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 Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2009 5:18 pm
The man in black fled across the desert...
Here you can talk about the 7 books that make up the Dark Tower Series.
The Gunslinger
The Drawing of the Three
The Waste Lands
Wizard and Glass
Wolves of the Calla
Song of Susannah
The Dark Tower
...and the gunslinger followed
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Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2009 6:27 pm
The GunslingerSynopsis:
It tells the story of the gunslinger, Roland of Gilead, and his quest to catch the man in black, the first of many steps towards his ultimate destination - the Dark Tower.
The main story takes place in a world that is somewhat recognizable as  the Old West but exists in an alternate time frame or parallel universe to ours (namely the world as described in The Stand, where the population had been decimated by the influenza); Roland exists in a place where "the world has moved on." This world has a few things in common with our own, however, including memories of the song "Hey Jude" and the child's rhyme that begins "Beans, beans, the musical fruit." Vestiges of forgotten or skewed versions of real-world technology also appear, such as a reference to a gas pump in a tunnel under a mountain that is worshipped as a god named "Amoco", and an abandoned way station with a water pump which is powered by an "atomic slug".
As Roland travels across the desert with his mule in search of the man in black, he encounters Brown, a farmer and Zoltan, his crow, who graciously offers to put him up for the night. While he is there, we learn of his time spent in Tull through a flashback. Tull is a small town which Roland came to during his travels. The man in black had passed through the town previously. After spending some time there, the leader of the local church becomes wary of Roland, and the town turns on him. In order to escape with his life, Roland is forced to kill every resident of the town, including his lover, Alice. Telling this story seems cathartic for Roland. When he is ready to leave the farm, his mule is dead, so he proceeds on foot. The farmer tells him that he is going to eat the mule.
Alternate coverAt the way station Roland first encounters Jake Chambers, who died in our universe when he was pushed in front of a car while walking to school. Roland is nearly dead when he makes it to the way station, and Jake brings him water and jerky while he is recovering. Jake does not know how long he has been at the way station, nor does he know exactly how he got there. He hid when the man in black passed by the way station. Roland hypnotizes him to determine the details of his death, but then makes him forget before he awakes. Before they leave the way station they encounter a speaking demon in the cellar while looking for food. Roland snatches a jawbone from a skeleton in the cellar, and carries it with him.
After leaving the way station, Jake and Roland eventually make their way out of the desert into more welcoming lands. Roland rescues Jake from an encounter with an oracle, and then couples with the oracle himself in order to learn more about his fate and path to the Dark Tower. Roland gives Jake the jawbone from the way station to focus on while he is gone. After Roland returns, Jake discards the jawbone. As Jake and Roland make their way closer to the mountain, Jake begins to fear what will become of him.
During their travels to the mountain, some of Roland's childhood is developed, both through flashbacks and conversations with Jake. In a flashback, we learn about Roland and Cuthbert Allgood's chance encounter in a kitchen which leads to the hanging of Hax, the cook. The apprentice gunslingers are allowed to witness the hanging with their fathers' permission. Later, Jake asks Roland about his coming of age. Roland reveals how he was tricked into calling on his teacher Cort early, through the treachery of Marten. He succeeded in defeating Cort in battle through his ingenious weapon selection - his hawk, David.
Once they reach the mountain, and begin to travel through it, Jake's trepidation is even more clear. Even after the encounter with the slow mutants where Roland protects him, Jake does not fully trust Roland. When they are nearing the exit from the mountain, they must cross a fragile train trestle. When they are almost across, the man in black appears at the exit. Jake slips, and Roland must choose between saving Jake and following the man in black. Jake knows what his decision is: "Go then, there are other worlds than these." Jake falls to his death, and Roland chases the man in black.
Roland and the man in black hold palaver in a Golgotha. Using Tarot cards, the man in black tells Roland his future. Walter tells Roland that he will meet three persons in his quest: The Prisoner, a man possessed by a demon named "HEROIN", The Dark Lady, who is two people, and Death. "But not for you, Gunslinger." After his encounter with the man in black, Roland sleeps for an impossible length of time, approximately ten years. When he awakes, all that is left beside him is a pile of bones wrapped in the shreds of a black cloak and hood. Before proceeding further on his quest, Roland takes the jawbone of the skeleton to replace the one Jake had earlier discarded.
