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A review by ladyelfriede
The Gunslinger by Stephen King
4.25
The Void stares back.
Note: This is a multisectioned review. Jump to where you want, I ain’t a whistleblower.
________________________________
Spoiler-free Blurb:
A gunslinger is looking for a man in black to find the Dark Tower. Along the way, he meets people who impact the gunslinger with the curse of humanity. How he will survive is the reader’s guess.
________________________________
Characters and Terms:
You as You: You’re grilling chicken. Don’t ask, just go with it.
Gunslinger: Roland, the last gunslinger, chasing down the man in black for reasons relating to the Dark Tower
Dark Tower: A tower that the Gunslinger is trying to get in or find.
The Man in Black: Chased by Roland and causes misery in his wake.
Jake: The boi found by the Gunslinger.
________________________________
Reading “Gunslinger” is like….:
“You know there ain’t a lotta good in this world!
You help someone and they start screaming. Some start moaning, others start getting off on the idea that you can raise the dead!
But I’ll tell ya...getting stalked is another story entirely.
Yeah, roast them there chickens real nice and steady. Gotta lock in them juices.
Do you know how far it is to the nearest menagerie? Twenty days. Oh, you heard me right, darlin’.
It’s a cozy spot and I like to write my memoir there before I expire on this forsaken dirt.
Having someone follow you to your sanctuary...well...it can drive anyone mad.
You make sure that they get off your trail and your behind but no matter what you do, they keep crawlin’ back like sweet nectar to my bosom.
Now this man...is the last of his kind. I can’t say why that is, oh no, but I can say...he was the last that had any real balls to follow me. Me!
It’s like those Classical paintings of a time you have nostalgia for but never experienced. Picture this here, darlin'. A tale of a lone warrior after a man perpetuated as EVIL! The oil paint scraps out the harshness of the landscape and the sorrow of the knight. Hah.
That’s what this man has to deal with. A slow, agonizing, crawl.
Oh, I bet you wonder how much he will suffer. Cause y’all...that’ll be the. Best. Damn. Painting.”
A silence fills the air and you ask hesitantly:
“So...do you want a grilled Chik-fil-A Sandwich?”
“Yes, and give me here a side of frosty lemonade 'cause boy...We in for a cold ride.”
A little after closing time, you feel like death has veiled your face for the first time. Your boss comes in with her hands in her pockets and whispers,
“...Was it McConaughey?”
“No...something far worse. An actor still in his role.”
“Honey, you must be new here in Texas. He was not in a role. That was his true face...”
___________________________
Real Thoughts:
(I had to draw my inner Matthew McConaughey for that...even as a born and raised Texan, I can't get it right. But I can imagine him at a Chick-fil-A drive-through.
For those of you who don't know: McConaughey played the role of the man in black in the "Dark Tower" movie. Unrelated, but Idris Elba was Roland and because of that, these two gave me a real hell of a job imagining them onto these characters. Honestly, I think both of them fit their role to a T)
I think when I first read this book in 2017, I only lasted about a few pages before I dropped it. For good reason. I was not mentally in the right head space to read a book and, at the time, I thought reading came back naturally like riding a bike. Turns out, it’s more like doing a marathon, you have to train your body before you can tackle it.
It’s been a long while since I felt a book was truly Soulsbourne in nature. Is that here? Sorta, it’s adaring approach to it without King realizing what he was doing at the time.
So far, he strays far away from the usual medieval European tropes (besides there being a castle and an Order-like of gun-wielding knights). In the intro, he said this was inspired by “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” (love that film, everyone should watch it once). He wanted to create his own “popular novel epic” like LOTR. This was an interesting thought. I wonder if authors should try to make a challenge for themselves, write a one-shot, write a multi-novel epic, etc. It’d be interesting to see where people head and what ends up working for them.
With Vol 1. of the Dark Tower series, King was definitely in the right direction. I swear, he went into the wrong market of Horror and should have focused on Fantasy Horror for his career but hey, to each their own.
If you liked "Bloodborne" for the usage of guns and dark vibes, you might like this book, but the gunslinger is more inspired by the Wild West in the 1800s than Victorian Europe.
(spoiler) I didn’t care for the plot point about the prophecy and the witch in the stone circle. Felt cliched but uh...didn’t expect a rape there, wtf.
It feels like the beginning of something epic. I wanted to do a review just to understand my feelings on this book.
I won’t be doing reviews for every novel in the series until the last one where I wrap up the whole series. This won’t be finished in 2023, but most likely the next year as it seems like I'm finishing "Witcher" before 2024.
All that said, I do have questions if y’all can help me out.
Note: Do not tell me the answer if these questions get answered later in the series.
