The Dark Tower VII [Hardcover]

At one point in this final book of the Dark Tower series>, the character Stephen King (added to the plot in Song of Susannah) looks back at the preceding pages and says "when this last book is published, the readers are going to be just wild." And he's not kidding.

After a journey through seven books and over 20 years, King's Constant Readers finally have the conclusion they've been both eagerly awaiting and silently dread ing. The tension in the Dark Tower series has built steadily from the beginning and, like in the best of King's novels, explodes into a violent, heart-tugging climax as Roland and his ka-tet finally near their goal. The body count in The Dark Tower is high. The gunslingers come out shooting and face a host of enemies, including low men, mutants, vampires, Roland's hideous quasi-offspring Mordred, and the fearsome Crimson King himself. King pushes the gross-out factor at times--Roland's lesson on tanning (no, not sun tanning) is brutal--but the magic of the series remains strong and readers will feel the pull of the Tower as strongly as ever as the story draws to a close. During this sentimental journey, King ties up loose ends left hanging from the 15 nonseries novels and stories that are deeply entwined in the fabric of Mid-World through characters like Randall Flagg (The Stand and others) or Father Callahan (Salem's Lot). When it finally arrives, the long-awaited conclusion will leave King's myriad fans satisfied but wishing there were still more to come.

In King's memoir On Writing, he tells of an old woman who wrote him after reading the early books in the Dark Tower series. She was dying, she said, and didn't expect to see the end of Roland's quest. Could King tell her? Does he reach the Tower? Does he save it? Sadly, King said he did not know himself, that the story was creating itself as it went along. Wherever that woman is now (the clearing at the end of the path, perhaps?), let's hope she has a copy of The Dark Tower. Surely she would agree it's been worth the wait. --Benjamin Reese

A King and His Tower
Over 30 years in the making, spanning seven volumes, Stephen King's epic quest for the Dark Tower has encompassed almost his entire body of fiction. Amazon.com editor Ben Reese caught up with King to chat about the then-unpublished volumes of his Dark Tower series, rumors of his retirement, and the horrors of genre classification.

Authors on Stephen King
Mystery writer Michael Connelly thinks Stephen King's "one of the most generous writers I know of." Thriller author Ridley Pearson says, "King possesses an incredible sense of story..." Read our Stephen King testimonials to find out what else they and other authors had to say about the undisputed King of Horror.

The Path to the Dark Tower
There are only seven volumes in Stephen King's Dark Tower series but more than a dozen of his novels and short stories are deeply entwined with the Mid-World universe. Take a look at the nonseries titles, from Salem's Lot to Everything's Eventual. Can you find the connections?

History of an Alternate Universe
Robin Furth, an expert on Stephen King's Dark Tower universe if ever there was one, has created a timeline of Mid-World, the slowly crumbling world of gunslinger Roland Deschain. Read it and get up to speed on a world of adventure.

Hail to the King
Fans applauded and critics howled when Stephen King was awarded the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Service to American Letters. In typical fashion, King accepted the honor with humility and urged recognition for other "popular" authors. Listen to a clip of his acceptance speech, then order the entire speech on audio CD.

A pilgrimage that began with one lone man's quest to save multiple worlds from chaos and destruction unfolds into a tale of epic proportions. While King saw some criticism for the slow pace of 1982's The Gunslinger, the book that launched this series, The Drawing of the Three (Book II, 1987), reeled in readers with its fantastical allure. And those who have faithfully journeyed alongside Roland, Eddie, Susannah, Jake and Oy ever since will find their loyalty toward the series' creator richly rewarded.The tangled web of the tower's multiple worlds has manifested itself in many of King's other works— The Stand (1978), Insomnia (1994) and Hearts in Atlantis (1999), to name a few. As one character explains here, "From the spring of 1970, when he typed the line The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed... very few of the things Stephen King wrote were 'just stories.' He may not believe that; we do." King, in fact, intertwines his own life story deeper and deeper into the tale of Roland and his surrogate family of gunslingers, and, in this final installment, playfully and seductively suggests that it might not be the author who drives the story, but rather the fictional characters that control the author.This philosophical exploration of free will and destiny may surprise those who have viewed King as a prolific pop-fiction dispenser. But a closer look at the brilliant complexity of his Dark Tower world should explain why this bestselling author has finally been recognized for his contribution to the contemporary literary canon. With the conclusion of this tale, ostensibly the last published work of his career, King has certainly reached the top of his game. And as for who or what resides at the top of the tower... The many readers dying to know will have to start at the beginning and work their way up. 12 color illus. by Michael Whelan.
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When Jake and Father Callahan enter the restaurant on Lexington and 61st, they have no idea how fierce their battle will need to be. Their evil enemies are multitudinous, and their task seems close to impossible. Will they find their friends again? Will they ever return to Susannah? This reviewer won't tell you. Suffice it to say that the battles are many, the "yuck" factor in many of the scenes almost too great, and the ending, for Dark Tower's legions of fans, is satisfying and sad. This is, after all, the end. As he has done since taking the series over from Frank Muller, George Guidall reads with a kind of elegant gusto. His smooth style slightly tempers the shock of the bloodiest scenes, which is not necessarily a bad thing. And though Guidall doesn't attempt a host of voices, the central characters are distinct. The story, with its myriad twists and turns, is clear and dramatic. A.C.S. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

The end of King's quantitative magnum opus, the Dark Tower, some 34 years in the making and god knows how many thousands of pages long, begins where Song of Susannah [BKL My 1 04] left off. Boy gunslingers Jake and Pere Callahan (once upon a time, the priest of 'Salem's Lot) are entering the Dixie Pig Cafe in Manhattan, in whose backrooms the heir of two fathers--the evil Crimson King, lord of the Dark Tower, and the saga's hero, the gunslinger Roland Deschain--is aborning. Chief gunslinger Roland and Eddie Dean, whose fellow gunslinger and wife, Susannah, is bearing the horrid child in tandem with the formerly immortal Mia (two dads require two moms, though the moms are merged, the dads poles apart), are speeding to the rescue from Maine. Neither birth nor rescue is short-circuited, but abandon all hope that either develops straightforwardly. The tower is ever so digressively approached, and many die in the process. It would be unforgivable to leak just who in Roland's ka-tet--he, Eddie and Susannah, Jake, and the billybumbler Oy--achieves the tower with him, but saying that the tower is achieved gives nothing essential away. Despite plenty of action and quite a few unforeseen bombshells, this massive conclusion may strike some as drawn out. King leans on his talent for covering 30 seconds of action in, say, 30 pages, rather too often. But what the vast, allusive (to several other King books and plenty of others) tale is all about is more teasingly evident than ever before: it's a fable, possibly theological, of creativity--among, indubitably, other things. Ray Olson
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Stephen King is the author of more than fifty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. Among his most recent are Full Dark No Stars, Blockade Billy, Under the Dome, Just After Sunset, the Dark Tower novels, Cell, From a Buick 8, Everything's Eventual, Hearts in Atlantis, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Lisey's Story and Bag of Bones. His acclaimed nonfiction book, On Writing, was recently re-released in a tenth anniversary edition. King was the recipient of the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, and in 2007 he was inducted as a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America.  He lives in Maine with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.