Book Review by: Twilight
This month`s selection is The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger by Stephen King
The Gunslinger is the first book in a series called The Dark Tower. Set in a world somewhat like our own, and yet eerily different, we meet Roland, the Gunslinger. Roland is the last of his kind, or so he believes, for the world has "moved on". When we first encounter him, he is crossing a vast and unforgiving desert pursuing a man we only know as the man in black. There's not much of a sense of who the man in black is, or why Roland chases him, as the story begins.
It becomes clearer as Roland comes across the remains of campfires laid by the man in black, and backtracks in his thoughts. We find that Roland has encountered people who have seen the man in black, like the odd border dweller Brown, who lives in the edge of the desert, and at whose below-ground dwelling the man in black stopped for a night... Perhaps two weeks before, perhaps three, for time seems to have little meaning in this world. People like the citizens of a town called Tull, where Roland lays over for a few days, and where he encounters a trap set for him by the man in black. The man in black has brought a dead man to life here, and infected the townspeople with a sort of religious madness in the form of an imposing woman named Sylvia Pittson... Roland escapes this trap, but not before having to lay waste to most of its citizens. (Of course, it's not all gloom and doom before the trap... Roland gets information about the man in black from a woman, Allie, whose price for this information is... well, it wouldn't be a Stephen King book without a few sexual references.) But Roland does make his escape, and sets out across the desert.
Far into the journey, and suffering from dehydration and sunstroke, Roland stumbles onto a way station, a place where coaches and travellers once stopped to rest... But that was before the world moved on. Now it is deserted, save for a boy who drags Roland to shade, water and safety. A boy who doesn't belong to this world and can't quite remember how he got there. As Roland recovers, he hypnotizes the boy. We discover that his name is Jake and that he comes from a place that might seem more familiar to us than the desert and the odd world inhabited by the gunslinger... A place of high-rise apartments and schools and sack lunches and parents... and cars, like the Cadillac which the man in black has pushed the unfortunate Jake in front of. So we find that the man in black has the ability to travel between worlds and commit acts like murder, which land Jake in this strange world... Roland erases this memory from the boy's mind and decides to take Jake with him on his journey. But as they gather supplies in an old cellar, a voice speaks to Roland. The voice of a speaking demon, who warns that as long as Roland travels with the boy, the man in black holds Roland's soul.
Back in time again, in Roland's thoughts, we learn a bit about his late childhood, the years in which he was training to become a gunslinger, but not one yet... The son of a powerful man and a lovely and somewhat deceptive woman. Living in a place tantalizingly like Camelot, a place of greenery, and childhood friendships, and more than a few similarities to Arthurian times. Inhabited by men like Marten, perhaps a sorcerer, and Cort, Roland's harsh yet caring teacher. Yet we sense that this is only a fleeting glimpse, because after all, the world has moved on...
Roland and Jake continue across the desert, until they come to a gradually changing landscape and begin to climb into the foothills, of the mountains, looming above them. They see the man in black far above them on a mountainside, close but far away, yet. But again the man in black has a surprise or two waiting for the pair. Pitching camp in the higher foothills, the man in black has placed them in the path of another demon... This one an oracle/succubus who nearly claims Jake as he sleeps until Roland saves him. Roland confronts the demon, again for information (and again trading... hey, guess what, more sex!). He learns that the man in black is not far ahead of them at all, and that as the first demon predicted, the boy will play a part... The boy is a gateway to the man in black, who will lead Roland to the Three, who in turn will be his gateway to the Tower. The Dark Tower, ominous and foreboding, and the key to why the gunslinger chases the man in black. Climbing higher into the mountains, they begin to smell the man in black... And then see him, above, taunting them, knowing the gunslinger will follow. As they climb, Roland tells Jake tales of his past... About the friends he grew up with, his training to become a gunslinger, and how he finally bested his teacher and became the youngest to become a gunslinger yet. About the treachery of his mother at the hands of Marten, leading to his father's death, and how this place, New Canaan, becomes a part of the past as the world moves on.
Roland and Jake enter an underground passage which Roland knows will lead to the other side of the mountains, and to the man in black. In this passage they find an old railroad and a handcar... It will be the handcar that saves them as deep underground they encounter a group of horrid creatures called Slow Mutants, victims of the world moving on. The Mutants blindly try to stop them, to kill them, not for any purpose but simply because. But Roland is, after all, a gunslinger... They escape, and find their way to an old station... A terminal underground that reminds Jake of a subway station. But this place is dead and deserted now, inhabited only by a few mummies wearing blue and gold clothing that might once have been uniforms. Roland is driven by the need to find the man in black even as the feeling grows that Jake will be sacrificed somehow, and they both know it. Moving away from the dead station, they travel to a place where the railroad tracks are suspended high above a chasm, the crossties of the old railroad rotting beneath them. They travel on foot, over gaps above an abyss below them, the light ahead slowly growing brighter... Until it is blocked by the figure of the man in black, as the trestle holding the rails begins to give way and collapse. Jake begins to fall, and the man in black ahead taunts Roland... Save the boy and lose me, or leave him to his fate and follow. Roland makes the only choice he can, wrenching though it is even to a hard man such as this... Jake falls into the abyss as the gunslinger chases the man in black yet again.
Roland emerges into daylight again, and the man in black leads him to a place of the dead, of skulls and bones, where they make camp and finally Roland will find out what this creature is. But first the man in black will read Roland's cards, flinging them into the fire as he goes... The past, the present, the loss... And the Tower. We learn of the Three... Those Roland must find to lead him to the Tower, though he knows not who they are or how he will find them yet. A vision is sent to Roland of what the Tower might be... A nexus perhaps, in time and in space and size, the thread that binds this world to endless others... Roland falls into an uneasy sleep, and awakens finally into light, having aged several years and finding the man in black a withered skeleton before him, joining the others in this haunted place. Roland speaks a fond goodbye to the boy Jake, and sets off to the ocean below, reaching the water to await the drawing of the Three and his fate...
End Part I