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Post by newt5996 on Jul 26, 2019 23:34:13 GMT
So over the last week in addition to my usual Doctor Who reading I've been reading my dad's copies of The Dark Tower, managing to power through the first three books within a week and being about 1/4 of the way through the fourth...because I've been a bit too busy this week to read. It's great but it reads like it was written on drugs...which I then realized when it was published and who the author was so put two and two together. So to the forum which I adore give me your opinions.
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Post by Digi on Jul 26, 2019 23:44:33 GMT
Small tip: after completing the main series, King went back and wrote a 'book 4.5' called The Wind Through the Keyhole.
While it doesn't really add anything to the overall narrative, I appreciate slotting it in between books 4 and 5 because the tone/content of the series really changes dramatically in book 5, and at least for me, I found that Wind Through the Keyhole was a good tonal bridge that make the change feel less abrupt. If books 1-4 are black and 5-8 are white, Wind Through the Keyhole is grey. Again though it's really just tonal, the story of Keyhole has no bearing on the main series at all, so you won't miss anything if you decide to skip it.
Anyway -- I'm a fan of King in general, but I absolutely love the Dark Tower series. Each of the books is so different in the stories they tell, while at the same time adding so much to the expanding story. There's something wonderful in each of the books IMO. My personal favourites are books 1 and 4. 1, for the incredible worldbuilding and hints of past and future; and 4, because it's just such a beautiful and tragic story.
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Post by Hieronymus on Jul 26, 2019 23:46:35 GMT
As of now, I have read the first five volumes, and found them all to be great storytelling. The first volume was slightly harder to follow, but that may result from the fact the it was written in pieces that were later assembled into a book. The volumes are certainly page turners. What it lacked for me was much depth, but the world building and characterization are expertly handled, and King has great talent as a storyteller.
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Post by newt5996 on Jul 27, 2019 1:39:11 GMT
Small tip: after completing the main series, King went back and wrote a 'book 4.5' called The Wind Through the Keyhole. While it doesn't really add anything to the overall narrative, I appreciate slotting it in between books 4 and 5 because the tone/content of the series really changes dramatically in book 5, and at least for me, I found that Wind Through the Keyhole was a good tonal bridge that make the change feel less abrupt. If books 1-4 are black and 5-8 are white, Wind Through the Keyhole is grey. Again though it's really just tonal, the story of Keyhole has no bearing on the main series at all, so you won't miss anything if you decide to skip it. Anyway -- I'm a fan of King in general, but I absolutely love the Dark Tower series. Each of the books is so different in the stories they tell, while at the same time adding so much to the expanding story. There's something wonderful in each of the books IMO. My personal favourites are books 1 and 4. 1, for the incredible worldbuilding and hints of past and future; and 4, because it's just such a beautiful and tragic story. See this is the first King stuff I've read and I'm almost eager to try more once I finish Dark Tower and then I'm reading the Witcher before the TV series releases on Netflix. I don't know if I'll be able to do Wind Through the Keyhole because my dad doesn't own it and I'm not a member of a local library, but I will attempt at the very least after finishing the series.
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Post by Digi on Jul 27, 2019 1:50:15 GMT
Small tip: after completing the main series, King went back and wrote a 'book 4.5' called The Wind Through the Keyhole. While it doesn't really add anything to the overall narrative, I appreciate slotting it in between books 4 and 5 because the tone/content of the series really changes dramatically in book 5, and at least for me, I found that Wind Through the Keyhole was a good tonal bridge that make the change feel less abrupt. If books 1-4 are black and 5-8 are white, Wind Through the Keyhole is grey. Again though it's really just tonal, the story of Keyhole has no bearing on the main series at all, so you won't miss anything if you decide to skip it. Anyway -- I'm a fan of King in general, but I absolutely love the Dark Tower series. Each of the books is so different in the stories they tell, while at the same time adding so much to the expanding story. There's something wonderful in each of the books IMO. My personal favourites are books 1 and 4. 1, for the incredible worldbuilding and hints of past and future; and 4, because it's just such a beautiful and tragic story. See this is the first King stuff I've read and I'm almost eager to try more once I finish Dark Tower and then I'm reading the Witcher before the TV series releases on Netflix. I don't know if I'll be able to do Wind Through the Keyhole because my dad doesn't own it and I'm not a member of a local library, but I will attempt at the very least after finishing the series. In terms of genre, Dark Tower is an outlier for King. But that worldbuilding and character building that you're seeing in the DT books is a pretty consistent throughout his works; a lot of his books are centred around two or three towns in Maine and there's a lot of self-referential stuff--so-and-so from Book A lives in Derry, and heard about this thing that happened in Castle Rock in Book B from their cousin (who appeared in Book B), that kind of thing (don't worry, they're 'enhancers' from when you've read more, not a roadblock if you haven't read yet). The man's a heck of a storyteller, and the 70s-80s corner of Maine that he builds out is really lovely. Almost everything he wrote from 1974-97 is, at the least, "good," with a lot of it ranging from good to "frickin' amazing." Not to knock his later stuff, much of what he's written since then is still enjoyable. It's just that that first 20 years or so was an astonishing run, whereas since then he puts out more stinkers than he used to.