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Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2009 6:29 pm
 The Drawing of the ThreeSynopsis:The book begins less than seven hours after the end of The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger after The Man in Black has described The Gunslinger's fate using tarot cards. Roland wakes up from unconsciousness on a beach where he is suddenly attacked by a strange lobster-like creature, dubbed a "lobstrosity." He manages to kill the creature but not before losing the index and middle finger of his right hand, and most of his right big toe. This complicates matters as he's reduced to only using one weapon. His untreated wounds become infected. Feverish and losing strength, Roland continues to trek north along the beach where he eventually encounters three doors. Each door opens onto New York City at different periods in time (1987, 1964 and 1977, respectively) and as Roland passes through these doors he brings back the companions who will join him on his quest to the Dark Tower.
The first door (labeled "The Prisoner," so called for his addiction) brings Eddie Dean, a heroin addict who is in the process of smuggling cocaine for the drug lord Enrico Balazar. Since Eddie was headed deeper into addiction (at the hands of his brother) or prison (at the hands of the government), or worse (at the hands of his drug lord), he decides to throw his lot in with Roland, although with deep misgivings that he occasionally gives vent to in the form of angry outbursts.
The second door (labeled "The Lady of Shadows", so called for her multiple personalities and metaphorically, multiple shadows) finds Odetta Holmes, a black woman who is active in the civil rights movement. She is wealthy and missing her legs below the knees as a result of a push from Jack Mort, who had thrown her in front of a subway car. Odetta has dissociative identity disorder (popularly known as multiple personalities) and has a violent alternate personality named Detta Walker of whom she is completely unaware. Roland and Eddie are forced to contend with both of these personalities when Odetta's body is forcibly abducted into their world.
The third door (labeled "The Pusher") that Roland encounters brings not a new companion, but instead a new adversary for Roland named Jack Mort ("The Pusher"). Thus fulfilling the oracle's prophecy, 'this door contains Death, but not for you, Gunslinger.' Mort is responsible for the head trauma that created Detta Walker, the loss of Odetta/Detta's legs, and the death of Jake Chambers from the first Dark Tower novel. Mort's murder of Jake led to Jake's appearance in The Gunslinger. Roland's decisions while dealing with Mort are crucial to later events in the series. The encounter results in the death of Jack Mort and the fusing of the personalities of Odetta and Detta to form a third woman, who will thenceforth be called Susannah.
Through his actions both in his world, and in Eddie, Susannah, and Jack Mort's world, Roland saves Eddie and Susannah. He saves Eddie by curing him of his addiction and bringing Susannah, whom Eddie loves. He saves Susannah by helping her fuse her former personalities, Odetta Holmes and Detta Walker, into a stronger single personality, Susannah. Both owe their lives to Roland, and Roland is acutely aware that he may need to sacrifice them to reach the Tower.
Each of these people is essential for Roland to continue his quest. They are all part of a ka-tet, defined as "one made from many" and "sharing the same destiny."
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Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2009 6:33 pm
 The Waste LandsSynopsis:The story begins five weeks after the end of The Drawing of the Three. Roland, Susannah, and Eddie have moved east from the shore of the Western Sea, and into the woods of Out-World. After an encounter with a gigantic cyborg bear named Shardik, they discover one of the six mystical Beams that hold the world together. The three gunslingers follow the Path of the Beam inland to Mid-World.
