Book review: The Dark Tower series by Stephen King

"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed."

So begins what was perhaps the most epic literary experience that I have ever digested.  For those not in the know, 'The Dark Tower' is a fantasy/western/sci-fi/horror series by Stephen King, which he considers to be his magnum opus.  Over the past year and finishing today, I have read through the entire series, which is comprised of 8 books and 4,250 pages!!!  Along with Roland, the main character, I have journeyed all the way from a remote desert to the top of the tower, and after peering inside the utmost room can say that it was a journey worth taking.  Since this series was largely inspired by Clint Eastwood's westerns, I thought it would be fun to briefly recount 'The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly' concerning the Dark Tower series.  Some (minor) spoilers ahead for those who have not yet read it!


THE GOOD:
1) Original.  I mean, come on, how many books can truly claim to be a fantasy/western/horror/sci-fi adventure, dealing with everything from philosophy to man-eating spiders?  I can honestly say I have never read anything like this series before, and for the most part that was a good thing.
2) Epic.  Most of the books in this series gave an unprecedented sense of scale and peril to the proceedings.  Particularly in the best books (rankings to follow), there was a sense of mystery and certain doom lurking around every corner.  You never quite knew what danger was around the bend, but somehow it was (almost) always logical how the characters got out of these sticky situations.
3) Roland.  The main character was difficult to like, especially at first, but it was interesting to see his increasingly humanized side as he formed his crew over the course of the series.  Perhaps even more fascinating was watching him gradually return back to his hardened, loner self near the end as the quest for the Tower once again took away much of what was making him human again.
4) Oy.  Not quite a dog, Oy was an animal called a Bumbler who had the loveable ability to mimic back people's conversation.  What raised Oy above the grade of a mere parrot was his ability to genuinely understand the importance of what he was saying.  I was surprised to find, by the end of the final book, that I felt more connected to Oy than any of the human characters, and the end of his story was genuinely moving.
5) Ka.  A primary theme in the series was 'Ka', which was their word for 'fate'.  Perhaps more than any other work I have read, this book investigated all the ups and down with the notion of fate.  Is it right to chalk something up to fate that was a selfish action?   Or should one take responsibility for one's own choices?  Is this even possible, do we have free will?  All of these questions were explored, particularly in the fascinating ending which I will not ruin here.

THE BAD:

1) Uneven.  When I was watching a documentary on the works of Beethoven, there was an intriguing analysis by a musicologist on Beethoven's famous 9th symphony.  This scholar was essentially saying that because Beethoven's work was so completely original and unprecedented, it was extremely uneven in tone and execution (dare he even say it: flawed!).  His point was not that the 9th symphony was bad, of course it was brilliant.  His point was that when anyone breaks completely new ground and invents a fundamentally new paradigm, that almost by definition it must be flawed and uneven because there is nothing to compare it to for a quality check.  I felt that same way about this series, it's biggest strength was its profound originality but this also resulted in a lot of inconsistency. Some examples to follow below.
2) Pacing.  Some books were gripping and tense all the way through, but most were way too bloated for the amount of actual plot they contained.  Books 4-6, I'm looking at you!
3) Rules.  A key necessity for any fantasy series is that there is a consistent set of rules governing the fantasy universe.  Otherwise, there's sort of a sense that "anything goes", which ruins the sense of peril and believability of the universe.  This was a huge problem here.  It seemed like there were any number of ways that magical events could occur or parallel universes could do funny things, but it was so random that it often ruined the world's sense of reality.
 4) Villains.  What a missed opportunity!!!  The main villains: Walter, Marten, and the Crimson King, are entirely underdeveloped, one-dimensional, and curiously almost entirely absent from any actual proceedings despite playing crucial roles in the story.

THE UGLY:

Stephen King's imagination.  A warning for the squeamish: there is some truly gross stuff in this series!  I have been told it's not as bad as his straight-up horror books, which I have never read, but yeah there is some dark and messed up crap.  I can definitely tell he has some repressed daddy issues, that's for sure.


THE RANKING:

As I mentioned, there were 8 books, here is my final ranking from best to worst:

1) Book 7 - The Dark Tower
2) Book 2 - The Drawing of the Three
3) Book 3 - The Waste Lands
4) Book 4 - Wizard and Glass
5) Book 1 - The Gunslinger
6) Book 5 - Wolves of the Calla
7) Book 4.5 - The Wind Through the Keyhole
8) Book 6 - The Song of Susannah (yuck, what a mess!)