1. Are we supposed to know yet why there was a train terminal that was decayed and abandoned before getting to the waterfall with the train tracks?
2. What was the point of sacrificing the kid? Was it just for shits and giggles for Matthew McConaughey?
3. Where did Roland appear exactly at the Golgotha bowl with the man in black? Was it in another realm or is it the same world still just on top of a mountain?
4. Are we supposed to know already why Roland wanted to get to the Dark Tower or is it revealed later?
5. I know we got the jaw bone from a skeleton in a wall (I think) in the house where he found Jake but...why did Roland feel the jaw bone would protect Jake when he went to the stone circle? He took it from the decayed skeleton of the man in black but...I don’t get why he took it to begin with.
___________________________
Cover Art:
r/Fantasy - Review: "The Gunslinger" Vol 1. of "The Dark Tower" by Stephen King | Can I Eat the Rich Now, Mom?
The jacket design was done by Jonathan Bush and the illustration was done by Steven Stone.
Unbeknownst to me, but apparently, the logo of the Dark Tower is on the bottom right. And that was done by Mark Stutzman.
I loved this cover. Normally I don’t like the scenery being the cover, but it feels like it was done in a style I don’t mind too much.
You get the feel of the atmosphere you’re heading into this book. It was easier to imagine the surroundings, so in that way, maybe I don’t mind scenery as covers.
Either way, the artist uses warm colors of red, oranges, and yellows, juxtapositioned with the black of the tower, and the gunslinger using similar shades was just icing on this raw hamburger.
I can't tell what the logo has in the middle of the symbol. Flowers maybe? It will most likely be relevant as the series goes on.
An adequate grimdark cover that you can’t go wrong with using these colors.
Tags: (Spoilers)
High Fantasy, Fantasy SciFi Mashup, Cheating, Guns, Character Death, Violence, Gore, Light Eldritch, Child Death, Rape
Plot:
Without spoilers, the plot is quite straightforward. A gunslinger is following a man in black for information about the Dark Tower. Along the way, he encounters Jake and together they traverse this hellish landscape in search of their quarry.
Characters:
I think I have a soft spot for Geralt-like characters that act all gruff but have some humanity left in them. They're a little different than tsunderes where they're more playful to the character. In this case, you get a sense of warmth when you see a peak of humanity in an otherwise unapproachable, grim character.
Roland certainly has this particular baggage and, while he might not be the deepest character, you can still believe that he is real in this story which is enough.
The other side characters have their own tales and stories that I wish we got more time to spend on them but I don’t think that’s King’s style here as he focuses more on worldbuilding and his prose style (usually).
And the man in black is literally Matthew McConaughey but in a fantasy world, so take that as you will.
Pacing:
The pacing starts slow like you’re revving up an engine, it takes a hot second to get started, but once it gets started it’s hard to put down. We get exposition dumps occasionally to slow the pace down and these come in the form of flashbacks of Roland’s life. While it does take a hit on the pacing, in my opinion, these flashbacks were insightful however much of an exposition dump they were. Therefore, I don't feel like it impacted the pacing all that much.
Prose:
King shines with his prose as it is usually conversational. Because he tried to make a fantasy epic, however, he made it more flowery, but mixed in with his own style.
To those who never read King before, imagine going to a grocery store, picking up your usual bananas, and then things just go horribly wrong by being invaded by an eldritch horror race. Imagine it being copied and pasted in a book. That’s the best way I can describe it, but this isn’t bad. His prose is approachable and it doesn’t feel pretentious to an average reader and only sprinkles a handful of words that might not be known to someone. He can drawl on sometimes but that's just part of his style.
Vibe:
Deserts, guns, spooky mountains, abandoned towns, and malignant spirits roll around in this book. And mix in an order of gunslingers like we’re in Assasin’s Creed. Not a bad pick for Autumn!
Worldbuilding:
Worldbuilding is done within prose or dumped into exposition flashbacks.
The worldbuilding includes the past of Roland’s past and information about the realm we’re in. You get enough to feel immersed in it and feel like you’re just scratching the surface of something that could very well be great.
The method this book uses is also the Orderly Method – Worldbuilding info presented in chunks, if expanded on further in the series, can be its own separate book.
Fix It AU:
If I was in charge of editing this book:
Make the plot a little more complicated, and put more worldbuilding, but other than that...it seems like a solid start to a series, and I’ll continue to read it in the upcoming year!
So, Who Should Read This?
Read if you loved the Bloodborne aspect of pew-pewing with guns but also want something dark mixed in. It has a Soulsbourne atmosphere, but it’s hard to say if it sticks around in subsequent books.
You also want to read this if you want a story that feels like something bigger than yourself and a grilled Chick-fil-A sandwich.
