Yashima reviewed The Gunslinger by Stephen King (The Dark Tower, #1)
Review of 'The gunslinger' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
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.
