June 20th 2004 Posted in
Books SPOILER ALTERT
This is the 6th book in the dark tower series. In a way, it feels like a bridge between book 5 and 7 (which will be the final book). It comes off as being a bit anti-climactic. On the other hand, a lot of new information comes to light, and although you certainly wouldn’t want to read this book if you haven’t read any of the others, it is a good book.
In my opinion, the most interesting aspect of the book is that Stephen King brings himself into the story. I originally didn’t think it was really going to happen, but then they started talking about paying him a visit, and then next they actually did. Of course this creates more questions than anything. I’m left wondering what importance the whole thing has. The characters behave (and it might be logical to assume) that his writing the stories is critically important to the events actually taking place. On the other hand, the DT version of King dies in 1999 when he is struck by a van. It happens on the same day that it happened in real life, which is June 19, 1999. Of course this brings up the number 19 again, and it leaves me wondering if the entire 19 thing came from this date. Milenka suggested that perhaps the DT King is the real King. Maybe he actually did die, and someone else has been writing since then….
I’ve seen a lot of people complain about King introducing himself into the storyline. I thought it was really interesting (or the idea is, I’ll wait to see where this goes before I’ll say it’s an interesting part of this story). I think for a lot of people, it took too much of the fantasy out of the story. It actually seems perfectly natural to me. When I started reading the stories, it really seemed like a post-Armageddon type world. Everything had “moved on.” There was evidence of technology much more advanced than just guns that was no longer in use. It seemed like Jake had come from the past. As I read more and more, it became apparent that it wasn’t anywhere near that simple. We basically have a lot of realities (probably infinite) that exist. Some things are different, but it seems as though many things remain similar. Time is not really an issue here, so a lot of things that we take for granted don’t really apply. For instance, someone dying doesn’t make them gone forever, because you can go to a time/reality where they’re not dead to find them. Of course you need a door to do so, but those tend to pop up for the gunslingers. Ka. Now we know as well that there is one reality that is really real. You can’t go back in time (although I don’t know how to quantify that, we have a door from another world that lead to this “real” world 20 years apart, yet only 30 seconds has elapsed on the original side….time wasn’t moved with that great of a difference). Anyways, to me, it just seems natural to throw King into the mix. It doesn’t seem out of place and it doesn’t seem like less of a fantasy world at all.
The book doesn’t accomplish a whole lot. It explains a number of things that I don’t even feel like trying to go into specifically right here, but it’s really ends on a major cliffhanger. Eddie and Roland are in 1977 with Tower. Obviously the whole deal goes down and all, because we know that in 1999 everything is OK with the “vacant” lot. On the other hand, we get some foreshadowing that one of them is going to die soon. Of course that fits in nicely since Mia’s baby is supposed to kill Roland, but then again this baby is supposed to take 5 years to grow up, which would place it out of reach for the scope of the book. Of course, this could have been a total lie just so Mia would cooperate. Plus, time is supposed to matter in the “real” world, but like I said before, it doesn’t have to anywhere else really. At the same time, we have Jake and Callahan stepping right into the Dixie pig, seemingly so about to die. The only thing that really gets resolved is that the baby is born. Everything else is left way out in the open. This is why I feel like it acts as a bridge between the last book and the next. Thankfully, the next (and last) book will be out this September, so there’s no big wait. I also call this a bridge because it’s so short. It’s just over 400 pages, which makes it shorter than every other DT book except the very first one. The last two books were 700+ pages. It was a little bit disappointing how short it was. Still, it was good.
On a technical note, I should mention that there was a problem. There is a flashback where Eddie is talking to Henry. This could have been no later than 1986 or 87. The name Pentium is brought up. Pentiums weren’t released until 1993. There is usually information about processors available for quite some time before they are released, but not so far as 6 years in advance. Also, when it was first being designed, they probably weren’t calling the Pentium a Pentium. It’s kind of a moot point anyways, since neither of the Dean brothers really seem the type to follow yet-to-be-released computer hardware very closely…There’s no way that Eddie would come out using the word Pentium. The 386 was king at that time and 486’s wouldn’t hit the ground until ’89.
The illustrations are also much better in this book than they were in the last. I had a lot of trouble with the ones in Wolves of the Calla. Most of them were placed far after the corresponding event in the book (10 pages even). This caused one of the pictures to be put into a new chapter, so the same characters weren’t even in play. Beyond that, I thought the drawings were OK, but nothing special. This book is much better. The pictures are much more timely. Many of them are actually sufficiently vague that it is tough to tell. This is kind of interesting because it means they set the tone for more than just one object that has been mentioned. I also really like the pictures in this book. As an added touch, at the start of each stanza (there actually are no chapters). There is a b/w drawing that adds to the book.
I finished the last bit of this book yesterday. I was sitting out on the swing in front of my house. Ironically, the book ends with a journal (SK’s) marked June 19, where he is hit and killed by a van. I looked down at my watch and there’s the same date…
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Really though, I’ve heard it’s really good and it looks really good. I probably won’t actually get around to seeing it in the theater, but maybe we will.
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