The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger

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Possibly Stephen King's most compelling book of all time.

There are usually three reactions people have when Stephen King is mentioned. I love him. I hate him. And I like the movies based off his books, but I can't stand the books themselves. Whichever way you roll, you do have to admit that he's one of the most famous and successful writers of our day. He's often called the Master of Horror, however, very few of his books can actually be classified as being part of the horror genre. Oh, he does have his straight up horror novels, but the majority of his work is misclassified because his reputation is for horror, and that's what sells his books, regardless of whether or not they actually fit into that genre. He has stated in many an interview that he is a science fiction and fantasy fan, and has always wanted to write a grand fantasy epic to rival the Lord of the Rings. And if you look at them, most of his books are really more science fiction, fantasy, and thriller, rather than horror That is where The Dark Tower series comes in. He had an idea for the beginning of such a grand epic story, and he wrote it in high school. It was titled The Gunslinger and it is the first book that he ever wrote. It was published in a literary magazine, and later re-written and published as book one of The Dark Tower series once he'd gotten his foot in the door of the publishing world. The Dark Tower series as a whole has taken him decades to complete, oftentimes he would set it aside for years because he was basically making it up as he went along and couldn't think of anything to happen next. It was not until the famous accident when he was run over while jogging near his home in Maine that he realized he came inches away from dying and didn't want to snuff it before finishing his epic. It spurred him to get the final three books out within a couple years of each other and finish the series off. The Gunslinger begins with Roland, a Gunslinger, who is something like an Arthurian Knight if he were to have grown up in the old west rather t...