The Gunslinger

by Stephen King

Paperback, 224 pages

English language

Published Sept. 14, 1988 by New American Library.

ISBN:: 978-0-452-26134-1
OCLC Number:: 781900910

(260 reviews)

Since the publication of THE GUNSLINGER in an exclusive limited edition, this extraordinary novel has gained near-legendary renown. Now finally, this Plume edition, complete with the Michael Whelan illustrations, brings the work to the author's millions of fans.

This heroic fantasy is set in a world of ominous landscape and macabre menace that is a dark mirror of our own. A spellbinding tale of good versus evil, it features one of Stephen King’s most powerful creations—The Gunslinger, a haunting figure who embodies the qualities of the lone hero through the ages, from ancient myth to frontier western legend. His pursuit of The Man in Black, his liaison with the sexually ravenous Alice, his friendship with the kid from Earth called Jake, are part of a drama that is both grippingly realistic and eerily dreamlike, an alchemy of storytelling sorcery.

Complete in itself, THE GUNSLINGER is the first novel in an …

Complete in itself, THE GUNSLINGER is the first novel in an epic series, THE DARK TOWER, that promises to be Stephen King's crowning achievement. (back cover)

90 editions

Taylor Drew reviewed The Gunslinger by Stephen King (The Dark Tower, #1)

So much casual misogyny

3 stars

This is the first Stephen King story I've ever tried to read, so I don't know if that was a mistake or not, but I found the narrative somewhat messy until the later half of the book. This may or may not have been intentional, but it does seem worth mentioning.

My real issue though is the degree to which misogynistic descriptions and uses of women are so prevalent throughout the story. Product of its time and whatever, but it was still an unexpected and rather unwelcome surprise. I commented about this elsewhere, but this book has really strong "the woman's boobs boobed boobily" energy in addition to lesions of sexual assault, etc. Not great honestly.

That being said, the last third of the book kept me interested enough that I do want to keep reading and find out where Roland goes next. Less misogyny would be great, but I'm …

That being said, the last third of the book kept me interested enough that I do want to keep reading and find out where Roland goes next. Less misogyny would be great, but I'm not keeping my hopes up.

ghost with books 👻📚 reviewed The Gunslinger by Stephen King (The Dark Tower, #1)

Not the most exciting of beginnings

3 stars

This book feels like a prologue to The Drawing of the Three and the epic to follow. I'll be honest: I'm not certain readers would be missing much if they skipped The Gunslinger entirely and relied solely on "The Argument" at the beginning of The Drawing of the Three to catch them up 🤷‍♂️

Parenthesis_Liker reviewed The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger by Stephen King (The Dark Tower I)

Review of 'The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

I definitely enjoyed this book, but it is also definitely the start of a saga. Throughout the whole novel there's so, so many hints of a larger world, and bursts of rapid-fire world building. The world King is creating is strange and intriguing enough that I want to continue with this series just to see how deep the rabbit hole goes. There are also a fair few Stephen King-isms in here, to be sure, though I'm told not as many as the later entries. Really, it's a matter of how much you can tolerate the particular style. I'm writing this a long time after I read it so I apologize for the vagueness.

Lars SGS reviewed The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger by Stephen King (The Dark Tower, #1)

Gjensyn

5 stars

Fra den første gangen jeg leste The Gunslinger, husket jeg den som en røff bok, åpenbart skrevet av en nittenåring, upolert og uerfaren.

Jeg husket feil. Kanskje ble jeg farget av forordet til King, hvor han forteller om å være nitten år og uerfaren, men med store drømmer. Kanskje fulgte jeg ikke godt nok med mens jeg leste. Kanskje trengte jeg å lese boka på nytt med en viss kjennskap til personene, verdenen og historien. Kanskje (sannsynligvis) er det alt dette.

Det er noe med The Dark Towers sykliske og drømmeaktige struktur som treffer meg, og som treffer meg spesielt godt fordi det er så mye informasjon i denne boka jeg husker fra senere, men ikke herfra. Ordene og setningene jeg for syv år siden husket som et løfte om noe større som kommer, slår meg nå ned i støvlene med en massivitet og en styrke, og selv om jeg …

Fra den første gangen jeg leste The Gunslinger, husket jeg den som en røff bok, åpenbart skrevet av en nittenåring, upolert og uerfaren.

Helvete, så bra denne boka er. Helvete som jeg gleder meg til hvert sekund av resten.

KingCrimson reviewed The Dark Tower I by Stephen King

Review of 'The Dark Tower I' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Slow for the first half, but picks up its pace in due time. Written very much like poetry.

Sad what happened to Jake, but cant help but feel we'll see more of him later on.

Onto the Drawing of The Three!

Comtief reviewed The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower, Book 1) by Stephen King (Dark Tower (1))

Review of 'The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower, Book 1)' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

I simply could not follow the character stories at all, even though I listened to the book 1.5 times (kept losing focus). Had to read the summary of the book to understand what was going on (and even by reading the summary I still could not remember hearing any of that at all). Maybe I just have attention deficit problem or something but I just get so lost in these long winded descriptions in the book.

