The Dark Tower, by Stephen King

Rating: 4.5/5
830 pages
2004
Publisher: Grant
Source: My collection

Description: The final volume in Stephen King's Dark Tower series. Roland Deschain's quest for the tower comes to an end.

Review: Full disclosure, The Gunslinger was one of the first Stephen King books I fell in love with. I really can't completely separate myself from that.

That said, as an ending to the series, it was both satisfying and curiously unsatisfying at the same time.

It wrapped everything up, with a minimal amount of loose ends, and I liked the twist that the final coda adds to the story.

However, there's a bit of bloated feeling to this book, with an enemy who's introduced, who in the end felt unnecessary to me, and what seems to be the author's attempt to come to terms with a near death experience he had.

While its always foreshadowed, sometimes a bit clunkily, there are some character deaths that felt a bit more George R.R. Martin than Stephen King in their abruptness, and especially in one case, seeming capriciousness.

While its not really the same story that I started reading back in 1988, I was sorry to see it end, even if it didn't quite feel like the right ending.