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Cowboy seeks huge black erection
Cowboy seeks huge black erection
The Dark Tower
by Stephen King
(Donald M Grant Publishing)
‘Childe Roland to the dark tower came’ – Robert Browning (1855)
These were the words of a narrative poem that inspired Stephen King to begin his longest and arguably best work.
The Dark Tower series consists of seven parts. The first was written in 1982 and then for several years the series lay abandoned, before being continued at a slow rate until the late nineties. Readers who had travelled with the characters were left waiting at several points. In the last few years, Stephen King has completed the series, with the last two volumes being published this year.
The final instalment, The Dark Tower, was released this autumn. Unfortunately for us poor students, this means that the last few books are only available in hardback at the moment. However, the hardback versions are very beautiful things, with colour plates scattered at various points throughout the books.
The series is an epic fantasy adventure in a similar style to The Lord of the Rings, but with different atmospheres and characters. The first character we meet is Roland, the last gunslinger, the lone gunman, duster flapping in the wind as he comes into town from the desert like Clint Eastwood in High Plains Drifter, revolvers at his hips. At the same time, he is a noble and the last of a royal line, part Arthurian knight, part diplomat and when necessary, all cold-eyed killer.
The characters weave in and out of post-apocalyptic landscapes (due to ‘the world moving on’), classic spaghetti western scenes and twisted versions of legends and fairytales as they pass through environments that could be taken from Stephen Kings other books and which, as the story progresses, actually are.
Having read quite a lot of King’s work, I can easily imagine Roland and his companions, Eddie the reformed junkie, Susanna, Jake and Oy (the talking Billy Bumbler – a kind of dog) appearing in the background of his other stories, especially ones like The Stand, and this is one of the reasons for the gap in the series.
Stephen King was in some way writing of Roland’s world whilst he wrote all of the rest of his books. They all fit in somewhere to the mythology and world that the Dark Tower series is set in, some with more relevance than others. I have sometimes been disappointed with the endings of King’s books, but as he says himself in one of the many epilogues, this is perhaps because he lost track of the character in this particular story as the character has moved on into the Dark Tower series. Thankfully, after wading through the thousands of pages of this series, I was not disappointed with the finale.
Roland’s quest is for the dark tower, the hub of existence, at the centre of all worlds. He believes that on reaching the tower he will be able to prevent ‘the decay of worlds’, to prevent the rest of the worlds moving on and decaying like his own did through war, plague and loss of knowledge. But that is not the main reason for the quest: just as one of Roland’s companions is a heroin addict, Roland is a ‘Tower Junkie’, driven to get to the tower, leaving a trail of bodies of both friends and enemies in his relentless and dogged pursuit of his goal through time and space.
You may be familiar with the concept of alternate realities, either through quantum theory or (perhaps just as likely at Imperial) through movies such as Jet Li’s The One. In these different times and places, the heroes encounter modern day New York as well as other worlds eerily similar to our own. The villains of the piece are a varied cast: a sinister man in black whom Roland is pursuing from the outset of the first book and the master villain, the Crimson King, as well as vampires, robots, evil magic users, insane AIs and post-apocalyptic survivors such as those found in Mad Max and the Mafia.
The series starts with the stories of each of Roland’s companions as he draws them from their own place and time in our world. At the same time Roland’s own history develops in flashbacks and tales told by the gunslinger himself. One book, Wizard and Glass (the fourth in the series) is almost entirely devoted to this angle.
The books make gripping reading, and, if nothing else, the series is a page-turner. I am glad I waited until the last books were released before I began reading: the wait of a week or so between getting hold of books is bad enough, so I can’t imagine what the initial fans went through, having to wait the better part of two decades for their next tale.
The books are typical Stephen King: in some cases needlessly and crassly sexually explicit, in others a little too weird, stretching the imagination of even a willing reader.
One very refreshing thing is that however attached you are to the characters, you know that any of them might fall by the wayside, and this helps remove the kind of ‘the hero is invincible’ sense that some fantasy fiction books have. It makes the story more ‘realistic’, if such a word can be applied to this undoubtedly odd tale, as well as creating suspense.
These books were responsible for several late nights as I was unable to turn the light out and sleep – I just had to know what came next. Perhaps not classic literature, but they are a very good read.
