THE DARK TOWER: A Stephen King Story For Non-Stephen King Fans

So you don’t read much Stephen King because horror is not a genre that interests you. That’s fine. I haven’t read much of that stuff, either. Well, guess what? THE DARK TOWER is not horror, but it is one fantastic series. If you’ve never read King before but you do like fantasy, then I would recommend this seven-volume series.

It’s hard to describe. It’s part Spaghetti Western, part Lord of the Rings and part meta-fiction, blurring the lines between fictional worlds and our real world. What if I told you this series had Cowboys living in castles in a world where “Hey Jude” may be heard on the piano. In this world is a murderous passenger train that loves riddle contests. The heroes are drawn from the timestream from different points in our own history and in their quest to do nothing less than save all Existence, they encounter creatures or situations that recall everything from The Wizard of Oz to Marvel Comics. And what if I said the entire saga weaves in and around all of King’s previous work, revealing that all of his stories are actually connected, but without requiring you to be familiar with his previous work?

And then I told you that despite how disparate and surreal all that sounds, that it actually works. Would you be interested? You should be. I’m only about three-quarters of the way through the fifth book of the series, but I can already recommend this because of the extremely unique nature of the story.

King plays with the very nature of reality and often sends the reader on a head-trip as he examines a universe that contains our world and many others. These worlds connect in many ways and show that nothing is ever a coincidence. It’s a world where something as simple as a flower growing in a vacant lot could be a sure sign the Universe is about to die.

I’m not finished with the series yet, but everyone I know who has read it says that the ending is awesome. They payoff at the end of the last book is completely worth it. From what I’m able to decipher from the first five books is that King is giving us an examination of the importance of Storytelling. By that, I mean the shared knowledge all members of a culture have due to Stories told and passed down.

Stephen King has a word in the Dark Tower series to describe this abstract idea of common, unspoken, shared knowledge amongst a group of people. The word is khef. You’ll need to read the books to fully understand khef, but it seems clear to me that it is a concept King really believes. This theme of the Power of Storytelling allows him to bring in elements from stories we already know (such as The Wizard of Oz), and the connection to his previous novels expands this theme both internally (within the story told) and externally (providing a Real World example for his readers by the very nature of having this series published).

It’s really just amazing and unlike anything else I’ve ever read. If you don’t like horror, but you do like fantasy then you are missing out if you skip this series. The first book in the series is The Gunslinger. Get yourself a copy and enjoy the ride.