The Dark Tower (1982-2004)

Author: Stephen King

"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed"

The Dark Tower Series is an epic that nobody should miss. Composed of 7 books, the series tells the adventure of the protagonist - Roland of Gilead, the Last Gunslinger from the midpoint of his journey to the Dark Tower to end.

From the first book to the seventh, King never ceased to add mystery to the already enigmatic Roland, and to the Dark Tower which he wished to reach. The Dark Tower Series is not the average King novels - though King's talent to write horrifying and gruesome events is still ever present. It is spell-binding, not because it is an entertaining thing to read (like most of King's works), but because it is engulfed with imagination too far out to be thought of, but still too vivid that you crave to understand them. In the end, the reader is satisfied because the story did not SIMPLY end - and King intelligently pointed that out at every book of the story.

The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger (1982)

In the first book of this brilliant series, 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 his
desolate world, which frighteningly mirrors our own, Roland pursues The Man in
Black, encounters an alluring woman named Alice, and begins a friendship with
the Kid from Earth called Jake.

The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three (1987)

The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three is the second volume in Stephen
King's remarkable cycle of the Dark Tower, inspired in part by the Robert
Browning narrative poem. The first volume, The Dark Tower, The Gunslinger,
relates how Roland, the last gunslinger in a world that has "moved on," pursues
and eventually catches up with the sorcerer known as the man in black. It is a
tale of science-fantasy that is unlike any tale that Stephen King has ever
written. The second installment on the long and difficult path to the Dark Tower
commences less than seven hours later. The man in black is dead, and The Dark
Tower II: The Drawing of the Three picks up the thread of Roland's odyssey upon
a deserted beach of the Western Sea in that strange other-world that is so
like--and yet so unlike--our own. Before he can find a doorway to sanctuary in
our world, the gunslinger is savagely torn by weird creatures out of that
meancing sea.

The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands (1991)

The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands follows The Gunslinger and The Drawing of
the Three as the third volume in this remarkable series, which well may be the
most extraordinary and most imaginative cycle of tales in the English language.
Inspired in part by Robert Browning's narrative poem, Stephen King has written
once again of his twenty-year affair with The Dark Tower and its strange world
that is both so familiar and unfamiliar to us. Writing of his masterwork, King
reveals that he is ". . .still able to find Roland's world when I set my wits to
it, and it still holds me in thrall. . .more, in many ways, than any of the
other worlds I have wandered in my imagination." The first volume in the cycle,
The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger, tells of the haunting, mysterious character of
Roland of Gilead, the last gunslinger, in a world that has "moved on." A second
volume, The Drawing of the Three, picks up Roland's quest upon a deserted beach
of the Western Sea. In The Waste Lands, we are joined with old acquaintances:
the boy Jake who has been introduced in The Gunslinger, along with Eddie Dean
and Susannah, who are so prominently featured in The Drawing of the Three.
Roland's strange odyssey continues. There are new evils. . .new dangers to
threaten Roland's little band in the devastated city of Lud and the surrounding
waste lands, as well as horrific confrontations with Blaine the Mono, the
piratical Gasher, and the frightening Tick-Tock Man.

The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass (1997)

"YES," Blaine said at last. "I AGREE IF I SOLVE ALL THE RIDDLES YOU ASK ME, I
WILL TAKE YOU WITH ME TO THE PLACE WHERE THE PATH ENDS IN THE CLEARING. IF ONE
OF YOU TELLS A RIDDLE I CANNOT SOLVE, I WILL SPARE YOUR LIVES AND LEAVE YOU IN
TOPEKA, FROM WHENCE YOU MAY CONTINUE YOUR QUEST FOR THE DARK TOWER, IF YOU SO
CHOOSE. HAVE I UNDERSTOOD THE TERMS AND LIMITS OF YOUR PROPOSAL CORRECTLY,
ROLAND SON OF STEVEN?" "Yes." There was a moment of silence, broken only by the
hard steady throb of the slo-trans turbines bearing them on across the waste
lands, bearing them along the Path of the Beam toward Topeka, where Mid-World
ended and End World began. "SO," cried the voice of Blaine. "CAST YOUR NETS,
WANDERERS! TRY ME WITH YOUR QUESTIONS, AND LET THE CONTEST BEGIN."

