The Series
| # | Title | My Rating |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Gunslinger | 4/5 |
| 2 | The Drawing of the Three | 5/5 |
| 3 | The Waste Lands | 5/5 |
| 4 | Wizard and Glass | 5/5 |
| 5 | Wolves of the Calla | 4/5 |
| 6 | Song of Susannah | 4/5 |
| 7 | The Dark Tower | 4/5 |
The Last One
I’ve been reading The Dark Tower series on and off for almost 2 years. I initially decided to just read The Gunslinger and decided to just feel it out; I told myself that if I wanted to stop reading, I would. Needless to say, I didn’t stop reading. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed The Dark Tower series from beginning to end, and never gave any of the books a rating less than 4/5. Although this book wasn’t my favorite in the series, it provided an important conclusion.
As with any series, some books are stronger than others. The first book was probably my least favorite in the series— I recommend you push through to at least book 2 before determining whether you like The Dark Tower. Books 2, 3, and 4 are the best in the series. Strong Stephen King writing, interesting worlds, plots, and characters, plenty of worldbuilding content to build on and think about, but plenty left unwritten. These books are, in my opinion, the heart of the series, peaking in book 4. The last 3 books get progressively worse in comparison, but are still excellent and worth reading.
I don’t think I’ll read any other series quite like The Dark Tower. It stands in a genre of its own— an excellent mashup of fantasy, sci-fi, and western. King’s writing, dialogue, and character development is simply amazing; every character is so real. This is my favorite book series to date. If you’re at all interested, I highly recommend you read The Dark Tower.
The Ending
Once I got to book 2 or 3 and began to tell my friends about the book, I was given a common warning: “oh, The Dark Tower? I’ve heard the ending is terrible.” Regardless, I pushed on; even if the ending was bad, I told myself the journey would be worth it. And after finishing book 7, I largely feel the same way; the ending wasn’t quite what I expected, but boy, the journey was just amazing.
The deaths of Walter and Mordred felt a little… lacking. I was hoping for a more interesting death for Mordred particularly. It feels like King really played up the relationship between Roland and Mordred, father and son, even going so far as to reveal that Roland had a degree of sympathy for Mordred’s… situation. But in the end, Roland shot him down undramatically. Walter’s death felt fitting for his character, but nonetheless, I wanted to see Roland and Walter stand off one last time.
I had essentially no expectations for the tower itself, and what was inside. I suppose subconsciously I expected: some encounter between Roland and a humanoid Gan; a recovery of the Tower, Beams, and the Prim; the death of Roland, and: a gathering of the ka-tet “in the clearing”. None of those things really happened, but that’s mostly okay with me.
The ending is unclear, but that doesn’t really bother me. I think it’s somewhat interesting to theorize what it means, but at the end of the day, it’s just speculation. But if we’re speculating, I’ll throw my thoughts in there: Roland repeats this journey to the tower over and over again, each time becoming more “perfect” and growing as a person, making less mistakes. Eventually, he will climb the tower the “true” way— but who’s to say what happens after that.