Review: The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower, #1)

The Gunslinger - Stephen King

Needs more knock-knock jokes. Considering this books ends with three doors and the next one starts with these three doors, knock-knock jokes are the way to go. The only risk to taking this route is that it might actually liven up the slow (read: DOA) pacing. And, man, does the pacing know how to drag the reader along as though a rotting carcass.

 

One star for the descriptive setting and another star for the last 50 pages. No stars for characters or any "development" that should have happened at key points during events leading up to the three doors.

 

This book was too harsh and barren. There weren't enough moments of rollicking fun. I kid, of course. Not all fun needs to be rollicking, especially not in a Wild West type series, but any sense of fun would do. This book, however, did not have enough fun moments to break up the dragged-along feeling I got as a reader... not until the last few chapters, but by then, I'd already been dragged across the dessert and left rotting somewhere along the way.