The Dark Tower V: The Wolves of the Calla (2003)

Roland Deschain and his ka-tet are bearing southeast through the forests of
Mid-World, the almost timeless landscape that seems to stretch from the wreckage
of civility that defined Roland's youth to the crimson chaos that seems the
future's only promise. Readers of Stephen King's epic series know Roland well,
or as well as this enigmatic hero can be known. They also know the companions
who have been drawn to his quest for the DarkTower: Eddie Dean and his wife,
Susannah; Jake Chambers, the boy who has come twice through the doorway of death
into Roland's world; and Oy, the Billy-Bumbler. In this long-awaited fifth novel
in the saga, their path takes them to the outskirts of Calla Bryn Sturgis, a
tranquil valley community of farmers and ranchers on Mid-World's borderlands.
Beyond the town, the rocky ground rises toward the hulking darkness of
Thunderclap, the source of a terrible affliction that is slowly stealing the
community's soul. One of the town's residents is Pere Callahan, a ruined priest
who, like Susannah, Eddie, and Jake, passed through one of the portals that lead
both into and out of Roland's world. As Father Callahan tells the ka-tet the
astonishing story of what happened following his shamed departure from Maine in
1977, his connection to the Dark Tower becomes clear, as does the danger facing
a single red rose in a vacant lot off Second Avenue in midtown Manhattan. For
Calla Bryn Sturgis, danger gathers in the east like a storm cloud. The Wolves of
Thunderclap and their unspeakable depredation are coming. To resist them is to
risk all, but these are odds the gunslingers are used to, and they can give the
Calla-folken both courage and cunning. Their guns, however, will not be enough.

The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah (2004)

The next-to-last novel in Stephen King's seven-volume magnum opus, Song of
Susannah is at once a book of revelation, a fascinating key to the unfolding
mystery of the Dark Tower, and a fast-paced story of double-barreled suspense.
To give birth to her "chap," demon-mother Mia has usurped the body of Susannah
Dean and used the power of Black Thirteen to transport to New York City in the
summer of 1999. The city is strange to Susannah . . . and terrifying to the
"daughter of none" who shares her body and mind. Saving the Tower depends not
only on rescuing Susannah but also on securing the vacant lot Calvin Tower owns
before he loses it to the Sombra Corporation. Enlisting the aid of Manni
senders, the remaining ka-tet climbs to the Doorway Cave . . . and discovers
that magic has its own mind. It falls to the boy, the billy bumbler, and the
fallen priest to find Susannah-Mia, who in a struggle to cope -- with each other
and with an alien environment -- "go todash" to Castle Discordia on the border
of End-World. In that forsaken place, Mia reveals her origins, her purpose, and
her fierce desire to mother whatever creature the two of them have carried to
term. Eddie and Roland, meanwhile, tumble into western Maine in the summer of
1977, a world that should be idyllic but isn't. For one thing, it is real, and
the bullets are flying. For another, it is inhabited by the author of a novel
called 'Salem's Lot, awriter who turns out to be as shocked by them as they are
by him.

The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower (2004)

All good things must come to an end, Constant Reader, and not even Stephen King
can make a story that goes on forever. The tale of Roland Deschain's relentless
quest for the Dark Tower has, the author fears, sorely tried the patience of
those who have followed it from its earliest chapters. But attend to it a little
longer, if it pleases you, for this volume is the last, and often the last
things are best. Roland's ka-tet remains intact, though scattered over wheres
and whens. Susannah-Mia has been carried from the Dixie Pig (in the summer of
1999) to a birthing room--really a chamber of horrors--in Thunderclap's Fedic;
Jake and Father Callahan, with Oy between them, have entered the restaurant on
Lex and Sixty-first with weapons drawn, little knowing how numerous and noxious
are their foes. Roland and Eddie are with John Cullum in Maine, in 1977, looking
for the site on Turtleback Lane where "walk-ins" have been often seen. They want
desperately to get back to the others, to Susannah especially, and yet they have
come to realize that the world they need to escape is the only one that matters.

The Little Sisters of Eluria (1998)
Set on the time Roland was following the Man in Black (Walter), before he reached Tull, our hero encounters a village ravaged by green folks (mutants). He was taken into safety by nuns who called themselves The Little Sisters of Eluria. However, the longer Roland stays there to heal, the more he reconsiders that The Little Sisters of Eluria are more of the cause than redemption of the damned village.