Roland's group receives two new members: Roland's formerly-dead companion Jake Chambers from 1977, and an unusually intelligent billy-bumbler (which looks like a combination of badger, raccoon and dog with parrot-like speaking ability, long neck, curly tail, retractable claws and a high degree of animal intelligence) named Oy. Jake is able to pass into Roland's world using a portal which exists in a haunted house on Dutch Hill in his place and time: the New York City of 1977. The portal ends in a 'speaking ring' in Roland's world. Due to Roland's actions in the previous book, this Jake had avoided the death back on Earth that had originally brought him to Mid-World to meet Roland the first time. Unexplainedly, however, the time-line that was canceled out and thus never happened becomes the one Roland and Jake both remember. During this crossing over, Susannah has sex with the demon of the speaking ring to keep it from attacking Eddie.
The ka-tet continue on the Path of the Beam to Lud. The ancient, high-tech city has been ravaged by decades of war, and one of the surviving fighters, Gasher, kidnaps Jake by taking advantage of the near-accident the team faced while crossing a decaying bridge that looks like the George Washington Bridge of Jake's NYC. Roland and Oy must then trace them through a man-made labyrinth in the city and then into the sewers in order to rescue the boy from Gasher and his leader, the Tick-Tock Man. Jake manages to shoot the Tick-Tock Man, leaving him for dead. The ka-tet is eventually reunited at the Cradle of Lud, a train station which houses a monorail that the travelers use to escape Lud before its final destruction brought about by the monorail's artificial intelligence known as Blaine the Mono. The "Ageless Stranger" (an enemy whom the Man in Black warned Roland that he must slay) arrives to recruit the badly-injured Tick-Tock Man as his servant.
Once aboard Blaine, a highly intelligent, computerized train which is insane due to system degradation, it announces its intention to derail itself with them aboard unless they can defeat it in a riddle contest. The novel ends with Blaine and Roland's ka-tet speeding through the Waste Lands, a radioactive land of mutated animals and ancient ruins created by something that is claimed to have been far worse than a nuclear war, on the way to Topeka -the end of the line.
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Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2009 6:34 pm
Wizard and GlassSynopsis:The novel begins where The Waste Lands ended. After Jake, Eddie, Susannah and Roland fruitlessly riddle Blaine the Mono for several hours, Eddie defeats the mad computer with one of his signature talents, telling children's jokes and riddles. Blaine is unable to handle Eddie's "illogical" riddles, and short-circuits.
The four gunslingers and Oy the billy-bumbler disembark at the Topeka railway station, which to their surprise is located in the Topeka, Kansas, of the 1980s. The city is deserted, as this version of the world has been depopulated by the influenza of King's novel The Stand. Links between these books also include the following reference to The Walkin' Dude from The Stand on page 95, "Someone had spray-painted over both signs marking the ramp's ascending curve. On the one reading St. Louis 215, someone had slashed watch out for the walking dude."(King, 2003, pg 95) among others. The world also has some other minor differences with the one (or more) known to Eddie, Jake and Susannah, for instance, the Kansas City baseball team is the Monarchs (as opposed to the Royals), and Nozz-A-La is a popular soft drink.
The ka-tet leaves the city via the Kansas Turnpike, and as they camp one night next to an eerie dimensional hole which Roland calls a "thinny," the gunslinger tells his apprentices of his past, and his first encounter with a thinny.
At the beginning of the story-within-the-story, Roland (age fourteen) earns his guns — an episode retold in the inaugural issue of The Gunslinger Born — and becomes the youngest gunslinger in memory. He did it because he discovered his father's trusted counsellor, the sorcerer Marten Broadcloak, having an affair with his mother, Gabrielle Deschain. Roland's father, Steven, forbids him from taking action against Marten. In anger, Roland challenges his mentor, Cort, to a duel to earn his guns. Roland bests his teacher, and his father sends him east, away from Gilead, for his own protection. Roland leaves with two companions, Cuthbert Allgood and Alain Johns.
Soon after their arrival in the distant Barony of Mejis, Roland falls in love with Susan Delgado, the promised "gilly" of Thorin - the mayor. His love for Susan Delgado clouds his reasoning for a time and nearly results in a permanent split between him and his previously inseparable friend Cuthbert. He and his ka-tet also discover a plot between the Barony's elite and "The Good Man" John Farson, leader of a rebel faction, to fuel Farson's war machines with Mejis oil. After being seized by the authorities on trumped-up charges of murdering the Barony's Mayor and Chancellor, Roland's ka-tet manages to escape jail with Susan's help, destroy the oil and the detachment Farson sent to transport it, as well as the Mejis traitors. The battle ends at Eyebolt Canyon, where Farson's troops are maneuvered into charging to their deaths into a thinny.
