|
| |  | Sports | Home » » » The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower (King, Stephen) (v. 7) | | | | | | | Description: | | Set in a world of extraordinary circumstances, filled with stunning visual imagery and unforgettable characters, The Dark Tower series is unlike anything you have ever read. The final book opens like a door to the uttermost reaches of Stephen King's imagination. You've come this far. Come a little farther. Come all the way. The sound you hear may be the slamming of the door behind you. Welcome to The Dark Tower. | | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Stephen King | | Hardcover:
| 864 pages | | Publisher:
| Donald M. Grant/Scribner | | Publication Date:
| September 21, 2004 | | Package Length:
| 9.1 inches | | Package Width:
| 6.5 inches | | Package Height:
| 2.4 inches | | Package Weight:
| 3.05 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 736 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.
 Not bad, not greatNov 08, 2009
(Spoilers lie within)
The latter half of the book is much stronger than the first, in my opinion; it seems that when it really started picking up was when characters started dying and forcing the remaining characters to interact more fully. Not to say that the first half was devoid of interest; it's just that they all sort of felt like characters that had been introduced so thoroughly in the previous novels that not much effort was expended to prop up their likability, which was a bit difficult to come back to after taking a break from the series.
For instance it was bizarre to find that Prentiss and Finli, a human and a weasel-headed taheen respectively, were the far more interesting and identifiable options during that part of the novel, which is sort of not what I was supposed to feel, I think, given that, yeah, their work was sort of evil and "that bastard" killed Eddie, but then again they were only management and bringing about the end of reality is a lot more abstract and easy-to-ignore than actually torturing and killing people. I found that I wanted to keep reading about their unconventional friendship, and their bemusement over the behavior of the can-toi. So it was understandably jarring when suddenly Roland and the lot burst in and started shooting everybody and burning the place to the ground, and suddenly Prentiss and Finli were the bad guys who were evil evil bastards and that horrible Prentiss guy killed Eddie when all they did was ruin everything he had, fatally wound him, and kill his best friend, who from what all we saw was a pretty decent taheen.
However, it ended much better, in part, yes, due to characters being killed off and King having to reassess his character interactions. There are the usual gruesome things you'd find in a Stephen King novel but since during the latter half of the book there really aren't that many people, he has fewer subjects to slaughter horribly and the people killed by the main characters have pretty swift endings anyway. His tendency to periodically point out to non-Christian people how inconsequential and not-with-the-picture they are is especially present in this book, going beyond the "you must be this Christian to live" theme of some of his other books and finding excuses to randomly ejaculate "say Gawd!" and "say Gawd-bomb!" more often than is really necessary, and it might just be that I'm jaded but I sort of get the impression that audience members are supposed to be prompted to raise their own fist and give a yell of triumphant faithful solidarity at these moments. He almost patches this up with occasionally referring to "Gan" instead, and some smaller deities, but you still leave with the very C.S. Lewis sense that he's nonetheless talking about Christian mythology.
ANYWAYS, yes, the ending does justify the long read; the defeat of the Crimson King is just barely weird and campy enough to work, there's almost a sense of a happy ending for Susannah and the rest of the tet whom we saw killed in the books, although since they're actually other-world versions of the characters and not the characters themselves it doesn't really change the fact that they died, and also they don't remember what happened anyway, and what Roland does finally find in the Tower raises the question of whether it actually matters at all in the end. Still, there is that: Roland does find something in the Tower, and it's not anticlimatic.
I won't spoil this one for you though, even if you never read it; as King says in the afterword, the joy is in the journey, not the destination, and in an interpretation of this I will gamely be spoiled for just about anything and not be much bothered by it because I'm more interested in the how than the what. This is one case, however, where I do not agree, contrary to his ramblings--like the ending revelation of Sixth Sense and the fact that in Bioshock Atlas is actually Fontaine and has been manipulating your Ryan-clone genetic programming the whole time (lol spoiler alert), this is a surprise that, while it might give a few tiny details more meaning in the initial read if known already, is really better left unknown; after all, you spend seven books on a journey to find out what's in the top room of the Dark Tower. Sure, you'd probably still enjoy most of the read, but where's the suspense?
 A good ending to a great seriesOct 03, 2009
7 books and worth the entire read. I just wish it didn't have to end.
1 of 2 found the following review helpful:
 Disspointing and DetachedSep 26, 2009
This one has potential for some readers to enjoy. Un-emotional and cheap death for our friends we've been following for so long. And endng that is laughable at it's attempt to be epic. A cheap and unaproachable ending to a series with so much promise and so little follow through. Stop reading after book 4 and you will be more satisfied.
Good finish to a weird tale!Sep 22, 2009
This is a must read if you are a fan of the Dark Tower series. If not I feel sorry for you. Or maybe I should feel sorry for myself, you still can start from the beginning and enjoy this wondrous trip. I do want to comment on some of the previous comments, many people are missing a key point. Some of the less satisfying plot resolutions make sense as they are written since the epic quest is to save a world gone 'kinky'. Weird things happen in a weird world, and when the world accelerates, so does the weirdness. All in all, I was happy with the book and think it fits nicely at the end of the series.
0 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 Decent read, but obviously rushed and ultimately disappointingSep 17, 2009
I, as most other constant readers were, was pulled into the series by the first four books of the series, which in my opinion were very well done. It was obvious that King was putting more thought into the story back then. Unfortunately, although the fifth volume was decent, it seems the last 3 books were very hastily done. King uses excuses such as 'simply letting my hand write a story that already exists,' and it's almost as if he didn't go back and read it through to realize just how sloppy and random the story ended up being. (SPOILERS) It's not just the lazy ending; every hyped-up showdown with main villains ends up being extremely anticlimactic, and main characters that were developed so well in the first books end up being killed by non-important characters instead. How did Mordred kill Walter using his mind control powers and then forget he had them afterwards? And I was very frustrated by SK's character's importance in the last 2 books. King says that he doesn't like endings in his intro to the coda, and I understand that it's hard not to disappoint a lot of people with an ending to such an epic series, but seriously? Maybe he hates endings because he's so bad at writing them. Or maybe he just gets off on his constant readers getting upset at his twisted lackluster endings. I'm not impressed. (spoilers end)
I'll say this to people who haven't read the series yet: King recommends readers in VII not to continue into the garbage coda and pretend that the story is over because he knows the ending sucks and no one will like it...I would instead recommend readers to stop after book IV and pretend the story is over, because most of what follows ruined the series for me. I think I would be much happier without knowledge of the sloppy and arbitrary second half of the series.
| | |
Huge Savings!
|  | | Look out for the Open Box Items and Grab'em before they're gone! |
|
