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Posted 2005-07-10, 01:47 AM
in reply to Lenny's post starting "What are the Dark Tower books about??"
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Here's the jist of it:
Roland is the last Gunslinger in the world. The Gunslingers of Roland's world were, in the past, seen as both the lawmen and rulers of the kingdoms they served. When a gunslinger sires a child, the child is trained from birth in the ways of killing and survival. They are honed into perfect physical vessels, made into superhuman combatants, strategists and leaders through decades of rigorous conditioning.
Since Roland was a teenager, he has been on a quest to find the Dark Tower, an unfathomably large structure that serves as the linchpin that holds all reality together. He seeks the Tower because, for the last several hundred years, it has been dying. The Tower's strength has been fading, causing the boundaries between all reality to warp and thin. Should the Tower fall, all creation falls with it.
Since beginning his quest, Roland has witnessed the demise of the entire Gunslinger order, so that at this point, he is the only one left. Now, decades after his search began, he has found his first major trail towards the Tower. He is hunting The Man In Black, and upon capturing him, will do whatever it takes to learn the path to the Tower and the path to the salvation of all reality.
Basically, it's Lord of the Rings meets The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. It's a really cool mishmash of medieval fantasy and bloody western themes, with a lot of philosophical flavoring spread over it. The first book won't knock you on your ass, most likely. However, give it until you finish the second book before you decide whether to continue the series or not. The first book, The Gunslinger, is pretty short (only about 200 pages), but it's a pretty entertaining read. The second book, The Drawing of the Three, is where the story really begins to pick up. Read at least that far before you make a judgment.
To pimp the books as much as possible, I can say it's undeniably my favorite series ever. I've read through the first four books probably three times each, which is more than any other collection of works I've ever read. Rarely do I ever read anything more than once.
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