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Post by charlesuirdhein on Jul 27, 2019 2:26:20 GMT
I have a love/hate relationship with this series. And if you've read it then probably you do too!!! LOL.
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Post by Hieronymus on Jul 27, 2019 3:59:10 GMT
See this is the first King stuff I've read and I'm almost eager to try more once I finish Dark Tower and then I'm reading the Witcher before the TV series releases on Netflix. I don't know if I'll be able to do Wind Through the Keyhole because my dad doesn't own it and I'm not a member of a local library, but I will attempt at the very least after finishing the series. The only King novel similar to The Dark Tower (that I've read) is The Eyes of the Dragon.
You'd probably enjoy that one as well if you like The Dark Tower, and you'll see some connections between it and The Dark Tower.
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Post by agentten on Jul 27, 2019 4:49:53 GMT
Many of King's books connect to The Dark Tower. In fact, he once opined that everything he wrote was all part of one big story, implying that the Dark Tower is the center of it. There's a lot to read and, in my opinion, it's a magnificent achievement. The main Dark Tower series can absolutely be enjoyed on its own, and some of his works connect to the Dark Tower more than others, but if you want to read more King, here's a nice list of some of the extended works that are interwoven with the Dark Tower story line: thetruthinsidethelie.blogspot.com/2016/11/a-suggested-reading-order-for-extended.html
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Post by Deleted on Jul 27, 2019 7:28:20 GMT
The best of the DT series is my all time fave King. Yeah, it sprawls too much the more he revisited it but even then it's such a dense, rich world I always enjoy revisiting it. As above, the expanded "Kingverse" uses characters from the series (I won't say who for spoilers) in other stories. Some major King works I read not realising they were DT characters in another setting. Castle Rock, the TV series, is a great Easter-Egg show for King fans, with sorts of characters from books interacting, even above and beyond the DT connections. Cujo meets Carrie?
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Post by whiskeybrewer on Jul 27, 2019 13:07:10 GMT
Long Days and Pleasant Nights
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Post by mrperson on Aug 7, 2019 1:47:09 GMT
As awesome as it is bizarre, it is something you very well may not be able to stop yourself from dwelling on for a long, long time, if ever. But that's only if it sucks you in. I read the first four books in high school (grade 8-12) in 1997 or 1998. I forgot about them. I went to college, branched out, and generally forgot about King. Dec. 2019 I found out he'd completed the series. I still had them, since I'd taken a bunch of my old books from my parents house. Either this Jan or Feb I picked up the first one, and boy was I ever sucked in. Everything about the story was engrossing. I even had the sense I used to have as a kid when I fired up a new game: I wanted to see what's around every corner. (I feel the same looking at the village painting of (or near) Arles Van Gogh did, which we have in the MFA in Boston. Anyway, I was done within a month. All 4,250 pages. Since some people may not have read it and given that the OP is only part of the way along this long trek, I won't mention a specific thing, but rather its effect. I've been doing a lot of introspection about it. I've read a lot of bitter nonfiction about myriad atrocities humanity has committed. And there is just the one thing in this fictional series that seems to have struck me harder than many, if not most, if not all; not even as a personal loss, but as a sort of inarticulable vicarious loss/grief that goes beyond the simple horror of empathizing with victims of atrocity; of sense of overwhelming wrongness on top, of this must not be. Maybe some will feel that way, but I get the sense that most don't, though I have seen pretty bitter reactions described when poking around the corners of the internet. Let's just say that it cut far too deep for tears and leave it at that. Perhaps other events in the novels strike others in some comparable fashion, or maybe it's due to various things specific to who I am.
