Description:

SUMMARY: Thirty-three years, a horrific and life-altering accident, and thousands of desperately rabid fans in the making, Stephen King's quest to complete his magnum opus rivals the quest of Roland and his band of gunslingers who inhabit the Dark Tower series. Loyal DT fans and new readers alike will appreciate this revised edition of The Gunslinger, which breathes new life into Roland of Gilead, and offers readers a "clearer start and slightly easier entry into Roland's world." King writes both a new introduction and foreword to this revised edition, and the ever-patient, ever-loyal "constant reader" is rewarded with secrets to the series's inception. That a "magic" ream of green paper and a Robert Browning poem, came together to reveal to King his "ka" is no real surprise (this is King after all), but who would have thought that the squinty-eyed trio of Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach would set the author on his true path to the Tower? While King credits Tolkien for inspiring the "quest and magic" that pervades the series, it was Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly that helped create the epic proportions and "almost absurdly majestic western backdrop" of Roland's world. To King, The Gunslinger demanded revision because once the series was complete it became obvious that "the beginning was out of sync with the ending." While the revision adds only 35 pages, Dark Tower purists will notice the changes to Allie's fate and Roland's interaction with Cort, Jake, and the Man in Black--all stellar scenes that will reignite the hunger for the rest of the series. Newcomers will appreciate the details and insight into Roland's life. The revised Roland of Gilead (nee Deschain) is embodied with more humanity--he loves, he pities, he regrets. What DT fans might miss is the same ambiguity and mystery of the original that gave the original its pulpy underground feel (back when King himself awaited word from Roland's world). --Daphne Durham Lots of Stephen King fans feel that his horror novels are dwarfed by what they consider his masterpiece, the genre-bending Dark Tower books. They're a little like the sprawling epics of J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert Jordan, and George Lucas, but then again, they're really like nothing else in this world (or King's). This set collects the first three. The Gunslinger introduces the hero Roland, who must reach the Dark Tower in order to save his universe, Mid-World. There are passageways between our world and Mid-World, and a New York City boy named Jake gets shoved in front of a car by Jack Mort ("death"), is killed, and finds himself alive in Roland's world. He becomes Roland's surrogate son. In book 2, The Drawing of the Three, Roland is attacked by marvelous, poisonous "lobstrosities" and enters our world for help. He takes heroin addict Eddie Dean from 1987 New York and Odetta Holmes from 1964 New York as his team. In a powerful time-tripping scene, Roland confronts Jack Mort and actually changes Jake's Earth history, which has heady implications for Roland's world. In The Waste Lands, book 3, Roland and company get ensnared in a civil war in the urban waste of Lud, acquire a delightful talking pet named Oy the Bumbler, and find themselves captives of a psychotic train called Blaine the Mono. The plot is complex, yet weirdly logical. But take warning: this series is addictive, and you may need to also buy book 4, Wizard and Glass. Otherwise, you won't know what happened when Blaine went insane with Roland's gang onboard. SUMMARY: The foundation of the epic Dark Tower series This heroic fantasy, set in a world of ominous landscape and macabre menace, features one of Stephen King's most powerful creations-The Gunslinger, a haunting figure who embodies the qualities of the lone hero through the ages, from ancient myth to frontier Western legend.