The Dark Tower/The Gunslinger

[cheezydemon3]

Good to have you around cheshire!

 

[smakudwn]

One of the two weakest volumes in the series. That and the first one.

I must be crazy , I liked the first one.

 

[cheezydemon3]

The first one was AWESOME.

There wouldn't have been more if it had sucked.

 

[cheezydemon3]

I have to thank you Cheshire. I am reading "Wolves of the Calla" again and thoroughly enjoying it. It is good reading.

 

[bernerbrau]

Exploding golden snitches.

 

[ChshreCat]

 

[ishkochito]

Alright, I discovered The Gunslinger when I was in high school, around 1990. I think I read this and book 2 twice, then the third came out and I read it twice. 1st and 3rd were always my favorites, even as I read the others through the years. After book 6, I never could bring myself to read book 7.

Your discussion here is making me consider reading the last book, and actually making me wish I didn't donate all the others to the habitat for humanity last year!

Oh, and in my opinion The Stand is King's #1 book, but it also had a disappointing ending. It was great until it became about good and evil. Typical.

 

[cheezydemon3]

"The Mist" (short story) is still my favorite individual work by Steve-o. The movie was Pretty damned good depite some b grade acting, but the read is awesome.

 

[Revvy]

"The Mist" (short story) is still my favorite individual work by Steve-o. The movie was Pretty damned good depite some b grade acting, but the read is awesome.

I didn't see the movie, but yeah, the mist is one of the best stories he's ever done. Honestly until the gunslinger series (or at least the books I liked) I used to always say that his short stories were much better than any of his novels.

In fact I used to believe, and maybe I still do to some extent think Skeleton Crew was his best book.

 

[cheezydemon3]

"The De'Iver Glass" was AWESOME for a short, short story. Haunting, funny, clever, short and sweet.

You should see "The Mist" movie.

The ending Darabont put on it, (dare I say it) is as good as anything King could have.

SLIGHT SPOILER: King leaves it vague, but faintly hopeful.

Darabont puts a DEFINITIVE and unexpected ending that shocks.

 

[FatMonsters]

The Dark Tower was a very good series and I was very satisfied with the ending. It was the only way to end it given the vast number of DT fans who loved the story of Roland's quest. I always thought Book III (The Wastelands) was the best. Wizards and Glass was a good book, but kinda sidetracked from the whole storyline. I hated that he wrote himself into it. But overall, great series and for as many parts of the storyline that I didn't care for / hated, there were tons that blew my mind / loved.

I'd vote for Jackman to play Roland. I think it would work.

SK on the whole writes good stuff. His short stories are freakin awesome!! like 'The Man Who Loved Flowers' and none of the movie versions of the books / story ever did the book / story any justice...

 

[cheezydemon3]

His short stories are freakin awesome!! like 'The Man Who Loved Flowers' and none of the movie versions of the books / story ever did the book / story any justice...

fatscheezy

I thought "The Mist" came closest to doing the story justice, and faaaaaar from "sucked". It is enjoyable and a must watch for me once in a while.

"Needful Things" was probably the worst, despite a great cast.
(Max Von Sydow is THE MAN, Paul Harris is respectable too)

Will they have to use the original father Callahan from Salem's Lot?

Thats what sucks.

Steve just let whatever ********* director make his movies for so long, good luck tying them together like the books.

 

[ChshreCat]

Steve just let whatever ********* director make his movies for so long, good luck tying them together like the books.

Actually, it's kind of odd. He'd have his books turned into B or lower movies 4 or 5 in a row, then something like Shawshank Redemption would come out that was really well done.

 

[FatMonsters]

Shawshank Redemption was well done, I'll agree. But it seems most change items from the story then I end up hating it. I liked the Mist movie, but actually prefer the open-ended ending in the book.

Dreamcatcher, what a horrible interpretation of the book to movie...Terrible.

 

[FatMonsters]

Will they have to use the original father Callahan from Salem's Lot?

According to IMDB, the actor that played Father Callahan died in 2001. Guess he's not going to reprise his role...

Another great short story, 'Sorry, Right Number'

 

[deprecated]

The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.

Going out on a limb here and saying best quote ever.

 

[ishkochito]

Going out on a limb here and saying best quote ever.

That is one of the best opening lines to a book ever. SK is pretty good at giving an enticing first line in his books that makes you want to read more.

That line may however be surpassed by Gregory David Roberts Shantaram opener:

"It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured."

Another great book, in my opinion.

 

[ChshreCat]

One of my favorites was from To Sail Beyond Sunset by R.A. Heinlein.

"I woke up in bed with a man and a cat. The man was a stranger; the cat was not."

 

[ishkochito]

I'll have to read some Heinlein sometime- never have.

 

[ChshreCat]

If you do, I'd start with The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Great book, very accessable.

