The opening chapter in the epic Dark Tower series. Roland, the last gunslinger, in a world where time has moved on, pursues his nemesis, The Man in Black, across a desert. Roland's ultimate goal is the Dark Tower, the nexus of all universes. This mysterious icon's power is failing, threatening everything in existence.
The five stories that constitute the novel were originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction:
"The Gunslinger" (October 1978)
"The Way Station" (April 1980)
"The Oracle and the Mountains" (February 1981)
"The Slow Mutants" (July 1981)
"The Gunslinger and the Dark Man" (November 1981)
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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.
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.
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 leser den reviderte 2003-utgaven, er det ufattelig at mesteparten ble skrevet av en jypling.
Helvete, så bra denne boka er. Helvete som jeg gleder meg til hvert sekund av resten.
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.
Wow, lange nicht mehr ein so abgedrehtes aber interessantes Buch gelesen. Manchmal schien es mega klischeehaft, dann kommt eine Überraschung nach der anderen.
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 …
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 the one hand, the person who wrote this is not the Stephen King I've come to know and love. On the other, he's EXACTLY the Stephen King I've come to know and love.
This is a difficult book to pin down. I guess I'll read one more instalment. Just to see.
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.
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.
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
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.
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 …
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.
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.
July 5, 2016 With the exception of [b:The Hobbit|5907|The Hobbit|J.R.R. Tolkien|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1372847500s/5907.jpg|1540236] and [b:The Lord of the Rings|33|The Lord of the Rings (The Lord of the Rings, #1-3)|J.R.R. Tolkien|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1411114164s/33.jpg|3462456], and possibly the Narnia books and [b:The Bridge to Terabithia|2839|Bridge to Terabithia|Katherine Paterson|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327880087s/2839.jpg|2237401], I've re-read this book more than any other. I'm re-reading this time, of course, in anticipation of the movie starring Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey.
Although the book hints at things to come, one of the things I like so much about The Gunslinger is that it is a standalone story. It hints at a before and an after, giving a taste of each without going into the insane amount of detail that bogs down later books. The plot is simple – the man in black flees, and the gunslinger follows – and straightforward, but the narrative is complex nonetheless, with flashbacks and diversions that help flesh …
July 5, 2016 With the exception of [b:The Hobbit|5907|The Hobbit|J.R.R. Tolkien|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1372847500s/5907.jpg|1540236] and [b:The Lord of the Rings|33|The Lord of the Rings (The Lord of the Rings, #1-3)|J.R.R. Tolkien|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1411114164s/33.jpg|3462456], and possibly the Narnia books and [b:The Bridge to Terabithia|2839|Bridge to Terabithia|Katherine Paterson|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327880087s/2839.jpg|2237401], I've re-read this book more than any other. I'm re-reading this time, of course, in anticipation of the movie starring Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey.
Although the book hints at things to come, one of the things I like so much about The Gunslinger is that it is a standalone story. It hints at a before and an after, giving a taste of each without going into the insane amount of detail that bogs down later books. The plot is simple – the man in black flees, and the gunslinger follows – and straightforward, but the narrative is complex nonetheless, with flashbacks and diversions that help flesh out character and motivations of both Roland and Walter.
One thing I did this time through that I haven't done before was to read a summary of changes King made for the "revised and expanded" version that came out in 2003. (I have only ever read the original version in the form of a Plume trade paperback from 1988.) I am generally okay with revised and expanded versions of books, if it makes sense to do them – for example, I enjoyed the longer version of [b:The Stand|149267|The Stand|Stephen King|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1213131305s/149267.jpg|1742269] – but I generally think that in such situations, they should be made as unobtrusively as possible in service to the original story. So, for example, I know that King changed the direction in which Roland chased the man in black in several places, adjusting it to a southeast direction (from south, or at one point southwest) to follow the path of the beam, which is something that becomes important in later books – and apparently was not something that had occurred to King when he wrote the original story. He also adjusted ages and time periods, making Jake a little bit older and Roland (and his pursuit of Walter) much older. There are also some cultural changes, like the townie painting "reap charms" rather than "zodiac signs" on the whore's legs or changing a reference to Summer to Full Earth.
