In THE GUNSLINGER, Stephen King introduces readers to one of his most enigmatic heroes, Roland of Gilead, the Last Gunslinger. He is a haunting figure, a loner, on a spellbinding journey into good and evil, in a desolate world which frighteningly echoes our own. In his first step towards the powerful and mysterious Dark Tower, Roland encounters an alluring woman named Alice, begins a friendship with Jake, a kid from New York, and faces an agonising choice between damnation and salvation as he pursues the Man in Black. Both grippingly realistic and eerily dreamlike, THE GUNSLINGER leaves readers eagerly awaiting the next chapter. And the Tower is closer...
The Dark Tower Series
This epic series follows the last gunslinger, Roland Deschain, on his quest to reach the Dark Tower, which serves as a key to many realities. The story combines elements of fantasy, horror, and western genres, exploring themes of fate, love, and sacrifice.
Recommended Reading Order
The Drawing of the Three
- 480 pages
- 17 hours of reading
While pursuing his quest for the Dark Tower through a world that is a nightmarishly distorted mirror image of our own, Roland, the last gunslinger, encounters three mysterious doorways on the beach. Each one enters into the life of a different person living in contemporary New York. Here he links forces with the defiant young Eddie Dean and the beautiful, brilliant, and brave Odetta Holmes, in a savage struggle against underworld evil and otherworldly enemies.Once again, Stephen King has masterfully interwoven dark, evocative fantasy and icy realism.
The Dark Tower - 3: The Waste Lands
- 624 pages
- 22 hours of reading
Several months have passed, and Roland’s two new tet-mates have become proficient gunslingers. Eddie Dean has given up heroin, and Odetta’s two selves have joined, becoming the stronger and more balanced personality of Susannah Dean. But while battling The Pusher in 1977 New York, Roland altered ka by saving the life of Jake Chambers, a boy who—in Roland’s where and when—has already died. Now Roland and Jake exist in different worlds, but they are joined by the same madness: the paradox of double memories. Roland, Susannah, and Eddie must draw Jake into Mid-World then follow the Path of the Beam all the way to the Dark Tower. But nothing is easy in Mid-World. Along the way our tet stumbles into the ruined city of Lud, and are caught between the warring gangs of the Pubes and the Grays. The only way out of Lud is to wake Blaine the Mono, an insane train that has a passion for riddling, and for suicidal journeys.
Stephen King returns to the Dark Tower with the fourth volume in his series. Roland, The Last Gunslinger, and his band of followers have narrowly escaped one world, and slipped into the next. It is here that Roland tells them a long-ago tale of love and adventure involving a beautiful and quixotic woman named Susan Delgado.
Wolves of the Calla
The Dark Tower V.
Wolves of the Calla continues the adventures of Roland, the Last Gunslinger and survivor of a civilized world that has "moved on." Roland's quest is ka, an inevitable destiny -- to reach and perhaps save the Dark Tower, which stands at the center of everywhere and everywhen. This pursuit brings Roland, with the three others who've joined his quest to Calla Bryn Sturgis, a town in the shadow of Thunderclap, beyond which lies the Dark Tower. Before advancing, however, they must face the evil wolves of Thunderclap, who threaten to destroy the Calla by abducting its young.
The dark tower. Song of Susannah
- 480 pages
- 17 hours of reading
This a pivotal instalment in the epic saga provides the key to the quest that defines Roland's life. In the next part of their journey to the tower, Roland and his band of followers face adversity from every side: Susannah Dean has been taken over by a demon-mother and uses the power of Black Thirteen to get from the Mid-World New York City. But who is the father of her child? And what role will the Crimson King play? Roland sends Jake to break Susannah's date with destiny, while he himself uses 'the persistence of magic' to get to Maine in the Summer of 1977. It is a terrible world: for one thing it is real and bullets are flying. For another, it is inhabited by the author of a novel called 'SALEM'S LOT. SONG OF SUSANNAH is driven by revelation and by suspense. It continues THE DARK TOWER series seamlessly from WOLVES OF THE CALLA and the dramatic climax will leave readers desperate to read the quest's conclusion.
The Dark Tower
- 704 pages
- 25 hours of reading
At the outset of the final installment of our saga, Roland’s ka-tet is scattered across several different wheres and whens. Susannah Dean (still in the clutches of the demon Mia) is in End-World’s Fedic Dogan: a chamber of horrors where magic and technology can be merged and where a monstrous half-human child can be brought forth into the world. Eddie Dean and Roland Deschain are in Maine, 1977, searching for the site of otherworldly walk-in activity, and a possible doorway back to Mid-World. Jake Chambers, Father Callahan, and the bumbler Oy are battling vampires and low men in New York’s Dixie Pig Restaurant, circa 1999, a place where long pig is definitely on the menu. As soon as our tet reunites, they must journey to the headquarters of Thunderclap’s Wolves in order to discover exactly why the Crimson King’s minions have been culling the brains of young children for twin-telepathy enzymes. The answer is more horrible than they realized, and bears directly upon Roland’s quest to reach the Dark Tower.
Related books
It is a story within a story, which features both the younger and older gunslinger Roland on his quest to find the Dark Tower. Fans of the existing seven books in the series will also delight in discovering what happened to Roland and his ka-tet between the time they leave the Emerald City and arrive at the outskirts of Calla Bryn Sturgis.This Russian Doll of a novel, visits Mid-World's last gunslinger, Roland Deschain, and his ka-tet as a ferocious storm halts their progress along the Path of the Beam. Roland tells a tale from his early days as a gunslinger, in the guilt ridden year following his mother's death. Sent by his father to investigate evidence of a murderous shape shifter, a 'skin man,' Roland takes charge of Bill Streeter, a brave but terrified boy who is the sole surviving witness to the beast's most recent slaughter. Roland, himself only a teenager, calms the boy by reciting a story from the Book of Eld that his mother used to read to him at bedtime, 'The Wind through the Keyhole.' 'A person's never too old for stories,' he says to Bill. 'Man and boy, girl and woman, we live for them.' And stories like these, they live for us.
L'uomo in nero fuggì nel deserto e il pistolero lo seguì. Così esordiva la storia, sette libri fa. Ora la caccia è finita: Roland di Gilead, con i compagni che ha raccolto attorno a sé nel viaggio, è di fronte al suo destino. Nelle prime pagine di questo volume ritroviamo il gruppetto sano e salvo, sebbene sparso per ogni dove e ogni quando. Susannah-Mia è stata trasportata dal Dixie Pig di New York in una stanza degli orrori di Fedic, dove vedrà la luce suo "figlio". Jake e il Père Callahan, con Oy sono entrati nel locale ad armi spianate per salvare la ragazza, ignorando il pericolo in agguato. Roland e Eddie, con John Cullum, sono nel Maine del 1977, e incominciano a capire che il mondo da cui stanno cercando di fuggire è l'unico reale.
