It didn’t have any that stumped Blaine, nor did it contain even a hint of anything that could help them. I assume the only reason Jake was drawn to it then was to hint to the tet that generally that riddles would be important, and that they would need that hint to ride in the first place instead of being killed? Is that all there is to it, or did I miss something else that made it important?
Right down to the description of sinister looking Elves capering on the wallpaper. It may even be the most similar set of locations in a King book that I’ve ever seen. Waste Lands is such a damn good book, it’s ridiculous. It’s my favorite of the series by quite a lot. I can’t even describe how good the first book Jake: Fear in a Handful of Dust is. The action begins immediately and I was hooked on the story much faster than any other book, and faster even than almost every other King book I’ve read. It’s the quintessential Dark Tower book and feels far more like the real beginning of the quest than Drawing does. There’s no sequence I don’t like, and Blaine is hands down one of the best villains in King history. Really, I can’t emphasize enough how amazing this book actually is, and it only gets better with every turn of Ka’s wheel.
Gunslinger was good by my second or third read, but short and rather hard to get into. The first half is quite slow.
Drawing is excellent and a huge improvement and tells an amazing story. I’m not as partial to it however because Waste Lands introduces the world thoroughly for the first time, and is the source material of so much of the rest of the series.
As for Wizard…I know that a lot of you really like it, and I do think it’s a great stand-alone story, but it greatly suffers from being a very jarring turn away from the main quest. Rhea and Cordelia are some of my favorite King villains, though I can’t get through it without wanting to do terrible things to Cord because she’s so good at being horrible. Yet I thought the love scenes between Roland and Susan were rather bland and uninteresting. It took a very long time for me to be truly invested in the story and even after several trips to the Tower, it just doesn’t do it for me in the same way that the other books do. On top of that, the events at the end (which I waited for the entire book to occur) were rather flat and even disappointing. For instance, what the hell was the point of reintroducing Tick Tock only for him to be blown away in half a second? All that build up of Flagg rescuing him from Lud for THAT? Really? I also don’t care for all the Oz stuff. Parodies and imitations of that particular story are so overdone, it really did nothing for me.
With Wolves, I thought there was a DRAMATIC improvement. While it never quite reached Waste Lands sense of awe and adventure, the story was very intriguing, the characters interesting, and the Todash sequences were a very nice short break from the main plot and absolutely critical to the rest of the series. It’s my second favorite after Waste Lands.
As for Song of Susannah, I don’t hate it like some do, but I don’t love it either. It’s very middling, it separates the Ka-tet for too long, and overall just doesn’t have too many memorable sequences, although I still liked parts of it. It’s just kind of…there. It’s a bridge to the final book and nothing much more or less than that.
The Dark Tower is very good. It’s much better than Susannah in terms of its length, has some incredible writing and depth, so many emotional moments, and resolves many (but not all) plot points that were set up from the very beginning. I’d give it third place.
Keep in mind I actually love ALL the books for different reasons, and ranking the lower ones is often not based on their quality but rather how incredibly good the others are.
3 > 5 > 2 > 7 > 1 > 6
I know that the curve is located in the color space that goes from red to orange to white to blue, but why? I also understand that light that peaks in the green range appears white because of strong contributions from light on either end, but then why do we see blue light when the object is hot enough rather than a mixture of green and violet?
A little too coincidental that that bullet that surely should’ve killed Roland in Drawing happened to hit Mort’s lighter? It’s not cheap writing at all; it’s simply a story being told by a writer, so of course there’ll be plot armor! Roland nearly being killed by Dandelo with seemingly no way out? Why here you go - a note that warns you is right here in this stack of towels! Lol.
On another more introspective note, during my latest readthrough, I noticed how Detta’s name for Roland is The Really Bad Man which is interesting since John Farson was well-known as The Good Man. Do you think this is just a coincidence? While I don’t really see how Detta/Odetta could have possibly known about Farson during Drawing, it’s curious how Farson and Roland may be seen as opposites. One is the messenger of The White while the other is the messenger of The Red. Both are near mythical figures in the eyes of the opposing side due to their fearsome larger than life reputations. Both spend many years doing nothing except pushing toward their respective goals - Roland represents creation while Farson represents destruction. They became archenemies of each other after the events in Mejis.
I admit that this comparison might have been more apt if it were the Crimson King himself rather than Farson, but I was still intrigued by the Good Man/Bad Man nicknames.
I can sense the impending avalanche of downvotes, so please let me assure you that I absolutely LOVE King and have read many of his incredible books. I’ve been a member of this sub for a long time. My intention here is not to provoke incredulity or to disparage anyone’s favorite book. I just want to ask if anyone else has had the same experience.
I’m sure it’s amazing book, and I’ve read to around chapter 30. It’s very well-written, and the plot itself is quite enticing. My problem is that I’m just having trouble getting into the characters. I generally don’t like it when stories have several main characters and keep jumping from one to another in every chapter instead of directly continuing their journey in the next chapter. I find that this style of writing does two things: one, it makes it very hard to get into a new story because the characters and plot are spread out over many more pages than they otherwise would be, and two: when a chapter DOES start to get interesting, the narrative drops it suddenly and moves on to a completely different one which spoils the hook and desire to immediately see what happens.
I know The Stand is a favorite of many people on this sub, and I’m sure the story does eventually pay off. I’m just wondering if anyone else has had the same experience of disliking those excessive “jumps” in the plot.