"The Dark Tower" Series, Any Fans?

I actually really like Eyes of the Dragon. Completely different (at the time) for King. It's cool how Eyes of the Dragon intercepts with the Dark Tower too.

 

He wrote that as a fairy tale for one of his kids...

 

I guess it wasn't my favorite since I read a lot of the fantasy type books as a kid. He just doesn't have the knack for them like some other writers do. Im amazed how many stories are in there you don't even know about.

 

Finished The Wind Through the Keyhole only about 300 pages...

I was very unimpressed.

 

Didn't know you were a big DT fan Homer!!!

The weird part about TWTTK...I had no clue this book was coming out, none. About a month before the book came out I suddenly got the urge to read the series, never read all 7 back to back. Then I started this thead, found out about the book and thought it to much coincidence that I felt the urge to journey with Olan, Ed, Suze and AKE!!!!. Ka is a wheel after all, isin't it?

Almost done with TWTTK, I'll have an entire opinion when I'm done. I can't say that I'm that unhappy at the moment. It's just been nice to read Rolands story again. The first person narrative of Roland has been a little odd in this one though. I'm a sucker for a bumbler.

Wizard and Glass...me and one of my wife's friends used to get into heated arguments over that book. This same friend travelled to New York or something when DTVII came out to get Kings autograph on the book.

Not to long ago, I was trying to even put some DT stuff on my truck. Had 2 vinyls, one of The Eye and another of KA. I put The Eye on my truck, but it looked way to chick-ish, so it came back off. I never put the KA vinyl on, still have it.

Never, never has any book/series got my eyes all watery like The Dark Tower. Poor Jake, Poor Oy. Maybe they are my favorites since I was but a youngin' when I really picked up Book 1 and read of a boy, Jake, not much younger than I was at that point.

 

To use a phrase a fellow reader reminded me of,Long days and pleasant nights my friends !!

I just finished WTTKH about a week ago ( I pre-ordered it for my Kindle )and while not truly adding anything to the story it was great to travel once again into Roland's world and catch up with old friends. I think that anyone who hasn't read sai King's other tales loses something from the Dark Tower series.A bit of nostalgia and a feeling that all things truly DO serve the Tower.

 

I guess I'm gonna have to bite the bullet and read it. Fathers day coming up next month, that'll be a good present for the wife to get me. She's always complaining everything I put on my list is truck related

 

Great quote from Roland in your sig and welcome to our little palaver!

Personally, I've always been afraid of a screen version of DT. It just wouldn't be done right. Maybe I'm to set in the way it plays in my head.

Anyone else seen a member on TW named "BigCoffinHunter"...another reader???

My interwebz is fracking up. Getting storms lately. Couldn't post early this morning.

 

It was not bad... Just not what I was hoping for.

I want the whole story of Jericho Hill...

 

Not at all what I wanted to hear

 

SPOILER - DONT READ BELOW IF YOU HAVENT READ THE WHOLE SERIES


























The first time I read DT through, I was commuting to work on the bus.

When I got to the part when Jake died and Roland was burying him in the woods, I was literally crying my ass off. People on the bus were looking at me as if I had the plague.

 

As have most of us.

But I am interested in seeing what Ron Howard can do. Especially since this is the first adaptation that King has personal interest in, and will be advising on.

Last I heard it was going to be a trilogy with a mini-series between movies #2 and #3. NBC was slated to carry the mini-series but I can't imagine how it can be on network TV.

I hope AMC or another cable network with less censorship picks up the mini-series.

 

Me too.

Goosebumps just reading your post about it....

The DT series is undoubtably my favorite literary collection. The Wind Through The Keyhole was not a bad story at all, just not what I had hoped for/expected.
I would really like closure on the fall of Gilead.

 

Finished Wind/Keyhole. All in all, just felt good to read a little of Rolands story that was new. I liked the book in all as well. It was short, sweet and to the point. All three aspects of the story got me back in. I enjoyed the story or Tim Stoutheart in general. I enjoyed the carnage of the skin-man, even though being told from Rolands POV was a little odd.

I'm with you on the still wanting more. There are many side-stories I would love to read. Shemmies full journey from Meijs to Gilead and his story until he met Roland again in Devar-Toi. What about the "Tet Corp"? Even King himself eluded to their's was a story for another day. You bring a good few as well Homer, Jericho Hill, the Fall of Gilead.

It would be fun to think about a short-story book from King in the future that covered those topics.

 

Interestingly, I'm re-reading the series right now. Currently near the start of the Waste Lands.

