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Thursday, April 16, 2009

Tu est une grande peeparollo

Right after reading Stephen King’s The Gunslinger, I didn’t know what to expect of his Dark Tower saga. As I already told you here, I found the first book on the series rather, well, disjointed. I tried very hard to like it, I really did, but its 336 pages felt to me like a trip through the desert. Which is more or less what the story itself was about.

Anyway, it was because of Finn5fel’s continuous praising of the saga that I didn’t even think of leaving it there. He kept telling me that the first one was the weakest book of the lot, that the complete adventures of Roland were actually nothing sort of amazing. Why shouldn’t I give then the next volume a try? We’re talking about Stephen King here. His most acclaimed saga can’t be so bad.

Or can it?

Obviously, it can not. I read the second book, and I got so enthusiastic about it that I really had to restrain myself from picking up the third volume from the shelf right away. Even though it’s almost five hundred pages long, The Drawing of the Three gets read in just a blink. And that is because of its compelling characters, the extreme situations they are faced with, and a gripping tension that kept me turning page after page in manic frenzy. High quality fiction on the part of Stephen King is what we’re dealing here with. And this time he made me care deeply for the characters, so it really didn’t bother me, like it was the case with the first book, that things were just happening without an apparent reason. Between you and me, that’s simply a fancy way to say that this story is really, really weird. In fact, it may well be the weirdest story I’ve ever read.

But it definitely is one well worth it.

3 comments:

Mario Alba said...

Well, I'm glad you liked it. I think you'll enjoy The Wastelands too :)

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I'd be surprised if it didn't turn out to be as good as TDOTT. About the story itself, I for sure don't know what to expect. I suppose Roland & Co. won't even get a glimpse at the Tower, because... well, four books remaining. Will the man in black reappear? Will there be lobstrosities? Will our three heroes (two cripples and a guy in withdrawal)... will they spend +400 pages walking and talking?

Mario Alba said...

Well, there will be lots of walking and talking, I'll tell you that right now. (It's kind of like Lord of the Rings, heehee.)

Regarding when (or if) they'll get to the Dark Tower, you said it yourself: still plenty of books left.

And as for your other questions, you'll just have to follow our heroes' adventures ("two cripples and a guy in withdrawal", hahaha) to see what happens next :)