The ka-tet also captures the pink-colored Wizard's Glass, a mystical, malevolent orb or crystal ball. The glass then shows him a vision of his future, and also of Susan's death (she is burned as a harvest sacrifice for colluding with Roland). The visions send him into a stupor, which he eventually recovers from — at which point the glass torments him with other visions, this time of events that he was not present for but nonetheless shaped his fate and Susan's, such is the nature of the Wizard's Glass. Thus Roland's sad tale comes to a close.
In the morning, Roland's new ka-tet comes to a suspiciously familiar Emerald City. The Wizard of Oz parallels continue inside, where the Wizard is revealed to be Marten Broadcloak, also known as Randall Flagg, who flees when Roland attempts to kill him with Jake's Ruger and narrowly misses (Flagg has bewitched Roland's own guns, saying, "Only misfires against me, Roland, old fellow"). In his place he leaves Maerlyn's Grapefruit, which shows the ka-tet the day Roland accidentally killed his own mother. Roland, it has been explained time and again, tends to be very bad medicine for his friends and loved ones. Nonetheless, when given the choice, Eddie, Susannah and Jake all refuse to swear off the quest; and as the novel closes, the ka-tet once more sets off for The Dark Tower, following the Path of the Beam.
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Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2009 6:36 pm
 Wolves of the Calla
Synopsis:After escaping the alternate Topeka and the evil wizard Randall Flagg, Roland's ka-tet travel to the farming village of Calla Bryn Sturgis where they meet the townsfolk, as well as Father Callahan, who was originally introduced in 'Salem's Lot. He and the townsfolk request the ka-tet's assistance in battling against the Wolves of Thunderclap, who come once a generation to take one child from each pair of the town's twins. After a few months of being away, the children are then returned "roont" (ruined) - mentally handicapped and destined to grow to enormous size and die young. The Wolves are due to come in about a month's time.
Father Callahan killing a Type Three vampire in New York City.Father Callahan also tells the gunslingers his remarkable story of how he left Maine following his battle with the vampire Kurt Barlow in the novel 'Salem's Lot. Since that encounter he has gained the ability to identify Type-3 vampires with a blue aura. After some time he begins killing these minor vampires as he finds them; however, this makes him a wanted man amongst the "low men" and so Callahan must go into exile. Eventually he is lured into a trap and dies, allowing him to enter Mid-World in 1983, much as Jake did when killed in The Gunslinger. He appears near the Calla with an evil magic ball called Black Thirteen, and is found by the Manni people in a place called The Doorway Cave.
Not only do Roland of Gilead and his ka-tet have to protect the Calla-folken from the Wolves, they must also protect a single red rose that grows in a vacant lot on Second Avenue and Forty-Sixth Street in mid-town Manhattan of 1977. If it is destroyed, then the Tower (which is the rose in another form) will fall, although there's no reason given for how the ka-tet knows this. In order to get back to New York to prevent this they must use the sinister Black Thirteen. To add to that, Roland and Jake have noticed bizarre changes in Susannah's behavior, which are linked to the event recounted in The Waste Lands when Susannah couples with the demon in the stone circle. Roland informs Eddie that Susannah has been impregnated by the demon, and though he fears for her safety he remains surprisingly calm. They promise to keep the fact that they know a secret from Susannah, but later Susannah reveals to the ka-tet that she herself has come to grips with it, and knowledge of a second personality living in Susannah named Mia "daughter of none" is shared.
