The Dark Tower by Stephen King

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The Dark Tower – Stephen King The Dark Tower is a series of stories that follow the main character, Roland "The Last Gunslinger", as he travels across a harsh desert on a mission to find the "man in black". His mission is to make it safely to the Tower in order to save himself and the very existence of the universe. The entire series revolves around the tower and how essential it is. The tower is a central point where different planes of existence merge and if Roland doesn't make it there before it gets destroyed then everything else will be destroyed along with it. In the first book of the series, Roland wanders into a small town while looking for a place to rest and possibly sleep for a while. Although he doesn't do anything alarming or out of the ordinary, he gets accused of being an outlaw by a religious lady and is forced out by the townspeople. In the Wizard and Glass part of the series, Roland's father gives him a mission to investigate another town, where the Mayor has chosen a girl named Susan to conceive his child on a certain night, and she really doesn't have much say in the matter. Roland ends up falling in love with Susan and they have a secret relationship which is eventually discovered and Susan is blamed for ongoing disputes between two factions which Roland and his comrades had actually ended around that same time. Because of this and her "betrayal" of the Mayor she is sentenced to death, much like when Roland was being accused unfairly, because most people will blindly follow authority. An underlying theme present throughout the series is the possibility that our existence is not the only one. According to current theories in physics, it is entirely possible that our universe is just one of many universes f... ... middle of paper ... ...en had to take a rather steep nose-dive before leveling out again and delivering the traditional unexpected yet amazing ending I have come to expect from King. If you strip away all of the irrelevant and nonsensical material from the Dark Tower series, what remains would leave us with about half as many books to read, but much better overall quality. At the time of my reading I was unaware of the eighth book in the series, but I definitely plan to purchase it and add it to my personal collection. Works Cited AlyseG. Book Review: The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger – By Stephen King, BestFantasyBooks. 1 November 2011. 3 April 2012. http://www.bestfantasybooks.com/blog/book-review-the-dark-tower-the-gunslinger-by-stephen-king/ Scott. Dark Tower, The by Stephen King Book Reviews and Comments, SFFWorld. 2006. 4 April 2012. http://www.sffworld.com/brev/si184p0.html

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