Nonfiction bitter event (NOTE: DO NOT READ unless you do not mind reading about an atrocity): {Spoiler} Do not read unless being disturbed is acceptable.
I was in high school. My father was reading "Ghost of the Balkans". He'd left it on his chair in the living room, so I picked it up, opened it to a chapter at random and read. I wanted to put it down but I did not. Someone was massacring someone. The latter was probably my people but could have been any other group. Doesn't matter.
This came from a guard/soldier/etc who was present but not victim, I think. They brought families into a slaughterhouse. They made them line up along long sort of countertops. They made them strip. They made them kneel in a line on the countertops. And the walked down that line, family member by family member, slitting their throats.
I read that two and a half decades ago. It was burned right into my mind, along with what it said about what lies in the hearts of men.
That said, I am glad I read it anyway. I think we all have a duty to witness (in whatever way) what evil we can bear, so we truly understand the necessity of fighting it. Speaking of which, I intended to write a fan letter to King. I've never actually sent one. The first draft was pages long and admittedly that's because I was generally getting thoughts out rather than properly composing. I began editing down. And I realized that perhaps the best way to express my appreciation for this work and his skill in crafting it is to briefly describe the effect that one thing had. The thinking is that perhaps the best praise one can give an author - no, a storyteller - is that their words evoked the most powerful emotions, rather than blather on about composition or narrative structure or any technicality. That's all it comes down to in the end, isn't it: emotion? (I suppose I'm not counting people who like Joyce's linguistic puzzles utterly independent of any storytelling). So, I chopped the thing down to three brief paragraphs. I return to it occasionally. I'm aiming to pick the perfect set of words, to say it just the right way. (Besides, it has to be brief and elegant or it's not getting past whomever is screening these things. I don't imagine he reads anywhere near all of them).
I finished, urged my wife to start, and she did. She's now on Wolves of the Calla. I restarted it and am lingering towards the last quarter of The Wastelands. I seem to be putting off the next one.
But it's absolutely worth at least the one journey. Who knows how many times I'll reread it. And if you enjoy something you puzzle over for a long time, you'll love this. There are no end of things to turn over in your mind.
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Post by newt5996 on Aug 7, 2019 2:52:03 GMT
As awesome as it is bizarre, it is something you very well may not be able to stop yourself from dwelling on for a long, long time, if ever. But that's only if it sucks you in. I read the first four books in high school (grade 8-12) in 1997 or 1998. I forgot about them. I went to college, branched out, and generally forgot about King. Dec. 2019 I found out he'd completed the series. I still had them, since I'd taken a bunch of my old books from my parents house. Either this Jan or Feb I picked up the first one, and boy was I ever sucked in. Everything about the story was engrossing. I even had the sense I used to have as a kid when I fired up a new game: I wanted to see what's around every corner. (I feel the same looking at the village painting of (or near) Arles Van Gogh did, which we have in the MFA in Boston. Anyway, I was done within a month. All 4,250 pages. Since some people may not have read it and given that the OP is only part of the way along this long trek, I won't mention a specific thing, but rather its effect. I've been doing a lot of introspection about it. I've read a lot of bitter nonfiction about myriad atrocities humanity has committed. And there is just the one thing in this fictional series that seems to have struck me harder than many, if not most, if not all; not even as a personal loss, but as a sort of inarticulable vicarious loss/grief that goes beyond the simple horror of empathizing with victims of atrocity; of sense of overwhelming wrongness on top, of this must not be. Maybe some will feel that way, but I get the sense that most don't, though I have seen pretty bitter reactions described when poking around the corners of the internet. Let's just say that it cut far too deep for tears and leave it at that. Perhaps other events in the novels strike others in some comparable fashion, or maybe it's due to various things specific to who I am.
Nonfiction bitter event (NOTE: DO NOT READ unless you do not mind reading about an atrocity): {Spoiler} Do not read unless being disturbed is acceptable.