Jake finds out that his new friend Benny Slightman's father is a traitor by following him to a military outpost between the Calla and Thunderclap known as "The Dogan" (which is also featured in The Dark Tower: The Long Road Home). Jake tells Roland, who shows mercy by not killing Slightman, instead leaving him alive for his son and Jake's sake. The wolves attack, using weapons resembling the snitches found in JK Rowling's Harry Potter series (which are actually stamped 'Harry Potter Model') and lightsabers, and are revealed to be robots and to have Doctor Doom-like visages. The gunslingers, along with some help from a few plate-throwing women in the Calla, defeat the wolves, all the while with the children safely hidden in a rice patch nearby. Mia takes over the body of Susannah and flees to the doorway cave, where she uses Black Thirteen to transport herself to New York.
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Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2009 6:38 pm
Song of Susannah
Synopsis:Taking place mainly in our world (New York City and East Stoneham, Maine), this book picks up where Wolves of the Calla left off, with the ka-tet employing the help of the Manni to open the magic door inside Doorway Cave. The ka-tet are split up by the magic door, or perhaps ka, and sent to different 'wheres' and 'whens' in order to accomplish several essential goals pertaining to their quest towards the mysterious Dark Tower.
Susannah Dean is partially trapped in her own mind by Mia, the former demon and now very-pregnant mortal woman who had taken control of her body shortly after the final battle in Wolves of the Calla. Susannah and Mia, with their shared body mostly under the control of Mia, escape to New York of 1999 via the magic door in Doorway Cave with the help of Black Thirteen. Mia tells Susannah she has made a Faustian deal with the Man in Black, also known as Walter, to surrender her demonic immortality in exchange for being able to produce a child. Technically speaking, however, this child is the biological descendant of Susannah Dean and the gunslinger, Roland. The Gunslinger's 'seed' was passed to Susannah through an Elemental who had sex with both. The technical parentage of her child matters little to Mia, though, because The Crimson King has further promised her that she will have sole charge of raising the child, Mordred, for the first part of his life - the time before the critical destiny the Crimson King foresees for the child comes to pass. All Mia must do now is bring Susannah to the Dixie Pig restaurant to give birth to the child under the care of the Crimson King's men.
Jake, Oy, and Father Callahan follow Susannah to the New York City of 1999 in order to save Susannah from the danger Mia has put her in by delivering her into the custody of the Crimson King's henchmen. In addition, the ka-tet fear the danger posed to Susannah by the child itself; still unaware of the biological origins of this child, the ka-tet believe that it may be demonic in some way and may have the ability to turn on and harm its mother or mothers. While in New York, Jake and Callahan also hide Black Thirteen in a locker in the World Trade Center. It is implied in the text that Black Thirteen will be destroyed when the towers fall in the September 11, 2001 attacks.
While Susannah, Jake, and Callahan are in New York, Roland and Eddie Dean are sent by the magic doorway to Maine in 1977, with the goal of securing the ownership of a vacant lot in New York from its current owner, a man named Calvin Tower (who first appears in The Waste Lands as the proprietor of The Manhattan Restaurant of the Mind, where he sells Jake a copy of Charlie the Choo-Choo, a book that has turned out to be important to the ka-tet's quest). The gunslingers have seen and felt the power of a rose that is located in the vacant lot and suspect it to be some sort of secondary hub to the universe, or possibly even a representation of the Dark Tower itself. The ka-tet believe that the Tower itself is linked to the rose and will be harmed (or fall) if the rose is harmed, the reason for this being the Dark Tower and the Rose are somehow connected, the two images very similar in the series. Calvin Tower is in hiding in Maine from Enrico Balazar's men (see The Drawing of the Three), who have almost succeeded in strong-arming him into selling them the lot. Tower has so far resisted, with the help of Eddie Dean (see Wolves of the Calla). Upon their arrival in Maine, the gunslingers find themselves thrown into an ambush by these same men, headed by Jack Andolini. Balazar's men were tipped off on Roland and Eddie's potential whereabouts by Mia, who hoped that they would dispose of the people she perceived as threats to her child. Roland and Eddie escape this onslaught with the help of a crafty local man, John Cullum, who they deem to be a savior put in their path through the machinations of ka.
