I plan on reading the entire Dark Tower series by Stephen King. I'm currently on the first book, about halfway through. Has anyone else read this series? I have a few questions about the setting and characters.

Yep. Ive read the dark tower a couple of times.

Whats on your mind?

johnson1010 wrote:Yep. Ive read the dark tower a couple of times.

Whats on your mind?

Alright, first I'm wondering- Is the All-World supposed to be the afterlife? Because Jake Chambers was said to have died by a car and yet he's in the story still. Also, the dweller with the bird named Zoltan (i think his name was Brown?) said he believes this is the afterlife.

Another question I have is- Am I supposed to know all of these characters Stephen King is mentioning (David, Cuthbert, Cort, etc...)? I figured out who Cort and David were but when he first mentions the names, there was no context pertaining to who they were.

Also, just wondering about the rest of the series; Will the books get more interesting? This first book is more of just Roland following the man in black. Oh yeah, and how come in Tull was Roland called "The Interloper"?

Hi Sam; As I said in another post, I read the Dark Tower series over a period of years. King kind of took a hiatus in the middle of the series. I don't want to reveal too much, as I think you are supposed to discover most of this as you read. I will tell you that Cuthbert was a childhood friend and companion of Roland's. BTW, King took the name Roland for his character from Robert Browning's poem "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came."

No, the All-World is not the afterlife, just a kind of multiverse.
Why Roland is called The Interloper in Tull - never made clear.

As to some of the characters, King brings in some from his other works; I won't try to list them (too long since I read the Dark Tower).

But I do think the opening to The Gunslinger is one of the greater literary hooks of all time: "The man in black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed."

Thanks Cattleman. So as a multiverse, does that mean the dead end up there sometimes? Im trying to understand how Jake ends up at the Way Station.

Also, are the rest of the books different from The gunslinger? Since he took breaks during the series.

Sam, I am not sure how much to tell you; part of the enjoyment of this series is not knowing what will happen next. I will say this much; Jake will definitely reappear, he is a major character. There are jumps back and forth between 'universes' and an element of time travel is involved. The longest hiatus occurred between Books 4 and 5, after which he finished the series rather quickly. Good Reading!

I think it won't ruin the story too much for me to say that the Dark tower series is a sort of converging point of all of Stephen King's stories. The Stand is a book where an extinction level epidemic wipes out most of the planet. That story doesn't exist in the same world as Salem's lot. But Salem's Lot and The Stand are parallel universes in Stephen King's multiverse of stories.

So, there may have been a Jake in both of those worlds who was never involved in narrative of either story, but lived there all the same.

The gunslinger is a bit of a slog. I usually recommend to people that they start on the second book, and after the hook has been set they revisit the gunslinger. There isn't a whole lot to miss in the first book that you can't live without. After that though, it really picks up in my opinion. King wrote the gunslinger when he was 19, so yeah, it's a bit rough around the edges.

You will find out how Jake ends up in the way station a bit later, and backstory will be built up around many of the other characters mentioned over the course of the story. You aren't meant to know them ahead of time and they are invented for this story in the case of Cuthbert, but some characters will actually have origins in other King stories. One character who plays a pretty big role later on does come from Salem's Lot, but you don't NEED to have read Salem's Lot to appreciate what he does in the Dark Tower series.

It's a great connection, and your appreciation of the story will proabably be deepened if you are familiar with the character from Salem's Lot, but it isn't a deal breaker by any means if you haven't kept up with Kings other work.

The tone and atmosphere of the Dark Tower does vary quite a bit from book to book. Roland gets a party together, so it isn't always him all alone, and the dynamic changes quite a bit over the course.

Yeah I finished The Gunslinger on... Tuesday I believe? It was pretty good, the ending really got me to keep reading into the 2nd book right afterwards. I'm only on page 70 of book 2 right now and im really looking forward to see how this plays out.

the second and third books are my favorite.

Of course, they've been on the shelf the longest, so i've read them each a few times. He released the rest of them in pretty quick succession, and i haven't revisited them like i have those earlier ones.

I need to re-read them.

I gave up half way through book 3. During the characters back stories, I found myself thinking 'please get back to the adventure' too many times. I love King, and I wanted to love these but there was just too much character story and not enough storyline.