June 2011's SK Flavor of the Month - The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands

Sorry this is late. I'm vacationing in Arizona for the week and drove up to Vegas today.

Anyway, this month is The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands. This is going to be a new one for me. I liked The Drawing of the Three more than I expected, so fingers crossed!

I won't be able to start this one till next week. When I was packing, I threw in a stack of books, but forgot to add the SK book to it.

I am hoping to get this one read. I have to scour the libraries and see if they have it.

Read it, loved it. What a journey these books are, savor them!

Read this one, didn't like it as much as The Drawing of the Three.

Reading it now and loving it. Just got to the part about the Bear. Had forgotten that story and thought it was great. Also Roland's mental paradox concerning Jake is great to follow. So far, so good.

I'm *just* starting now. The last book I read was awful and I dragged through it.

Read King's Argument last night, then had to hit the hay. After reading through a subpar book, it was nice to be back in the hands of a master craftsman (even if it is a Dark Tower book).

I'm about 50/60 pages in. Eddie and Susannah just had the run-in with the bear.

I loved the little plaque they found and the oblique mention of Richard Adams. The whole thing is so surreal, it makes me wonder how carefully King planned the Dark tower story out and how much of it was seat of his pants, gut instinct storytelling.

I think a lot of King's stuff is made up on the fly and then woven in to the story so that they don't feel like spontaneous invention. I think that's one of his strengths as a writer.

I've read a bit further (Jake just bought the books). My anniversary was this weekend. That plus father's day cut in to my so I didn't get as much reading done as I hoped.

I loved The Manhattan Restaurant of the Mind. A bookstore that is too good to be true. I was wondering if that was a real place (doubtful) or one which King made up. I did some googling and wound up accidentally reading some spoilers.

Overall, I love the writing and am interested in the story. But The Dark Tower is just never going to be my favorite Stephen King stuff. I do get the feeling that it was a universe he would use to blow off steam or play with ideas which were too unbelievable in his regular work. So much of it is surreal or feels like a literary in-joke (naming the bear Shardik, having him built by North Central Positronics Ltd., the connections to King's own books).

Well, I just finished 'Book 1'. Jake is back.

The encounter with the Doorkeeper is one of the most memorable things I've read. I'd love to see that on a movie screen sometime (looks like that might happen.

But... something has been bugging me the last couple of hundred pages. Bringing Jake back... it's incredible storytelling. I don't think that Annie Wilkes would think it was a cheat or anything.

But doesn't it sort of lessen the sacrifice made in The Gunslinger? Cheapen it somehow? I dunno. I wonder if the decision to bump off Jake was made by an earlier King and the decision to ressurect him was made by an older, softer King.

I remember an interview with Steven Spielberg where he was discussing the ending of Close Encounters. How it showed it was made by a younger man. That if he made that movie now, he could never have the protagonist abandon his family like that.

I wonder if King was feeling something like that as he wrote The Waste Lands.

I just this moment finished the book. Such a cliffhanger!

The ending makes me want to go pull The Hobbit off the shelf.

Recently read The Running Man. I was told it was like The Hunger games or The Maze Runner but the only thing they have in common is the running for your life thing. It was a terrific book although I got really grossed out with the airplane scene.

I just finished The Waste Lands and very much enjoyed it. It was a little slow to me at first but the last third or so more than made up for it.

>9 jseger9000: jseger, I don't know that Jake being brought back necessarily lessens the impact of his death in The Gunslinger, although you do make a good point. I am, however, nervous for all of their well-beings from here on out. There's been some foreshadowing from Roland about how he doesn't know that he'll be able to keep them all alive on this dangerous quest, which doesn't bode well. Also, I really like Oy. And I'm really hoping that nothing bad happens to him...

#12 - I like Oy as well, but oh man, I hope King is careful with him. I'd hate to see him become the Jar Jar Binks of The Dark Tower. Then again, he is an animal in a Stephen King book. My money is on him not living long enough to see the tower. King is tough on animals, isn't he?

>13 jseger9000: Very true. I just flashed on poor Peter from The Tommyknockers. (Was that his name? Peter?) I can't say I have high hopes...

I'm still shuffling along. It's not grabbing me. I'm to the point where Jake wrote his paper for school and fears that he is losing his mind. I'll keep plugging away at it.

I'm starting to get into it! Roland and the group have just finished their palaver.

I started to get intrigued by the story and it was over. Darn

The Drawing of the Three is my favorite so far. Waste Lands was very good, but I personally don't like when books in a series end in cliffhanger. I feel each book should be complete.