I was in high school. My father was reading "Ghost of the Balkans". He'd left it on his chair in the living room, so I picked it up, opened it to a chapter at random and read. I wanted to put it down but I did not. Someone was massacring someone. The latter was probably my people but could have been any other group. Doesn't matter.
This came from a guard/soldier/etc who was present but not victim, I think. They brought families into a slaughterhouse. They made them line up along long sort of countertops. They made them strip. They made them kneel in a line on the countertops. And the walked down that line, family member by family member, slitting their throats.
I read that two and a half decades ago. It was burned right into my mind, along with what it said about what lies in the hearts of men.
That said, I am glad I read it anyway. I think we all have a duty to witness (in whatever way) what evil we can bear, so we truly understand the necessity of fighting it. Speaking of which, I intended to write a fan letter to King. I've never actually sent one. The first draft was pages long and admittedly that's because I was generally getting thoughts out rather than properly composing. I began editing down. And I realized that perhaps the best way to express my appreciation for this work and his skill in crafting it is to briefly describe the effect that one thing had. The thinking is that perhaps the best praise one can give an author - no, a storyteller - is that their words evoked the most powerful emotions, rather than blather on about composition or narrative structure or any technicality. That's all it comes down to in the end, isn't it: emotion? (I suppose I'm not counting people who like Joyce's linguistic puzzles utterly independent of any storytelling). So, I chopped the thing down to three brief paragraphs. I return to it occasionally. I'm aiming to pick the perfect set of words, to say it just the right way. (Besides, it has to be brief and elegant or it's not getting past whomever is screening these things. I don't imagine he reads anywhere near all of them).
I finished, urged my wife to start, and she did. She's now on Wolves of the Calla. I restarted it and am lingering towards the last quarter of The Wastelands. I seem to be putting off the next one.
But it's absolutely worth at least the one journey. Who knows how many times I'll reread it. And if you enjoy something you puzzle over for a long time, you'll love this. There are no end of things to turn over in your mind.
I'm about where your wife is now (about 230 pages into Wolves of the Calla) and I am loving it. Wizard and Glass is perhaps the weakest of the five I've read (because it's a flashback novel for two-thirds and the one-third that was continuing the narrative I adored while the flashback was harder to get into). I can also tell how much the car accident which King elaborates on in On Writing (The only King I read before this, it was required in high school).
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Post by mrperson on Aug 7, 2019 3:03:20 GMT
As awesome as it is bizarre, it is something you very well may not be able to stop yourself from dwelling on for a long, long time, if ever. But that's only if it sucks you in. I read the first four books in high school (grade 8-12) in 1997 or 1998. I forgot about them. I went to college, branched out, and generally forgot about King. Dec. 2019 I found out he'd completed the series. I still had them, since I'd taken a bunch of my old books from my parents house. Either this Jan or Feb I picked up the first one, and boy was I ever sucked in. Everything about the story was engrossing. I even had the sense I used to have as a kid when I fired up a new game: I wanted to see what's around every corner. (I feel the same looking at the village painting of (or near) Arles Van Gogh did, which we have in the MFA in Boston. Anyway, I was done within a month. All 4,250 pages. Since some people may not have read it and given that the OP is only part of the way along this long trek, I won't mention a specific thing, but rather its effect. I've been doing a lot of introspection about it. I've read a lot of bitter nonfiction about myriad atrocities humanity has committed. And there is just the one thing in this fictional series that seems to have struck me harder than many, if not most, if not all; not even as a personal loss, but as a sort of inarticulable vicarious loss/grief that goes beyond the simple horror of empathizing with victims of atrocity; of sense of overwhelming wrongness on top, of this must not be. Maybe some will feel that way, but I get the sense that most don't, though I have seen pretty bitter reactions described when poking around the corners of the internet. Let's just say that it cut far too deep for tears and leave it at that. Perhaps other events in the novels strike others in some comparable fashion, or maybe it's due to various things specific to who I am.
Nonfiction bitter event (NOTE: DO NOT READ unless you do not mind reading about an atrocity): {Spoiler} Do not read unless being disturbed is acceptable.