After accomplishing their primary goal, the deeding of the vacant lot to the Tet Corporation, Roland and Eddie learn of the nearby location of Stephen King's home. They are familiar with the author's name after coming into possession of a copy of his novel 'Salem's Lot in the Calla, and they decide to pay him a visit. King's presence, and his relationship to the Dark Tower, cause the very reality surrounding his Maine town to become "thin". Strange creatures called "walk-ins" begin emerging and plaguing the community. The author is unaware of this and has never seen one, though most of the walk-ins have been appearing on his own street. During their visit to him, the Gunslinger hypnotizes King and finds out that King is not a god, but rather a medium for the story of the Dark Tower to transmit itself through. Roland also implants in King the suggestion to restart his efforts in writing the Dark Tower series, which he has abandoned of late, claiming that there are major forces involved that are trying to prevent him from finishing it. The ka-tet are convinced that the success of their quest itself depends on King's writing about it through the story.
Alternate book coverMeanwhile, in New York, Jake and Father Callahan prepare to launch an assault on the Dixie Pig, where Susannah is being held by the soldiers of The Crimson King. Their discovery of the scrimshaw turtle that Susannah has left behind for them gives them a faint hope that they might succeed, though Jake is filled with a strong sense of dread and neither Jake nor Callahan particularly expects to leave the place alive. The book ends with Jake and Callahan entering with weapons raised. As a postscriptum, the reader becomes familiar with the diary of Stephen King the character which encompasses the period from 1977 to 1999. It is said that the character, Stephen King, dies on June 20, 1999.
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Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2009 6:39 pm
The Dark Tower
Synopsis:Beginning where book six left off, Jake Chambers and Father Callahan battle the evil infestation within the Dixie Pig, a vampire lounge in New York City featuring roasted human flesh and doors to other worlds; Callahan sacrifices himself so Jake can survive. In the other world, in Fedic, Mia, her body now physically separated from Susannah Dean, gives birth to Mordred Deschain, the biological son of Roland Deschain and Susannah. The Crimson King is also a "co-father" of this prophetic child, so it is not surprising when "baby" Mordred's first act is to shapeshift into a spider-creature and feast on his birth-mother. Susannah grabs a gun, wounds but fails to kill Mordred, eliminates other agents of the Crimson King, and escapes to meet up with Jake. Aging at an accelerated rate, Mordred later stalks Roland and the other gunslingers throughout this adventure, shifting from human to spider as the need arises, seething with an instinctive rage toward Roland, his "white daddy".
In Maine, Roland and Eddie recruit John Cullum, and then make their way back to Fedic, where the ka-tet is now reunited. Walter (alias Randall Flagg) has dreams of grandeur in which he plans to slay Mordred and use the birthmark on Mordred's heel to gain access to the Tower, but he is easily slain by the infant when Mordred sees through his lies.
Roland and his ka-tet travel to Thunderclap, then to the nearby Devar-Toi, to stop a group of psychics known as Breakers who use their telepathic abilities to break away at the beams that support the Tower. Ted Brautigan and Dinky Earnshaw assist the gunslingers with information and weapons, and reunite Roland with his old friend Sheemie Ruiz from Mejis. The Gunslingers free the Breakers from their captors, but Eddie is mortally wounded in the battle and dies a short while later. Roland and Jake pause to mourn and then jump to Maine of 1999 along with Oy in order to save the life of Stephen King (who is a secondary character in the book). The ka-tet come to believe that the success of their quest depends on King's surviving to write about it through the story.
Jake pushes King out of the way of a speeding van, but is killed in the process. Roland, heartbroken with the loss of the person he considers his true son, buries Jake and returns to Susannah in Fedic with Oy, where they depart and travel for weeks across freezing badlands toward the Tower.
