The man in black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed.
Thus begins the tale of Roland of Gilead, and of his quest to save the Dark Tower that stands at the center of all realities. We enter Roland’s quest partway through; he has left his father’s court some time ago and now travels the desolate remains of his world, a world that has moved on. Crazed townfolk on the edge of survival, cunning demons with the power of prophecy, and dangerous environments will all test Roland’s skills in this hauntingly beautiful story.
The only negative thing about The Gunslinger is that King never managed to equal it, not even in the six successive volumes of The Dark Tower.
The prose is stunning and evocative, and the story has a mythic presence that is seldom matched in modern fiction - it is a very tight, streamlined piece, distilled to perfection.
Dark Tower transcends traditional genre boundaries, and Gunslinger goes above and beyond King’s other works - if you’ve ever read King’s ‘regular’ horror novels, and savored the writing but wished for something with more depth, Gunslinger is definitely for you. If you don’t like horror, give Gunslinger a try - while the genre of horror can be applied to it, in many ways it is so much more.
