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The Gunslinger [The Dark Tower I] | ![The Gunslinger [The Dark Tower I]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51zqUJ3EBJL._SL500_.jpg)
| Authors: Stephen King, Richard Pierce
Publisher: Signet
Category: EBooks
List Price: $7.99
Buy New: $6.39
You Save: $1.60 (20%)
Rating:  537 reviews
Sales Rank: 3645
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Pages: 336
Number Of Items: 1
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
ASIN: B000OCXILW
Publication Date: March 3, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Review
Thirty-three years, a horrific and life-altering accident, and thousands of desperately rabid fans in the making, Stephen King's quest to complete his magnum opus rivals the quest of Roland and his band of gunslingers who inhabit the Dark Tower series. Loyal DT fans and new readers alike will appreciate this revised edition of The Gunslinger, which breathes new life into Roland of Gilead, and offers readers a "clearer start and slightly easier entry into Roland's world." King writes both a new introduction and foreword to this revised edition, and the ever-patient, ever-loyal "constant reader" is rewarded with secrets to the series's inception. That a "magic" ream of green paper and a Robert Browning poem, came together to reveal to King his "ka" is no real surprise (this is King after all), but who would have thought that the squinty-eyed trio of Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach would set the author on his true path to the Tower? While King credits Tolkien for inspiring the "quest and magic" that pervades the series, it was Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly that helped create the epic proportions and "almost absurdly majestic western backdrop" of Roland's world. To King, The Gunslinger demanded revision because once the series was complete it became obvious that "the beginning was out of sync with the ending." While the revision adds only 35 pages, Dark Tower purists will notice the changes to Allie's fate and Roland's interaction with Cort, Jake, and the Man in Black--all stellar scenes that will reignite the hunger for the rest of the series. Newcomers will appreciate the details and insight into Roland's life. The revised Roland of Gilead (nee Deschain) is embodied with more humanity--he loves, he pities, he regrets. What DT fans might miss is the same ambiguity and mystery of the original that gave the original its pulpy underground feel (back when King himself awaited word from Roland's world). --Daphne Durham
Product Description
Filled with ominous landscapes and macabre menace, Stephen King's latest mass market novel features The Gunslinger, a haunting figure in combat with The Man in Black in an epic battle of good versus evil. A spellbinding tale that is both grippingly realistic and eerily dreamlike
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| Customer Reviews: Read 532 more reviews...
 i wanted to like it January 3, 2009
Charles B. Harris (Atlanta, Georgia)
i wanted to like it but i couldn't get into it. it was very slow paced and the story doesn't get anywhere in my opinion. and it is badly written
Gripping and Majestic December 30, 2008
Lovely Reader (Seattle, WA)
After months of hearing about The Dark Tower series, and since I'm already a big Stephen King fan, I decided to finally read the first book in the series, just to see what it was all about. It took me until the last page to decide what I thought of it. All I can say really is that I liked it, and I'm planning to read the next one, but of all the Stephen King books I've read, this was the most difficult and unusual. The problems I had with this book were not stylistic; the book is very well written, and the characters, though mysteriously aloof from the reader, are well developed. The title character, known throughout most of the book simply as the gunslinger, is not easily identifiable as a hero and is deeply complex. There are mysteries surrounding his past, as well as the lives of most of the characters and the reality in which they live. I think it was these very mysteries that I didn't really love. They distressed me unexpectedly. However, being the first book in a series, it's understandable that there will be unanswered questions. Anyone who ventures to read this book should be prepared to read the rest of the series! I certainly will.
 intriguing, but slow and convoluted November 26, 2008
Kelsey May Dangelo (Vermont)
Roland, the last gunslinger, pursues the man in black across a Western landscape, a land where time is winding down, meets up with a woman and a kid (from our world), and flashes back to his past and his destruction of an entire town. While the story has potential and intriguing imagery, it is written in so convoluted a manner that the characters and story suffers. I've been told that the sequels are much better, so I will try them. Grade: C
The introduction to an epic, and all that entails November 22, 2008
Genevieve Hayes (Australia)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"The Gunslinger" is the first volume of Stephen King's epic, seven volume, "Dark Tower" saga, and like the first volume in any series of books, serves primarily to set the scene for the later books in the series. As a result, very little happens in this book. We are introduced to our hero, Roland of Gilead, the last gunslinger, who is a cross between Clint Eastwood in "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" and Aragorn from "The Lord of the Rings", and follows him across the desert, over mountains and through an abandoned subway tunnel, in his pursuit of "the man in black"; a pursuit which culminates in the commencement of his journey to the dark tower. However, very little is revealed in this book. By the end of the book, the reader is still not told exactly what the dark tower is and why Roland is traveling there. We have to wait for later volumes for this information.
I am generally a fan of Stephen King's writing. I think he is one of the most underrated authors of all time. Nevertheless, the multi-part format of "The Dark Tower" books just doesn't work for me. I have never been a big fan of multi-part novels, since the fact that the story is drawn out of such a large number of pages annoys me and makes me want to stop reading, and "The Gunslinger" is no exception. It is unnecessarily slow moving and could have benefited from a bit of editing. Another down point to this book is that it is essentially comprised of five short stories that are run together to form the narrative, making the storyline episodic and somewhat disjoint.
Overall, I didn't hate this book and I think the idea behind this series has enough potential to make me want to read volume 2 sometime in the future, but I suspect that point in time will be the distant future, rather than next week.
 wow November 19, 2008
Boozin
I'd always wanted to read some Stephen King, but I scare far too easily. A friend suggested this, and I was instantly hooked! I'm not usually a fast reader, but I finished this in one weekend...One of my fav's now!
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