However, some of the changes that he apparently made, according to the comparison I found, seem unnecessary and/or heavy handed from a foreshadowing perspective. Is it really necessary to mention that billy-bumblers bones are part of the golgotha? Or to give Susan's last name? Or to mention that the pump at the way station is made by North Central Positronics? None of these things are part of the original story, and they don't need to be. I'm not even sure it was necessary to make it clearer that Walter and Marten are the same person. They're useless bits of information, even taking into account the longer series as a whole. It's King waving his hands to his fans and saying, "Hey guys, see what I did there?!"
But to return to the book I actually read, I still quite like the original story, even if it turns out that some of it is incompatible with the later books. There's just something about the idea of strapping on a pair of revolvers with sandalwood grips and chasing after an evil magician that I find appealing. Still.
--- Oct. 28, 2008 This book was my introduction to Stephen King, and I became an immediate fan. From the words "The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed"--a sentence that contains volumes worth of foreshadowing--to whatever the closing line is, I was sucked in all the way.
One of the great qualities of this book is its clarity. Later Dark Tower volumes became gratuitously expansive, as King became less concerned with refining the story and focusing on Roland Deschain's primary purpose of finding the Dark Tower. But The Gunslinger is about as tight as a story can be without snapping in two. King gives us just enough back-story to give us a taste of how messed up both the gunslinger and his prey really are, without going into the obscene amount of detail that becomes his fault later in the series.
The Gunslinger is definitely one of the most enjoyable books I've ever read.
I really wanted to like this book. More. But I didn't. Initially I enjoyed the writing. But as the story went on, I failed to empathize with the gunslinger. He remained a distant, not very sympathetic character throughout the book. And he's basically the only character in this book. The man in black is nothing but a shapeless figure at the horizon, the others are just decoration, except maybe for the boy, but that illusion is taken from the reader all too soon.
And it's not that I don't enjoy gritty settings, but this one overdid it for me. This is one of those distant-future, after-the-apocalypse scenarios, where man-kind has lost nearly all technology. Some of the "magic" remains however. But even in the gunslinger's own time things seem on a steady downward slope. The setting feels nearly as depressing as Cormac's The Road or the Covenant chronicles.
My biggest …
I really wanted to like this book. More. But I didn't. Initially I enjoyed the writing. But as the story went on, I failed to empathize with the gunslinger. He remained a distant, not very sympathetic character throughout the book. And he's basically the only character in this book. The man in black is nothing but a shapeless figure at the horizon, the others are just decoration, except maybe for the boy, but that illusion is taken from the reader all too soon.
And it's not that I don't enjoy gritty settings, but this one overdid it for me. This is one of those distant-future, after-the-apocalypse scenarios, where man-kind has lost nearly all technology. Some of the "magic" remains however. But even in the gunslinger's own time things seem on a steady downward slope. The setting feels nearly as depressing as Cormac's The Road or the Covenant chronicles.
My biggest gripe is with the convoluted structure of the plot. The reader encounters the gunslinger as he his trudging through the desert. At that point half the plot of this first book has already happened. One is thrown right into the middle of his hunt after the man in black. Never in that book is his motivation for hunting down the man made clear, he's just doing it. The tower isn't explained either. Nothing ever really gets explained. This may be fine for a short-story and that's what I feel this grew out of.
I can live with the author keeping secrets from me. But here every small fact takes forever to come out. Everything is backwards. Before a piece of the story is told there have to be at least three mentions of it that give little to no clue about what happened and are mainly placed there to confuse the reader. I spent all the time wondering what had been going on before, rarely interested in what was going on right then. I am fine with a few flashbacks. But not this. This may be what makes him great as a writer of horror but it completely fails for me.
I may read the second book yet, because first books in a long series sometimes have trouble to get the plot going. But since character and setting also fail for me, the chances are slim.
PS: apparently I am not the only one with doubts about this first book, people are saying the series gets better later.
I didn't seem to enjoy this book at all. I kept waiting for some semblance of a storyline till the end, but i'm still waiting. Overall the saving grace of the book was its short length. And i think this book is more like a foreword into the world of the dark tower, all introduction, less substance. Infact the preface by King, even urges the readers to stick around for other parts in the series, because it gets better apparently! So i shall give the next few ones a try, but meanwhile i need to get rid of the aftertaste with some genre of light humour.