Anthony Burgess reviewed The Gunslinger by Stephen King (The Dark Tower, #1)

I don't get why people like this

2 stars

People say this is a good book and series but I can't agree to that. It's just chaotic and doesn't make any sense, the writing seems overly dramatic and "flowery", meaning he describes things so weird, with weird details and weird metaphors. I couldn't even read it to the end and stopped at like 80 or 90%. I have no interest in reading the other novels in the series, it's just not my type of writing I guess. I never liked any Stephen King books until this one and I read a bunch now. It's not getting any better, maybe I should just give up on trying to like his writing.

Hilo reviewed The Gunslinger by Stephen King (The Dark Tower, #1)

Review of 'The Gunslinger' on 'Goodreads'

No rating

Wow, lange nicht mehr ein so abgedrehtes aber interessantes Buch gelesen. Manchmal schien es mega klischeehaft, dann kommt eine Überraschung nach der anderen.

Graham Downs reviewed The Gunslinger by Stephen King (The Dark Tower, #1)

Review of 'The Gunslinger' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Hmm, three stars? Four stars? Three stars? Four stars? What to do... what to do?

Well, it wasn't anything like I expected, put it that way. But then again, my only REAL exposure to The Dark Tower was that Idris Elba movie. Whom I see every time I picture The Gunslinger.

But the book's nothing like the movie. At least, the FIRST book is nothing like the movie. I think the whole of the first book probably fits into, maybe, the first 30 seconds of the movie.

It's very "stream-of-consciousness". Especially in the beginning. There are times when I skimmed, or when my eyes just glazed over. Which is a bad thing, because this is the kind of book where you really have to pay attention. Towards the end, it starts to come together, and I felt myself being drawn in, and actually starting to care about the characters.

In …

MaddestMax reviewed The Gunslinger by Stephen King (The Dark Tower, #1)

Review of 'The Gunslinger' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

I've heard so many rave reviews about this over the years, I was prepared to dislike it. The reality is, it's one of my favorite King novels so far. It's the perfect use of his very descriptive style. It's a quick and enthralling read. A wonderful setup for what I imagine will be a sprawling take. I really enjoyed it and look forward to the next in the series.

tivasyk reviewed Gunslinger by Stephen King

Review of 'Gunslinger' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

well... as much as i usually enjoy the way king can tell a story... i am totally disappointed by the gunslinger: the world just did not come alive. it's like several well-formed characters just occupied part of some formless void. so unlike king =( most probably i'll just skip the series to save time for something more interesting.

kursis reviewed The gunslinger by Stephen King (The dark tower -- 1)

Review of 'The gunslinger' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

A pleasant read no doubt, but I expected more. Although it rated as an avarage read to me, the story an the philosophy of this mistic world intrigued me a lot. I might change me mind when I'll re-read the book, but for now I'm quite excited to see how this story will continue

Baltipink reviewed The Dark Tower I by Stephen King

Review of 'The Dark Tower I' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

In the intro King says that the series is really one long book broken up and it definitely feels like I read the very beginning of a story. It wasn't exactly a page turner. Sometimes it felt like he wrote the book after the first time he did mushrooms and was still like totally enthralled with his amazingly deep (ahem) change of consciousness. But I'm curious where it is going and it was good enough to keep it up for a couple more books.

Lord of Candy reviewed The Gunslinger by Stephen King (The Dark Tower, #1)

Review of 'The Gunslinger' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

What a neat tale from a man who knows the human psychology so well. I'm usually not much of a King fan. Not because of his writing but because I have enough stress in my life I don't need the added burden of the fictional variety. However, when I saw there was a movie out and it had this fantasy-gunslinger twist. I decided I'd like to read the real story first. Little did I know I was about to embark upon the deep water of a series.

Reading the reviews many people just get confused. You don't know everything, things aren't spelled out for you, there are puzzles and unknowns that not even the characters know. A magic without form, insanity beyond reason, a world spoiled and some devilish weirdness abounds all set in something kind of normal to our past west or future dystopia west maybe. Regardless after a few years of reading science-fiction that is sometimes mind-bending hard to follow without careful consideration, The Gunslinger is an easy walk down a myriad of psychological fractures, freaks, and mysticism.

This journey is not the beginning but many leagues down it. There is much to uncover and learn. Only a dry dessert and some strange and many times decrepit adventures await Roland, his memories, and acquaintances.

Unruly Stacks reviewed The Gunslinger by Stephen King (The Dark Tower, #1)

Review of 'The Gunslinger' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

This book, and the series it starts, have been a part of the public consciousness for a while now. I've never read any of them before, though, so with this being my first time through, I'm aware of how highly it's regarded by some whose opinions matter to me. All of which has led to a certain degree of expectation...and I'm not sure if this book met it.

To be clear: There's a strong sense from this book that there's SO MUCH MORE to come, and you don't (or I didn't) come away feeling ambivalent about the journey. I'm excited, I'm in. I'm just...nervous, maybe? No, more likely cautious.