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Welcome to the Auto Insurance News and Resource Center Brought to you by Auto Insurance Planners, in association with Amazon.com! Search from thousands of articles. books and materials and shop online in our secure online storefront. In addition to great prices, you'll find reader reviews on many of your favorite titles. |
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The Dark Tower (The Dark Tower, Book 7)
written by Stephen King
Studio : Donald M. Grant/Scribner
by Donald M. Grant/Scribner
Release Date : 2004-09-21
Publisher : Donald M. Grant/Scribner
Released : 2004-09-21
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Number of Items : 1
EAN : 9781880418628
List Price : $35.00
Our Price : $23.10
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Product Description |
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All good things must come to an end, Constant Reader, and not even Stephen King can make a story that goes on forever. The tale of Roland Deschain's relentless quest for the Dark Tower has, the author fears, sorely tried the patience of those who have followed it from its earliest chapters. But attend to it a while longer, if it pleases you, for this volume is the last, and often the last things are best. Roland's ka-tet remains intact, though scattered over wheres and whens. Susannah-Mia has been carried from the Dixie Pig (in the summer of 1999) to a birthing room -- really a chamber of horrors -- in Thunderclap's Fedic; Jake and Father Callahan, with Oy between them, have entered the restaurant on Lex and Sixty-first with weapons drawn, little knowing how numerous and noxious are their foes. Roland and Eddie are with John Cullum in Maine, in 1977, looking for the site on Turtleback Lane where "walk-ins" have been often seen. They want desperately to get back to the others, to Susannah especially, and yet they have come to realize that the world they need to escape is the only one that matters. Thus the book opens, like a door to the uttermost reaches of Stephen King's imagination. You've come this far. Come a little farther. Come all the way. The sound you hear may be the slamming of the door behind you. Welcome to The Dark Tower. |
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Autoinsuranceplanners.com Review |
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At one point in this final book of the Dark Tower series, the character Stephen King (added to the plot in Song of Susannah) looks back at the preceding pages and says "when this last book is published, the readers are going to be just wild." And he's not kidding. After a journey through seven books and over 20 years, King's Constant Readers finally have the conclusion they've been both eagerly awaiting and silently dreading. The tension in the Dark Tower series has built steadily from the beginning and, like in the best of King's novels, explodes into a violent, heart-tugging climax as Roland and his ka-tet finally near their goal. The body count in The Dark Tower is high. The gunslingers come out shooting and face a host of enemies, including low men, mutants, vampires, Roland's hideous quasi-offspring Mordred, and the fearsome Crimson King himself. King pushes the gross-out factor at times--Roland's lesson on tanning (no, not sun tanning) is brutal--but the magic of the series remains strong and readers will feel the pull of the Tower as strongly as ever as the story draws to a close. During this sentimental journey, King ties up loose ends left hanging from the 15 non-series novels and stories that are deeply entwined in the fabric of Mid-World through characters like Randall Flagg (The Stand and others) or Father Callahan ('Salem's Lot). When it finally arrives, the long awaited conclusion will leave King's myriad fans satisfied but wishing there were still more to come. In King's memoir On Writing, he tells of an old woman who wrote him after reading the early books in the Dark Tower series. She was dying, she said, and didn't expect to see the end of Roland's quest. Could King tell her? Does he reach the Tower? Does he save it? Sadly, King said he did not know himself, that the story was creating itself as it went along. Wherever that woman is now (the clearing at the end of the path, perhaps?), let's hope she has a copy of The Dark Tower. Surely she would agree it's been worth the wait. --Benjamin Reese |
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In perfect condition |
I purchased this, as well as another book at the same time. They both arrived securely and safely packaged, in a very timely fashion. There were no signs of wear on either book.
Exactly as described. |
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Great end to a so-so series. |
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This is definitely my favorite book in the series, though it does have problems. I won't go into them since they're all spoiler-rich, but I loved the ending, even if it feels like a big slap in the face. It was a good slap. |
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Anticipation Makes "VII" A Thrilling Read |
I have to sympathize with Stephen King regarding the writing of this book...how do you end a series that has been going on for so long? King has often been criticized (me included) for writing thrilling stories accompanied by unspectacular endings, and this book is no exception, as many readers do not appreciate an ending that they never could have seen coming. However, I think that King did a marvelous job in ending this book by playing on one factor: anticipation.
While one would expect that the entire book would just be one big lead-up to the Dark Tower payoff in the end, that is absolutely not so. Instead, Roland and his ka-tet are presented with a challenge much like in "Wolves of the Calla" before heading off on the final trail to the Tower. Thus, while the intensity builds in the readers' mind (just from turning so many pages and approaching the end), he/she also gets to read another thrilling adventure that only King knows how to craft.
For a quick summary, this installment of the series quickly concludes the Susannah/Mio relationship (which I was pleased with, as that was what made "Song of Susannah" so drawn-out), and introduces us to their offspring, a much more interesting "fellow" than his two mothers. After that, Roland's ka-tet takes on the task of rescuing the Tower Beam that the Crimson King (through slave labor) is trying to crack. The descriptions of the "Breakers" are fascinating, as they are both evil and tragic at the same time. Once that task is "completed", Roland and Co. set out for the Dark Tower itself.