I was in high school. My father was reading "Ghost of the Balkans". He'd left it on his chair in the living room, so I picked it up, opened it to a chapter at random and read. I wanted to put it down but I did not. Someone was massacring someone. The latter was probably my people but could have been any other group. Doesn't matter.
This came from a guard/soldier/etc who was present but not victim, I think. They brought families into a slaughterhouse. They made them line up along long sort of countertops. They made them strip. They made them kneel in a line on the countertops. And the walked down that line, family member by family member, slitting their throats.
I read that two and a half decades ago. It was burned right into my mind, along with what it said about what lies in the hearts of men.
That said, I am glad I read it anyway. I think we all have a duty to witness (in whatever way) what evil we can bear, so we truly understand the necessity of fighting it. Speaking of which, I intended to write a fan letter to King. I've never actually sent one. The first draft was pages long and admittedly that's because I was generally getting thoughts out rather than properly composing. I began editing down. And I realized that perhaps the best way to express my appreciation for this work and his skill in crafting it is to briefly describe the effect that one thing had. The thinking is that perhaps the best praise one can give an author - no, a storyteller - is that their words evoked the most powerful emotions, rather than blather on about composition or narrative structure or any technicality. That's all it comes down to in the end, isn't it: emotion? (I suppose I'm not counting people who like Joyce's linguistic puzzles utterly independent of any storytelling). So, I chopped the thing down to three brief paragraphs. I return to it occasionally. I'm aiming to pick the perfect set of words, to say it just the right way. (Besides, it has to be brief and elegant or it's not getting past whomever is screening these things. I don't imagine he reads anywhere near all of them).
I finished, urged my wife to start, and she did. She's now on Wolves of the Calla. I restarted it and am lingering towards the last quarter of The Wastelands. I seem to be putting off the next one.
But it's absolutely worth at least the one journey. Who knows how many times I'll reread it. And if you enjoy something you puzzle over for a long time, you'll love this. There are no end of things to turn over in your mind.
I'm about where your wife is now (about 230 pages into Wolves of the Calla) and I am loving it. Wizard and Glass is perhaps the weakest of the five I've read (because it's a flashback novel for two-thirds and the one-third that was continuing the narrative I adored while the flashback was harder to get into). I can also tell how much the car accident which King elaborates on in On Writing (The only King I read before this, it was required in high school). 1. In terms of advancing the plot, I would agree that Wizard and Glass is weakest.
2. In terms of explaining Roland, I would argue it is the greatest. As with The Doctor, and with or without blame, he made a choice with terrible consequences for reality and himself. He did it in the name of saving all reality. In this respect they may be the same character: they'll burn their soul before they let everyone else burn.
{Spoiler} And one can only pray that as with The Doctor later correcting his choice, Roland's too might be remedied down the line, far down the line perhaps...
3. In terms of emotion, I would argue it contains a Great Crime; perhaps - and I may be not quite sane - a crime against reality, or better put, one of the few purposes for reality supposed by those existing in it.
4. "I can also tell how much the car accident which King elaborates on in On Writing (The only King I read before this, it was required in high school)." I don't follow. I know how it figures into the story as-written, but is there more he has written about it outside of the story that is perhaps illuminating?
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Post by newt5996 on Aug 7, 2019 3:11:35 GMT
I'm about where your wife is now (about 230 pages into Wolves of the Calla) and I am loving it. Wizard and Glass is perhaps the weakest of the five I've read (because it's a flashback novel for two-thirds and the one-third that was continuing the narrative I adored while the flashback was harder to get into). I can also tell how much the car accident which King elaborates on in On Writing (The only King I read before this, it was required in high school). 1. In terms of advancing the plot, I would agree that Wizard and Glass is weakest.
2. In terms of explaining Roland, I would argue it is the greatest. As with The Doctor, and with or without blame, he made a choice with terrible consequences for reality and himself. He did it in the name of saving all reality. In this respect they may be the same character: they'll burn their soul before they let everyone else burn.
{Spoiler} And one can only pray that as with The Doctor later correcting his choice, Roland's too might be remedied down the line, far down the line perhaps...
3. In terms of emotion, I would argue it contains a Great Crime; perhaps - and I may be not quite sane - a crime against reality, or better put, one of the few purposes for reality supposed by those existing in it.