4.2/5
Note: This is a multisectioned review. Jump to where you want, I ain’t a whistleblower.
________________________________
Spoiler-free Blurb:
A gunslinger is looking for a man in black to find the Dark Tower. Along the way, he meets people who impact the gunslinger with the curse of humanity. How he will survive is the reader’s guess.
________________________________
Characters and Terms:
You as You: You’re grilling chicken. Don’t ask, just go with it.
Gunslinger: Roland, the last gunslinger, chasing down the man in black for reasons relating to the Dark Tower
Dark Tower: A tower that the Gunslinger is trying to get in or find.
The Man in Black: Chased by Roland and causes misery in his wake.
Jake: The boi found by the Gunslinger.
________________________________
Reading “Gunslinger” is like….:
“You know there ain’t a lotta good in this world!
You help someone and they start screaming. Some start moaning, others start getting off on the idea that you can raise the dead!
But I’ll tell ya...getting stalked is another story entirely.
Yeah, roast them there chickens real nice and steady. Gotta lock in them juices.
Do you know how far it is to the nearest menagerie? Twenty days. Oh, you heard me right, darlin’.
It’s a cozy spot and I like to write my memoir there before I expire on this forsaken dirt.
Having someone follow you to your sanctuary...well...it can drive anyone mad.
You make sure that they get off your trail and your behind but no matter what you do, they keep crawlin’ back like sweet nectar to my bosom.
Now this man...is the last of his kind. I can’t say why that is, oh no, but I can say...he was the last that had any real balls to follow me. Me!
It’s like those Classical paintings of a time you have nostalgia for but never experienced. Picture this here, darlin'. A tale of a lone warrior after a man perpetuated as EVIL! The oil paint scraps out the harshness of the landscape and the sorrow of the knight. Hah.
That’s what this man has to deal with. A slow, agonizing, crawl.
Oh, I bet you wonder how much he will suffer. Cause y’all...that’ll be the. Best. Damn. Painting.”
A silence fills the air and you ask hesitantly:
“So...do you want a grilled Chik-fil-A Sandwich?”
“Yes, and give me here a side of frosty lemonade 'cause boy...We in for a cold ride.”
A little after closing time, you feel like death has veiled your face for the first time. Your boss comes in with her hands in her pockets and whispers,
“...Was it McConaughey?”
“No...something far worse. An actor still in his role.”
“Honey, you must be new here in Texas. He was not in a role. That was his true face...”
___________________________
Real Thoughts:
(I had to draw my inner Matthew McConaughey for that...even as a born and raised Texan, I can't get it right. But I can imagine him at a Chick-fil-A drive-through.
For those of you who don't know: McConaughey played the role of the man in black in the "Dark Tower" movie. Unrelated, but Idris Elba was Roland and because of that, these two gave me a real hell of a job imagining them onto these characters. Honestly, I think both of them fit their role to a T)
I think when I first read this book in 2017, I only lasted about a few pages before I dropped it. For good reason. I was not mentally in the right head space to read a book and, at the time, I thought reading came back naturally like riding a bike. Turns out, it’s more like doing a marathon, you have to train your body before you can tackle it.
It’s been a long while since I felt a book was truly Soulsbourne in nature. Is that here? Sorta, it’s adaring approach to it without King realizing what he was doing at the time.
So far, he strays far away from the usual medieval European tropes (besides there being a castle and an Order-like of gun-wielding knights). In the intro, he said this was inspired by “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” (love that film, everyone should watch it once). He wanted to create his own “popular novel epic” like LOTR. This was an interesting thought. I wonder if authors should try to make a challenge for themselves, write a one-shot, write a multi-novel epic, etc. It’d be interesting to see where people head and what ends up working for them.
With Vol 1. of the Dark Tower series, King was definitely in the right direction. I swear, he went into the wrong market of Horror and should have focused on Fantasy Horror for his career but hey, to each their own.
If you liked "Bloodborne" for the usage of guns and dark vibes, you might like this book, but the gunslinger is more inspired by the Wild West in the 1800s than Victorian Europe.
(spoiler) I didn’t care for the plot point about the prophecy and the witch in the stone circle. Felt cliched but uh...didn’t expect a rape there, wtf.
It feels like the beginning of something epic. I wanted to do a review just to understand my feelings on this book.
I won’t be doing reviews for every novel in the series until the last one where I wrap up the whole series. This won’t be finished in 2023, but most likely the next year as it seems like I'm finishing "Witcher" before 2024.
All that said, I do have questions if y’all can help me out.
Note: Do not tell me the answer if these questions get answered later in the series.
