The Gunslinger by Stephen King
The Gunslinger by Stephen King, book #1 of The Dark Tower series.
Introduction
This book starts with one of the most iconic first lines from any novel. “The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.” The protagonist is in pursuit of the antagonist which promises action. The words gun and desert suggest a western. The word black suggests something sinister. All these images appear from just twelve words.
Summary
The gunslinger walks the desert coming upon a homesteader Brown and his raven Zoltan. He stays for the night and remembers what happened to him in the town of Tull. The gunslinger meets Alice and later Jake in his pursuit of the man in black. He follows the man in black, searching for revenge which may end up destroying his own humanity.
In the first chapter, the gunslinger meets Alice. She has a sad and doomed arc that felt right. I am not sure what I should think about Roland, the gunslinger. He debates good and evil in his head but doesn’t seem sympathetic to me. I suppose that is the way that King wants me to feel about him.
I read the 2003 rewritten version of the novel. That is the cover inserted above the introduction. I compared it to the earlier 1982 version through this website https://web.archive.org/web/20071225081733/http://www.thedarktower.net/gunslinger/, but found the changes to be minimal.
Recommendation
For me, the book seemed to set up for a climax that never happened. I liked the stories about Alice and Jake. I found Roland’s backstory in the third chapter to be interesting. The fourth chapter was a dull travelogue, but then we get to the last chapter. I wanted a thematic close to the story, but that did not happen. What is there is a trippy and metaphysical non-ending. What a disappointment. I see from King’s afterward that he used this story to set up the novels that follow and I get that, but I was hoping for a good ending that would make me want to read the next book. I don’t feel that way.
Links
This is the link to the Goodreads page of The Gunslinger by Stephen King.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43615.The_Gunslinger
My review of Promise of Blood by Brian McClellan a book like The Gunslinger. They are both fantasy novels focusing on the protagonist’s use of guns. Adamat, Tamas, and Taniel fight gods and men in this gunpowder fantasy.