When I read The Gunslinger, I was not impress. I was not really sure where this book was going until towards the end, turns out to be a quest book. Then, I have my doubts. But what I started from the first book, I had to move on to the second book and it took me a while to finished it. Yes, I took my time to read it and in the end, that long time... was worth it. I read slowly and absorb the words, the intentions and the purpose. In the end, it is once again a quest book with more questions but I am surprise how good The Drawing of the Three turn out to be.

 

From where it was left off, Roland of Gilead now has a goal. In order seek The Dark Tower, he has to recruit others from other worlds to join him on his quest - Eddie Dean, a drug junkie who loves his brother Henry more than anything else, Odetta Susannah Holmes, a girl that may seem nice but other wise, deadly and a third that I would not spoil it here. What caught my attention was what does drawing of the three means and its said inside pretty much clearly. Still, the entire book is all about how Roland, almost to his dying breath after been attacked by sea creatures like lobsters, with grit, goes through all hell to get these people from another Earth-like dimension (which is our own). For the first time, and even though Stephen King, in his style of writing long narrations of background history so that we get to know the characters involved for the readers, he managed to draw my attention in a way that is suspenseful and it is good. I truly enjoy my reading and that is why I took my time to finish it. Towards the end, even though there are more questions involve, I am looking forward to read The Wasteland soon. If you have read The Gunslinger and you have your doubts, trust me, The Drawing of the Three is worth continuing.

I had been curious about The Dark Tower for a long time. Since it was published until now, I never did read one book of it. When I heard about the movie adaptation, what compels me to read now was due to the movie. Of course, this year is truly the year of the King...

 

... and for once, reading The Gunslinger, the first book of the series truly peeks my curiosity on a whole different level. And much better than the movie.

 

It begins where a lone man walks into a town, looking for a man in black. He meets the town's folk (almost a ghost town) and soon, the presence of the man in black had corrupted the whole town. Along the way, he met a boy name Jake Chambers, descriptions of another world similar to ours and of course, origins of the gunslinger, mutants and finally meeting the man in black and in the end... another quest.

 

For me, I love the universe created by Stephen King but the plot itself felt ambiguous. While the journey is all about journeying to meet the man in black and going to the dark tower without revealing the purpose, I believed maybe the rest of the novels will. Still, I do enjoy the writing and as always, Stephen King tried his best to deliver some thing ambitious then (he did admit as the series progress, there were changes in his words of when he was young when he wrote and the maturity of his writing towards the end of the series). The Gunslinger works to some extend and hopefully, the rest of the book will explain further once I started reading The Drawing of the Three.

It seems like every time I read this book, life gets in the way and I can't ever finish it as quickly as I'd like to. Seriously -- every time I make another trek to the Tower, I can almost count on life getting hectic while reading THE WASTE LANDS. I read THE GUNSLINGER in one day and THE DRAWING OF THE THREE in two days (and no, this isn't me bragging on my reading speed -- which is average -- but instead bragging on the awesomeness that is the DARK TOWER series), but it took me almost a week to finish THE WASTE LANDS. I am a full-time college student with finals fast approaching and this week I worked two jobs (I started a new job while working under a two-week notice at my old place of employment, only to quit the new job after two days and retract my notice), so I've been a bit busy. And I realize slowing down when reading a book is fine, but I get impatient with myself because I can't help but think of all the books on my TBR list I should be reading. I am a patient reader, but I like to plan out what I am going to read/when I am going to read it, and when I can't stick to that plan I get pretty annoyed.

 

What bearing does this whining have on THE WASTE LANDS, the third novel in Stephen King's DARK TOWER series? Absolutely none, so let's get on with the review. 

 

What has always stood out to me about this book is how frenetic it is. Within the first twenty pages, Roland, Eddie, and Susannah get in a fight with a gigantic robot/bear named Shardik, and the action only picks up from there. 

