
The first Dark Tower book is interesting and evocative in a vague sort of way - it feels more like a collection of stories than a novel, and more like a dream than a world with actual characters and story and such. As I understand, King wrote it over several years with no plan in mind, just adding a bit at a time as new scenes would appear in his imagination. It feels that way - lots of strong, evocative images, but not much to connect or humanize them. Books 2-3 are much more conventionally story-like. They're more conventionally satisfying in that regard, but definitely have a different feel than the first book, so I can see how people who loved the feel of the first book would find them disappointing. It's like Book 1 is a stand-alone, and Book 2 begins a new story that just happens to include the main character from Book 1. Book 4 is a total mess - an 800-page-long flashback that tells a very simple and predictable story that could have been amply covered in 100 pages or less. King later admitted that at this point he was spinning his wheels and assumed he'd never actually finish the series. That changed once he got run over and almost died. Books 5-7 were all written in quick succession shortly after that. The feel changes again - it becomes more direct and faster-moving, and also extremely self-referential - characters from many other King novels show up, and "Stephen King" himself becomes a character (which a lot of people hate, but I think fits). These books were my favorites, and what I think of when people mention the series - if someone asked me to summarize the story I'd cover books 1-4 in a few sentences and mostly talk about what happens in books 5-7.
A few years later King wrote an "eighth" book that takes place, IIRC, between books 4 & 5, but I haven't read it. Even so, if you're reading the series for first time I'd recommend skipping that one (reading them in publication rather than chronological order) because by book 4 the pace has slowed to such a crawl that it really needs the plot-momentum kickstart of book 5 and I think slowing it down even further by adding another book is exactly the opposite of that. Maybe I'm wrong and book 8/4.5 is really good and fits seamlessly into the narrative and makes it deeper and richer, but I doubt it. I think it's much more likely that effectively suspending the plot for two entire books' worth of material is just going to cause people to get bored and give up (which is, IMO, a shame because I like the later books best).
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