First read the books about 10 years back, in high school, up through Wizard and Glass. That was the most current one published at the time. The other three have come since, and you had best believe I purchased each, in hardcover, the day they came out.

I don't think the series gets the recognition it should; there's so much to it it's very hard to digest with even a decade of consideration...on one hand it's just an entertaining sci-fi/fantasy series. From another perspective, it encompasses, somewhere, a metaphor for just about every experience you can have in life. I appreciate King's versatility in this series; few authors can cover as much ground as he did without losing coherence. But then, he's noted more than once he didn't write this story so much as transcribe it. And that itself is an interesting thought.

Re: OP's dislike for Wizard and Glass: I find that odd. I would argue the 4th book is the strongest in the series. It does the most to define who Roland was, why, and what happened to his world before the others were drawn.

It certainly doesn't read like a romance novel, and King does a great job of capturing just how mind addling teenage infatuation and lust is. Do you think Roland in his adult incarnation would've missed the conspiracy unfolding around him? This was the one time since he became a gunslinger that he let tunnel vision take over. It bit him arguably as hard as anything ever could, and it explains the cold calculus of his personality every day since. Even during the drawing he knew he would sacrifice his companions if he had to. Is it not obvious he insulates that last echelon of connection to others because it was the only vulnerability that ever made him pay dearly?

Don't hold your breath. King's point with holding back on these details in the series itself (and he mentioned this many times in author's notes and arguments) is that imagination is more powerful than specifics, and that process is more valuable than destination.

In other words, he recognizes that leaving Jericho Hill and the like to our minds provides a better result than he could write.

This really isn't ideal. Unfortunately, to do it right I think you'd need at least 5 movies. Books one and two, owing to their short length, could be combined. Books 3 and 4 need their own individual movies, especially 4. Books 5 and 6 could again be combined as they both cover a fairly short time period in extensive detail. Book 7 obviously needs its own film.

This is the same reason it's an issue for movie studios. It was a major financial commitment to do the Lord of the Rings, and that was just three books/movies. Five is going to be that much more of a risk, and frankly the Dark Tower doesn't have the brand recognition LotR has.

I could live with that. JJ Abrams makes good movies.

No thanks. Nothing Ron Howard has ever done has impressed me.


My first choice for director would be Ridley Scott, because his visual style is what this series needs (and, this just being my opinion, he's the best director in the history of film). If Ridley didn't want in, I could go for either Paul Thomas Anderson's honest filmmaking style or Peter Jackson's new found taste for epics.

 

Thats why I said it'd be fun to think about.

I have since changed my views on W&G, a tad, since re-reading the series. I'll get into it more later, busy, busy.

 

Earlier in the thread I said W&G is the best novel of the series, IMO.

Without getting into it, all I'll say is when Roland, Cuthbert and Alain broke their cover and ambushed The Big Coffin Hunters and Roland stands up in his saddle and screams, "TO ME GUNSLINGERS!!! TO ME!! KILL THEM ALL!!!" (I know I butchered that - it's been awhile) my nipples got hard and the air on my arms were standing up

I hear ya.

I'd do Book 4 as movie #1

Books 2 and 3 as movie #2

Books 5 and 6 as movie #3

Book 7 as movie #4

Abrams sold the rights. I never heard of him before reading about him buying the adaptation rights for $19... heard he was a huge DT fan, so I was excited. But then I saw some of his works and think he would be awful.

In terms of adaptations, I thought The DaVinci Code was well done. Whoever casted Hanks needs to be shot.

Great choices

 

Leave out the first book entirely?

I prefer the idea of leaving the books in chronological order. Let some mystery build around Roland and his world before exposition. I feel it works better than way.

Super 8? The Star Trek reboot? Producer of Lost and Cloverfield? I like his originality in some endeavors and I like the detail he's put into his more conventional stuff. I like the guy.

The Da Vinci Code was a shitty movie based on a shitty book.

I don't actively dislike Ron Howard, his stuff has just always seemed so generic.

 

I like you more... (no homo)

 

Wowzer. lol... missed that one.

Also a good idea

Obviously this is all subjective, but I didn't like any of those. The Star Trek reboot was so awful IMO. I've never seen Lost but for the most part Abrams is too much CGI and not enough substance.

Obviously this is all subjective.

I loved the novel and thought the adaptation was pretty good.

I don't actively dislike Ron Howard, his stuff has just always seemed so generic.[/QUOTE]

I really liked A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13, Willow, Splash, Frost/Nixon, Arrested Development.


How do you feel about the rumor that Javier Bardem has been casted as Roland?