4. "I can also tell how much the car accident which King elaborates on in On Writing (The only King I read before this, it was required in high school)." I don't follow. I know how it figures into the story as-written, but is there more he has written about it outside of the story that is perhaps illuminating?
It's mainly in pacing where there's a change. The first four books were very slowly paced for me, not boring, but slow burns into the fantastical where Book 5 feels like while it's 700 pages, it's going somewhere quick. It's this awareness that King could have died and still could die without finishing this 'opus'. It feels different somehow.
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Post by Digi on Aug 7, 2019 10:27:30 GMT
It's mainly in pacing where there's a change. The first four books were very slowly paced for me, not boring, but slow burns into the fantastical where Book 5 feels like while it's 700 pages, it's going somewhere quick. It's this awareness that King could have died and still could die without finishing this 'opus'. It feels different somehow. My thoughts exactly!
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Post by Deleted on Aug 7, 2019 16:27:12 GMT
I loved the series when I first read it and totally adored the Marvel Graphic series of books some beautiful artwork that complemented the story.I often listen to the audiobooks when the time allows as for the film had such high hopes that really didn’t pay off for me. I always loved KING . I did kind of groan when he introduced himself into the story am fine with it now but originally I groaned.Am not of fan of that kind of device.
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Post by glutamodo on Aug 9, 2019 13:35:12 GMT
I got into SK in the mid 80s, in my early teens, probably too young to be reading King. But I liked his books, usually getting them from the library. Then started buying books in the late 80s (almost always from various sources of used books) and while I was aware of Dark Tower I think I didn't buy them until around 1990, but even owning them, held off on reading them a while. Finally did, first one was disjointed and odd, but jumped straight into the 2nd one which I liked a lot. Almost immediately after finishing DT2, I happened by chance, to go into the local B Dalton bookstore... I guess the Plume Trade Paperback edition of DT3 was newly minted at the time because it was on display front and center. I had enough cash for it so I bought it then and there. Read it right away, and of course, it ends on a cliffhanger and had to wait... and wait... and wait... for the next one to come out. Waiting For The Next One was a large part of my literary life the way I consumed the series. (and often was convinced that it would never be completed.)
Of course, that gave me time to re-read these, and I did several times.
I'm glad King finally dug in and finished the series. Liked how so many other SK books tied into it as well. There were times when I was convinced that there would be no actual physical structure of a Dark Tower, and in the end, who knows what it was really. In the end, it was a good journey. I've not read a whole lot of King in recent years though.
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Post by mrperson on Aug 10, 2019 17:26:16 GMT
I loved the series when I first read it and totally adored the Marvel Graphic series of books some beautiful artwork that complemented the story.I often listen to the audiobooks when the time allows as for the film had such high hopes that really didn’t pay off for me. I always loved KING . I did kind of groan when he introduced himself into the story am fine with it now but originally I groaned.Am not of fan of that kind of device. He {Spoiler} May be revising some heavily, possibly to the point of writing himself out of the story. I don't recall where I read it. It was some interview. That would be a huge change though and might as well be the tale of some other pass through the loop.
There's apparently a revised Volume 1 out, but I think the idea was more to remove inconsistencies between it and later volumes.
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Post by glutamodo on Aug 10, 2019 17:43:23 GMT
Oh yes I was a "consumer" of the revised Gunslinger. Really, he ironed over some rough edges, removed some stuff that didn't jibe with later installments, and added a small amount of things that did tie into later books.
I still have my original copy though, and I think if I was going to do a re-read I would go there.
Ah, the meta-fictional aspect... it never bothered me. Actually as someone who when upon hearing of King's near-fatal accident, despaired about the chances of This Work getting completed, was totally fine with SK inserting his personal hardship edgewise into the story of Roland. King did address this in an Author's Note and he went used words to bitch-slap critics of this turn of the story. Good show, actually.
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Post by agentten on Aug 11, 2019 0:28:22 GMT
Interesting to see other people's reactions to Wizard and Glass. It's my favorite of the series - I really love the depth of the flashback material and I think it's vital character work before going into the more fast paced final three books. To me, the extended flashback makes me care even more about Roland and his quest, but I also see why people would want the story moving forward, especially after the third book's ending, which is a neat cliffhanger after a great book of world-building.
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