1. Are we supposed to know yet why there was a train terminal that was decayed and abandoned before getting to the waterfall with the train tracks?
2. What was the point of sacrificing the kid? Was it just for shits and giggles for Matthew McConaughey?
3. Where did Roland appear exactly at the Golgotha bowl with the man in black? Was it in another realm or is it the same world still just on top of a mountain?
4. Are we supposed to know already why Roland wanted to get to the Dark Tower or is it revealed later?
5. I know we got the jaw bone from a skeleton in a wall (I think) in the house where he found Jake but...why did Roland feel the jaw bone would protect Jake when he went to the stone circle? He took it from the decayed skeleton of the man in black but...I don’t get why he took it to begin with.
___________________________
Cover Art:
r/Fantasy - Review: "The Gunslinger" Vol 1. of "The Dark Tower" by Stephen King | Can I Eat the Rich Now, Mom?
The jacket design was done by Jonathan Bush and the illustration was done by Steven Stone.
Unbeknownst to me, but apparently, the logo of the Dark Tower is on the bottom right. And that was done by Mark Stutzman.
I loved this cover. Normally I don’t like the scenery being the cover, but it feels like it was done in a style I don’t mind too much.
You get the feel of the atmosphere you’re heading into this book. It was easier to imagine the surroundings, so in that way, maybe I don’t mind scenery as covers.
Either way, the artist uses warm colors of red, oranges, and yellows, juxtapositioned with the black of the tower, and the gunslinger using similar shades was just icing on this raw hamburger.
I can't tell what the logo has in the middle of the symbol. Flowers maybe? It will most likely be relevant as the series goes on.
An adequate grimdark cover that you can’t go wrong with using these colors.
Tags: (Spoilers)
High Fantasy, Fantasy SciFi Mashup, Cheating, Guns, Character Death, Violence, Gore, Light Eldritch, Child Death, Rape
Plot:
Without spoilers, the plot is quite straightforward. A gunslinger is following a man in black for information about the Dark Tower. Along the way, he encounters Jake and together they traverse this hellish landscape in search of their quarry.
Characters:
I think I have a soft spot for Geralt-like characters that act all gruff but have some humanity left in them. They're a little different than tsunderes where they're more playful to the character. In this case, you get a sense of warmth when you see a peak of humanity in an otherwise unapproachable, grim character.
Roland certainly has this particular baggage and, while he might not be the deepest character, you can still believe that he is real in this story which is enough.
The other side characters have their own tales and stories that I wish we got more time to spend on them but I don’t think that’s King’s style here as he focuses more on worldbuilding and his prose style (usually).
And the man in black is literally Matthew McConaughey but in a fantasy world, so take that as you will.
Pacing:
The pacing starts slow like you’re revving up an engine, it takes a hot second to get started, but once it gets started it’s hard to put down. We get exposition dumps occasionally to slow the pace down and these come in the form of flashbacks of Roland’s life. While it does take a hit on the pacing, in my opinion, these flashbacks were insightful however much of an exposition dump they were. Therefore, I don't feel like it impacted the pacing all that much.
Prose:
King shines with his prose as it is usually conversational. Because he tried to make a fantasy epic, however, he made it more flowery, but mixed in with his own style.
To those who never read King before, imagine going to a grocery store, picking up your usual bananas, and then things just go horribly wrong by being invaded by an eldritch horror race. Imagine it being copied and pasted in a book. That’s the best way I can describe it, but this isn’t bad. His prose is approachable and it doesn’t feel pretentious to an average reader and only sprinkles a handful of words that might not be known to someone. He can drawl on sometimes but that's just part of his style.
Vibe:
Deserts, guns, spooky mountains, abandoned towns, and malignant spirits roll around in this book. And mix in an order of gunslingers like we’re in Assasin’s Creed. Not a bad pick for Autumn!
Worldbuilding:
Worldbuilding is done within prose or dumped into exposition flashbacks.
The worldbuilding includes the past of Roland’s past and information about the realm we’re in. You get enough to feel immersed in it and feel like you’re just scratching the surface of something that could very well be great.
The method this book uses is also the Orderly Method – Worldbuilding info presented in chunks, if expanded on further in the series, can be its own separate book.
Fix It AU:
If I was in charge of editing this book:
Make the plot a little more complicated, and put more worldbuilding, but other than that...it seems like a solid start to a series, and I’ll continue to read it in the upcoming year!
So, Who Should Read This?
Read if you loved the Bloodborne aspect of pew-pewing with guns but also want something dark mixed in. It has a Soulsbourne atmosphere, but it’s hard to say if it sticks around in subsequent books.
You also want to read this if you want a story that feels like something bigger than yourself and a grilled Chick-fil-A sandwich.
4.2/5