 

My favorite aspect of this story, hands down, is Jake reuniting with Roland. I also enjoyed his meeting Eddie and Susannah and finding Oy, the lovable billie-bumbler. Jake is probably my favorite character in the series, and I love any scene with him in it, but this is one of the books in the DT series where he really shines. The way he deals with going insane (seriously, he's died twice, but Roland went back in time in book two and saved him from dying the first time, thus splitting each of their memories into two tracks -- crazy stuff) is incredibly admirable, especially for an eleven year old. Not to mention him finding the guts to go in The Mansion, King's best haunted house since The Marsten House. Also, when the four (and Oy) have to cross the old, broken bridge to get into Lud, it's Jake who seems the least scared and ready for adventure. AND HE GETS TO BE THE ONE TO DISCOVER THE ROSE! YAY! #JakeLove

 

In addition to Jake, the rest of the characters get some awesome character development in this volume. Eddie, while still being a lovable wise acre, matures a bit and slowly becomes a skilled gunslinger in his own right. Susannah merges her two personalities from the previous book into one strong mind-set, making her a great addition to Roland's ka-tet. And, of course, there's Roland -- in this book, he seems more human than ever before, all while being a cool, macho Clint Eastwood-type guy. 

 

Along with character development, King really excels at marrying horror and fantasy here. As I mentioned earlier, The Mansion is one of the creepier places he has created -- an abandoned place of terror opening into Roland's universe is genius, and the sequence involving the face in the wall is nothing short of thrilling. Other horrific things include The Tick-Tock Man and his henchman Gasher (what a piece of work he is!), the waste lands, Lud, the bridge-crossing sequence, and, of course, Blaine the Mono, one of my very favorite supernatural villains ever. Seriously, he's right up there with Randall Flagg (who appears in a chill-inducing scene in one of the final chapters). Blaine stands out because he's not a typical villain. He's a machine, and he's not just scary -- he's also funny, and often he is both at the same time. I don't want to spoil it by talking about him too much, so that's all I will say on the matter. 

 

Perhaps the most intense and fast-moving book in the DARK TOWER series (SONG OF SUSANNAH aside), THE WASTE LANDS is a highlight in King's canon for the remarkable characters both large and small, the successful marriage of fantasy and horror and the sheer power of the story presented. There's not a word out of place -- it's one of those King books that gets everything right. 

 

At this time, I am taking a short break from DARK TOWER to focus on a few female authors I've been meaning to read but haven't yet. I'll probably start up again with WIZARD AND GLASS at the beginning of next month and go from there. I love most of the rest of the journey before me, but I highly doubt it will top the magnificence of THE WASTE LANDS. 

Ooh, things are starting to pick up, starting to get serious, even brutal.

There are little bits of the story that we know from the series here, like Roland being absorbed in Maerlyn's Grapefruit and being tricked by it, but the majority of this episode is new.

We meet some new characters:
Aileen, who doesn't fit in the world of girls because she longs to be a Gunslinger, but doesn't fit in the world of men because she isn't one, and they can't see her as an equal.
Kingson, who is Farson's nephew and wickedly creepy.
Gabrielle Deschain, who is somewhat known to us, but we get to learn more about her in this volume, and even maybe come to pity her a bit.
Charlie Champignon, who is a Gunslinger in Steven's entourage who gets the short end of the stick twice. Poor guy.

And I just have to interject here - We have Charlie Champignon from DT Graphic #3, and Charlie Campion from The Stand. Coincidence? They both, in their own way, are catalysts for the action... without them, things might still have gone on, but they enable things to come to a head very quickly, in both cases. I wonder if this is one of those "other worlds than this" situations...?

Anyway... I have to say I loved the clothing depicted in this edition much more than the last two. Finally, Roland, Bert and Alain are wearing something OTHER than cowboy gear. The women's clothing is gorgeous, with flowing dresses and beautiful lines and colors. But the men's clothes reminded me of mid- to late-19th century clothing, and the under-gunslingers, like the lesser ranked gunslingers or novices, their clothing reminded me REALLY strongly of Confederate Army uniforms. One scene in which Steven and Gabrielle are dancing brought Gone With The Wind to mind, even down to the way that Steven is holding her by the upper arms, and she's almost got the Scarlett O'hara "Don't you DARE! kiss me!" swoon/defiant face on.

Anyway, I really enjoyed this volume, and can't wait for the next one. Is it 2010 yet??