I just finished a seventeen year journey through Stephen King’s imagination. It actually took King much longer to write his … what is it? Opus? Ben would know. In fact, he used a Latin word to describe what the seven-novel Dark Tower series is to King’s career. Magna-something, I think.
Back to my point: King started writing the first Dark Tower novel in the 1970’s, and completed the seventh and final in 2004. I read the first book as a sophomore in high school, and I’ll always associate that reading with Carlos, who shared my affection for the book. It was one of few, and perhaps the first of King’s non-horror novels. Not that the series is devoid of horror. At seven full-size (and a few over-sized) novels, there are few fictional sub-genres left untouched, and horror is expectedly not one of them.
Well, I am not going to critique the novel, or even use it as an excuse for not blogging. It’s just on my mind a lot these last few days as I just finished reading the book. And what else is a blog for, if not just this sort of thing? Anyhow, critique or no critique, the novels were really excellent. The ending was not a shock, but still a surprise. And it was a fantastic ending: it answered many questions, but in doing so, created many more questions.
I have to thank Ben for encouraging me to pick the series up again some months ago. He’s right here, actually. There, I just told him.
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