On the way they find Patrick Danville, a young man imprisoned by a someone who calls himself Joe Collins but is really a psychic vampire named Dandelo. Roland and Susannah are alerted to the danger by Stephen King, who drops clues directly into the book, enabling them to defeat the vampire. Patrick is freed and soon his special talent becomes evident: his drawings and paintings have the strange tendency to become reality. He draws a magic door for Susannah; once it appears, she says goodbye to Roland and crosses over to another world. Mordred, who easily manipulated and killed Walter, finally reaches and attacks Roland. Oy viciously defends his dinh, providing Roland the extra seconds needed to exterminate the were-spider. Unfortunately, Oy is impaled on a tree branch and dies. Roland continues on to his ultimate goal and reaches the Dark Tower, only to find it occupied by the Crimson King. They face off for a few hours, till Roland uses Patrick's special abilities to draw a picture of the Crimson King and then erase it, thus wiping him out of existence. Roland gains entry into the Tower while Patrick turns back home. The last scene is that of Roland crying out the names of his loved ones and fallen comrades as he had vowed to do. The door of the Dark Tower closes shut as Patrick watches from a distance.
The story then shifts to Susannah coming through the magic door in an alternate 1980s New York where Gary Hart is President. Susannah throws away Roland's gun (no longer functioning on this side of the door), rejecting the life of a gunslinger, and starts a new life with alternate versions of Eddie and Jake, who are brothers with the last name of Toren in this world. It is also implied that an alternate version of Oy, a dog with a long neck whose barks sometimes sound like words, will also join them in this world.
At this point, Stephen King inserts an "Afterword" which warns readers to close the book at this point, consider the story finished with a happy ending, and not venture inside the Tower with Roland. For those who do not heed the warning, the story resumes with Roland climbing to the top of the Dark Tower. He encounters various rooms with siguls or signs of his past life. When he reaches the top of the Tower, he finds a door marked "ROLAND." and to his horror, he realizes he has reached the Tower countless times before. As well as saving the multiverse, Roland must also save himself, something he never considered important. The sins that Roland committed in order to get to the Tower (both physical and spiritual),damn him to repeat the past until he learns that it is not the most important thing in all existence. He is sucked through the door only to be teleported back in time to the Mohaine desert, with no memories of what had just occurred, ending the series where it began in the first line of book one: "The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed." The only difference is that Roland now possesses the Horn of Eld, gifted back to him for partially realizing the value of love and life (such as not seeing people as tools to be expended on his quest) on his previous pilgrimage to the Tower. With the Horn, it is now possible (but still not certain) for Roland to finally end his quest once and for all. And so, Roland sets out to catch the Man in Black once again.
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Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2009 12:48 pm
 About the end...I loved the ending. I would have hated any other, to be honest. Ka is a wheel, so it makes a lot of sense to end where he started. People who didn't like the ending kind of confuse me. What did they expect? A big flashing sign that says "Congratulations, you have saved the Princess!" Honestly I had hopped that King didn't put anything up there. Anything tactial, at least. What a let down that would have been. Get to the top and you find... What? The holy grail, maybe? The only end for Roland that makes any sense is a start of another adventure. He's a gunslinger. It's what he does. There were a few things about the end I hated, though. Like the Crimson King's end. He was such a built up charater, and in the end, his only attack on Roland was Harry Potter sneetches? It was like throwing an egg at a car to try and stop it. It was really disapointing. To me, at least. All his power came to nothing. Yes, he was trapped outside the tower, I understand that, but he is pure evil. Throwing the toys of teenage wizards was a poor ending for him. I also did not like the end of Mordred. He was far too easy to kill. I mean, this baby killed Falgg, for goodness sake. Yes, he killed poor Oy (I cried for like 15 minuets when I read it the first time, no lie) but he was killed very easily. I mean, the lobsters on the beach did more harm to the protagonist than the spawn of the devil and the devil himself. I was disapointed by that. Other than thoes few things, I really liked the ending of the series. Very classical King. Leaves you knowing what WILL happen, but not spelling it out for you. Making you want more than you get. Always a good way to end. The climb of the tower itself also made me happy. It made me cry (in a good way) when he passed Susan's room of the tower. All the 'left over' memorabilia of his past (both years ago and recent) was a very nice touch. "Go then, there are other worlds than these." -John "Jake" Chambers
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