The Gunslinger

I've been wanting to read The Dark Tower series for a long time and I picked up the first three in the series from my local second hand bookshop.

The opening of the Gunslinger is great. It sets the scene really well, although throughout the book, I found myself questioning whether the story took place in the past, the future, or an alternate universe. I'm not new to the works of Stephen King, so I had to keep telling myself “stop questioning, everything will be answered”. Also I had to remind myself that The Gunslinger is the first of an eight part series and all questions would be answered in due course.

Much like all previous Stephen King novels I've read, I was hooked from the get go. His writing is just amazing and gets better throughout this novel. He gives us the main goal of the gunslinger straight away - find the man in black, as he has answers to the gunslingers questions.

I don't really know what I expected with The Gunslinger to be honest but as with every other King novel, it didn't disappoint. It had just the right amount of action for a fantasy novel, just the right amount of fantasy, and just the right amount of background into the two main characters of this book - Roland (the gunslinger) and Jake, a young boy Roland meets along the way.

I loved the ending of this book. It set up the scene for the next in the series and gave us enough to want more.

Roland's character was well developed and throughout the book, I was rooting of him. There was one part towards the end though where I disliked his actions. But his journey is to find the Dark Tower and nothing is going to stop him from getting there.

All in all, The Gunslinger was a great start to what I'm sure is going to be an amazing series of books. I'm really excited to see what King has in store for Roland and if he can complete his journey.