Any more detail would spoil the plot, but suffice it to say that the final trek to the Dark Tower will have you break out in goosebumps...from fear, excitement, and emotion. With Roland's final "shootout" task behind him, the new characters introduced on the way to the Tower take on a new significance, as one gets the feeling that their relation to the Tower is crucial to the rest of the story.
So, to conclude, if you enjoyed the previous installments of the Dark Tower series, this final chapter will not disappoint you. Roland's journey may not take you to a place you enjoy, or the place you figured he would end up, but I think you will appreciate this "ending" (even if it is 800-some pages!) better than most Stephen King conclusions.
I have always found that finishing a Stephen King adventure is a strange emotion, as you know the story has to end somewhere but you just don't want it to! That feeling is amped up x7 in this case, as Roland's quest has taken so many pages to express. After just finishing this book myself, I find myself wondering how I will ever truly appreciate another "short" ("only" 400-500 pages) King book again, as my insight into the characters won't nearly be as fleshed out as in this series. |
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That was one long Jazz solo! |
Damn. I've been pondering what to write about this for days. Ok, lets git to it! (Jazz reference will be explained :P )
Here's your first clue that the Dark Tower is not going to please everyone (actually the clue is at the very end). He cautions the reader to not read the Coda chapter beause they might dislike it. As if, after reading 1000+ pages of the book, the reader wouldn't read right through!
Second clue is in the Author's note at the end, when King says in advance not to email him to whine, and that he was a little bummed out himself with the end. To be cynical here, does King sound a tad defensive? Sure, ANY final book in a series can't please everyone. But could King's (just slightly) apologist afterword not be a bad sign that something here's gone a little `todash'?
DT is King's `sandbox', where the story can - and does - go anywhere it likes. It's his KILL BILL. It's everything AND the kitchen sink. He's grabbed everything in his mind (Doken) that's been kicking around for his entire life and put it onto paper. In this sense, the book is critic proof for the most part. If one is to point out something in the book that wasn't pulled off satisfactory, where is the context? To what other story can we compare it and say `this is the kind of book it should have been'?
What I'm saying, longwindedly, is that I could see any 2 given people feeling different about the series. To those who gave it 5 stars, cool. 1 star? I can dig. For me, I mostly accepted the conclusion, but what I would have wanted much more was to close it and say 'wow! I want to read it again. Now!' I did not get that feeling. And as fair as it is for people to completely enjoy it, it's not without it's flaws.
One of the things that annoyed me the most was how countless phrases spoken by people (or thought) are something someone else has said. Eddie is constantly thinking about what his brother would have thought of something. Susannah is always thinking about what her Dad would have said. Roland is frequently reminded of a phrase Cort would say, Etc. This was an overused technique. It was in meltdown mode here. He just would not stop.
Chapters constantly overlap, enabling the reader to see the lead up to the same event from a different participant. This is a useful tool, but it is so frequent that the result is that the reader is constantly being halted from finding out what happens next to backtrack, and in this, the final book, it the plot and pacing should be in overdrive. One imagines Roland gesturing his `get on with it' finger twirl. New characters who are introduced do not always need to have a large backstory. Sometimes it's just fine for a person to show up and help out, or get a bullet thrugh the eye. I thought this was one of the major contributors to the excessive length of the book. I don't flinch at doorstopper books, but please maximize your space and keep the gears shifting up in the plot, not down (see PILLARS OF THE EARTH for a massive but always focused story).
And now my last issue has to do with Stephen King being perhaps out of his depth in a 'fantasy' type of epic story. I have read over half of King's fiction, plus Danse Macabre and On Writing. He's a `Jazz' writer. He just goes with the flow, and thats been an asset of his for many of his other books. He's an intuitive freestyler. An improv rapper. The problem with this approach is the longer you try and 'freestyle it', the more chance you have of tripping over something as your mind races to keep track of what you're doing. He's been playing the worlds longest Jazz solo, and while he succeeded in many ways, he's hit plenty of off-notes on the way and it got a little sloppy there at the end.
King has become so entrenched in `antiplotting' that he willfully will NOT plot out anything (he says he did so with Insomnia and wasn't too hot on the result so hasn't tried it again much since). There's always an exception, but from my reading experience, you just cannot tackly a multi-volume epic in this fashion. You have to sit down and outline a little bit or else the whole thing comes off uneven.
Dark Tower readers have pretty much got the biggest imaginations out there. We've seen people walking though doors into alternate earths. We've seen Blood and Mind vampires feasting with Low Men in colorful suits wearing fake human masks. We've seen a politically-incorrect black woman with no legs who throws deadly plates. Robots who wear Dr. Doom capes, wield light sabers, and throw flying balls that are one part Harry Potter Sneetches and one part metal spheres from the movie Phantasm. We've even taken it in stride when a half Human spider gets diarrhea from eating a leprous horse. So having the story zig and zag to this ending, and have many people unsatisfied, is pause for thought. DT readers can handle anything King can throw their way in the Bizarre department, but just can't get behind this fizzled out resolution.
I think that's saying something.
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King got checkmated |
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I don't have the time to write a full review with synopsis and such, even if I did I don't think the book deserves it. It wasn't a terrible work of fiction, but it was not the grand epic finale I so patiently waited for. Steven introduced plot twists that lasted for 2-3 subchapters at best, that just makes me think he was desperately searching his tired (and lazy) imagination for more interesting things to happen. Roland had a cough and it went away after eating a deer kidney... Seriously Steven you can do better than that. |
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