The Gunslinger
- 336 pages
- 12 hours of reading
Roland, the world's last gunslinger, tracks an enigmatic Man in Black toward a forbidding dark tower, fighting forces both mortal and other-worldly on his quest
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 Waste Lands
- 422 pages
- 15 hours of reading
Roland, the Last Gunslinger, and his companions--Eddie Dean and the Susannah--cross the desert of damnation, drawing ever closer to the Dark Tower, a legion of fiendish foes, and revelations that could alter the world
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.
Song of Susannah. The dark tower VI.
- 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.
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.