The Dark Tower
by Stephen King
(Donald M Grant Publishing)
‘Childe Roland to the dark tower came’ – Robert Browning (1855)
These were the words of a narrative poem that inspired Stephen King to begin his longest and arguably best work.
The Dark Tower series consists of seven parts. The first was written in 1982 and then for several years the series lay abandoned, before being continued at a slow rate until the late nineties. Readers who had travelled with the characters were left waiting at several points. In the last few years, Stephen King has completed the series, with the last two volumes being published this year.
The final instalment, The Dark Tower, was released this autumn. Unfortunately for us poor students, this means that the last few books are only available in hardback at the moment. However, the hardback versions are very beautiful things, with colour plates scattered at various points throughout the books.
The series is an epic fantasy adventure in a similar style to The Lord of the Rings, but with different atmospheres and characters. The first character we meet is Roland, the last gunslinger, the lone gunman, duster flapping in the wind as he comes into town from the desert like Clint Eastwood in High Plains Drifter, revolvers at his hips. At the same time, he is a noble and the last of a royal line, part Arthurian knight, part diplomat and when necessary, all cold-eyed killer.
The characters weave in and out of post-apocalyptic landscapes (due to ‘the world moving on’), classic spaghetti western scenes and twisted versions of legends and fairytales as they pass through environments that could be taken from Stephen Kings other books and which, as the story progresses, actually are.
Having read quite a lot of King’s work, I can easily imagine Roland and his companions, Eddie the reformed junkie, Susanna, Jake and Oy (the talking Billy Bumbler – a kind of dog) appearing in the background of his other stories, especially ones like The Stand, and this is one of the reasons for the gap in the series.
Stephen King was in some way writing of Roland’s world whilst he wrote all of the rest of his books. They all fit in somewhere to the mythology and world that the Dark Tower series is set in, some with more relevance than others. I have sometimes been disappointed with the endings of King’s books, but as he says himself in one of the many epilogues, this is perhaps because he lost track of the character in this particular story as the character has moved on into the Dark Tower series. Thankfully, after wading through the thousands of pages of this series, I was not disappointed with the finale.
Roland’s quest is for the dark tower, the hub of existence, at the centre of all worlds. He believes that on reaching the tower he will be able to prevent ‘the decay of worlds’, to prevent the rest of the worlds moving on and decaying like his own did through war, plague and loss of knowledge. But that is not the main reason for the quest: just as one of Roland’s companions is a heroin addict, Roland is a ‘Tower Junkie’, driven to get to the tower, leaving a trail of bodies of both friends and enemies in his relentless and dogged pursuit of his goal through time and space.
You may be familiar with the concept of alternate realities, either through quantum theory or (perhaps just as likely at Imperial) through movies such as Jet Li’s The One. In these different times and places, the heroes encounter modern day New York as well as other worlds eerily similar to our own. The villains of the piece are a varied cast: a sinister man in black whom Roland is pursuing from the outset of the first book and the master villain, the Crimson King, as well as vampires, robots, evil magic users, insane AIs and post-apocalyptic survivors such as those found in Mad Max and the Mafia.
The series starts with the stories of each of Roland’s companions as he draws them from their own place and time in our world. At the same time Roland’s own history develops in flashbacks and tales told by the gunslinger himself. One book, Wizard and Glass (the fourth in the series) is almost entirely devoted to this angle.
The books make gripping reading, and, if nothing else, the series is a page-turner. I am glad I waited until the last books were released before I began reading: the wait of a week or so between getting hold of books is bad enough, so I can’t imagine what the initial fans went through, having to wait the better part of two decades for their next tale.
The books are typical Stephen King: in some cases needlessly and crassly sexually explicit, in others a little too weird, stretching the imagination of even a willing reader.
One very refreshing thing is that however attached you are to the characters, you know that any of them might fall by the wayside, and this helps remove the kind of ‘the hero is invincible’ sense that some fantasy fiction books have. It makes the story more ‘realistic’, if such a word can be applied to this undoubtedly odd tale, as well as creating suspense.
These books were responsible for several late nights as I was unable to turn the light out and sleep – I just had to know what came next. Perhaps not classic literature, but they are a very good read.
Comments
Lin
When I first read the title (before reading the whole review) I thought that Bev was about to make an about turn and post something naughty here for the first time :o
Bad me :)
Though the title is certainly misleading - Dukky did a double take at seeing what Bev wrote...lol