New Series

I've started a new series, Stephen King's Dark Tower books. The first of the books, The Gunslinger, is by far the thinnest of the volumes. It's just over 300 pages, whereas the last editions are over twice that size. It differs substantially from King's other writing, in that we know virtually nothing of the main character's inner life. We observe his action and are usually given no explanations or motivations: sometimes the gunslinger acts with kindness, other times with sudden brutality. The world he inhabits is clearly some variation of our own, but the book offers no clues to whether this is some kind of post-apocalyptic future or weird dream or alternate reality. King more or less pulls this off in this volume, but I think he's going to have to be more forthcoming rather quickly if he hopes to hold my attention over subsequent books. The gunslinger chases the man in black. Why, and what he'll do when and if he catches him, remain something of a mystery.

I am partial to the style of writing. It's more modern and less sentimental that King's usual novels. According to my edition's afterword, it took 12 years to write the first book, which came out in 1981. If I have my facts straight, the last volume appeared only a year or two ago. I'm looking forward to working through a series that I expect will be more rewarding than the Left Behind novels that I recently completed.