 

[InLimbo]

Time to re-hijack this train back onto the Dark Tower RR tracks:

Chshre, I'm sorry man but part of me wants to think you're trolling haha--but I know you're not. I can see your argument against book 1 (although I vehemently disagree.. I enjoyed the sort of rawness to it.) 1 and 4 were probably my favorites as well.. what didn't you like about 4?? The long awaited revealing of of Roland's past and the story of Susan Delgado's catastrophic demise were instrumental in Roland's character development. I will say that King writing himself into his own story was one of the stupidest god damn things I've ever read, and I have a B.A. so you KNOW I was forced to read a lot of really stupid bull**** that passes for literature--in two different languages none the less. It completely destroyed the world for ME the reader and ripped me back into reality everytime he'd bring himself up. He goes to all these great lengths to really establish a period (although said period isn't really defined, it's generally understood that it is in a time later than ours) and then King goes "BTW GUYZ, just kidding! I FEEL LIKE HAVING A CAMEO IN MY STORY.. AND WHILE IM AT IT, HAVING A TIME TRAVEL / DIMENSION TRAVEL ELEMENT! LULZ SEE WUT I DID THER?" God damn him. Anyways.

Ron Howard directing the movies.. very mixed emotions about this. Roland is like the ultimate bad ass, and while I don't want an other "300" type of bloodbath, this film will need some serious Tarantino-meets-The Matrix battle scenes. I really hope we get to see his Coming of Age fight against Cort. Javier Bardem I think would be terrible as Roland. I'm a linguist (and audio engineer) by training (and trade) and while Javier does a great American accent, I just don't see him working for this role. A Latino Roland? No thanks. That's like sending an American to Spain to play Don Quixote.. Viggo Mortensen would be incredible. But since he did LOTR, I'm afraid he might be hesitant to do another fantasy role. I heard someone throw Jim Caviezel's name into the ring, and that might be cool. My preference (in order of.. well, preference): Mortensen, Bale, Caviezel, Jackman, Eric Bana.

I LOL'd about the Harry Potter comments. I'm glad I didn't read those books until after I read the Dark Tower (I'm weird, I know..). But I didn't even put those two together.

Sorry this post is long. There were a lot of points touched on in all 11 pages of this thread, and I wanted to make sure to respond to as much as I could. You guys are really wanting to make me re-read the series again. Now if I can just find my books..

 

[ChshreCat]

I had to pick up the new t-shirt at TeeFury. In case you haven't visited them, they do a different t-shirt each day. Just one shirt and it's available for just one day. It's almost always some pop culture reference, often scifi or fantasy.

This is the new shirt that went on sale tonight:

Got one for me and one for the kid.

 

[ArcaneXor]

That t-shirt is full of win. Got myself one.

 

[ChshreCat]

I saw the artwork a month or two ago from the artist and have been hoping to catch it when it went on sale. I'm glad I noticed it last night.

 

[ArcaneXor]

Thanks for posting it here!

 

[ChshreCat]

The Wind Through the Keyhole - A Dark Tower Novel - In Stores April 24th 2012

 

[Revvy]

The Wind Through the Keyhole - A Dark Tower Novel - In Stores April 24th 2012

But wait, he's done with the series, everyone is pretty much dead. There's no Katet left to get stuck in a rainstorm. Unless Kings just going to start shoving new stories into the arc.....

It's prolly going to get us all excited and leave us deflated like the final book did.

 

[weirdboy]

If you read the description on the website, the book is basically set in the past, before even the whole thing with the witch took place from what I can tell.

 

[Revvy]

If you read the description on the website, the book is basically set in the past, before even the whole thing with the witch took place from what I can tell.

Unless I'm missing more on the website than this, I've clicked all over that page and can't find a link to take me deeper, and this doesn't really say where in the canon it is.;

We join Roland and his ka-tet as a ferocious storm halts their progress along the Path of the Beam. As they shelter from the screaming wind and snapping trees, Roland tells them not just one strange tale, but two--and in doing so sheds fascinating light on his own troubled past.

In his early days as a gunslinger, in the guilt-ridden year following his mother's death, Roland is sent by his father to a ranch to investigate a recent slaughter. Here Roland discovers a bloody churn of bootprints, clawed animal tracks and terrible carnage--evidence that the 'skin-man',
a shape-shifter, is at work. There is only one surviving witness: a brave but terrified boy called Bill Streeter.

Roland, himself only a teenager, calms the boy by reciting a story from the Book of Eld that his mother used to read to him at bedtime, 'The Wind Through The Keyhole.'
'A person's never too old for stories,' he says to Bill. 'Man and boy, girl and woman, we live for them.'

 

[ChshreCat]

Looks like it takes place "In his early days as a gunslinger, in the guilt-ridden year following his mother's death". At least in the same way that "Wizard and Glass" took place when Roland was young. The Ka-Tet is somewhere along the beam and Roland is telling them a story, but the bulk of the story is about when Roland is young. Plus it sounds like another short story that takes place in the same world, but before Roland.