Ranger_Strider
August 4th, 2009, 05:01 AM
I followed our Constant Writer's work religiously for many years in my youth, starting with The Shining and then working quickly backward. I liked it all, but especially liked The Stand. At thirteen, I had already devoured LOTR, and juvinile series like The Hardy Boys (no small feat there), and better yet, The Three Investigators (which was only about 22 volumes at the time). So I was a pretty avid reader of popular kid fiction by the time the first edition of The Gunslinger came out.
I didn't understand it, but I did get through it. Coming right off my second read of the Lord of the Ring, I was fresh meat for the idea of a really big story that you can't sink your teeth into without some chewing through the hide.
But with The Gunslinger I was like: *sigh*.
That didn't stop me from snapping up The Drawing of the Three as soon as it hit the shelf, and that went down like prime rib. Then I knew Mr. Constant Writer had something really special for me in The Dark Tower series.
So I waited and held off reading any more until the series was done.
Of course that is a great testament to my will and ingenuity, as well as foresight and wisdom, and so I thankee-sai for agreeing with me on that.
Two months ago, I was in my local Carnegie Library (if you don't have one, I'd be surprised) and noticed that the series was all done, and that The Gunslinger had been revised. I knew it was time to get on my bib and start chewing.
Boy o boy, did that book tenderize with aging? I'm here to set you right on it: it did. I have never re-read a book after it has undergone a revision phase and thought that the changes made it better enough to justify the trouble; until now. I'm a purist only to the point that sense allows, and the revised edition of The Gunslinger makes so much more sense-- purity be damned!
My point here (now that I'm getting to it), is that Steve is a writer who is aging brilliantly (read Duma Key). Sure he's let me down a few times, like with that first ed. of The Gunslinger, but the man came back with the will and fortitude that makes me proud to have him in my ka-tet. He's Cuthbert/Eddie to my Roland: irritating at times, but completely worthy of the trust I put in him.
I've followed some writers (Crichton, Clarke) who evetually lose touch with common sense (blinded by success, I suppose), and schlock off into the sunset, but none of them achieved what King is doing in his sunset years, which I think is just wonderful. I would rank the Dark Tower Series in it's finished version above the Lord of the Rings on my (best stories ever) list, and that is saying a whole hella' lot.
I can do that because while LOTR has just about everything else, it does not kindle the imagination regaurding the limits of what is possible in The Multiverse. Good and Evil is not as Black and White in The Multiverse as it is in Tolkien's Middle Earth. The imagination reaches out (and in) without limits in 'Kingian Physics'.
Why this thread? Because I'm new here, but NOT new to SK and good fiction in general. You can discuss anything you want, as long as you are at least willing to acknowledge that Mr. Constant Writer has created a modern template for other ambitious writers to try and match.
I didn't understand it, but I did get through it. Coming right off my second read of the Lord of the Ring, I was fresh meat for the idea of a really big story that you can't sink your teeth into without some chewing through the hide.
But with The Gunslinger I was like: *sigh*.
That didn't stop me from snapping up The Drawing of the Three as soon as it hit the shelf, and that went down like prime rib. Then I knew Mr. Constant Writer had something really special for me in The Dark Tower series.
So I waited and held off reading any more until the series was done.
Of course that is a great testament to my will and ingenuity, as well as foresight and wisdom, and so I thankee-sai for agreeing with me on that.
Two months ago, I was in my local Carnegie Library (if you don't have one, I'd be surprised) and noticed that the series was all done, and that The Gunslinger had been revised. I knew it was time to get on my bib and start chewing.
Boy o boy, did that book tenderize with aging? I'm here to set you right on it: it did. I have never re-read a book after it has undergone a revision phase and thought that the changes made it better enough to justify the trouble; until now. I'm a purist only to the point that sense allows, and the revised edition of The Gunslinger makes so much more sense-- purity be damned!
My point here (now that I'm getting to it), is that Steve is a writer who is aging brilliantly (read Duma Key). Sure he's let me down a few times, like with that first ed. of The Gunslinger, but the man came back with the will and fortitude that makes me proud to have him in my ka-tet. He's Cuthbert/Eddie to my Roland: irritating at times, but completely worthy of the trust I put in him.
I've followed some writers (Crichton, Clarke) who evetually lose touch with common sense (blinded by success, I suppose), and schlock off into the sunset, but none of them achieved what King is doing in his sunset years, which I think is just wonderful. I would rank the Dark Tower Series in it's finished version above the Lord of the Rings on my (best stories ever) list, and that is saying a whole hella' lot.
I can do that because while LOTR has just about everything else, it does not kindle the imagination regaurding the limits of what is possible in The Multiverse. Good and Evil is not as Black and White in The Multiverse as it is in Tolkien's Middle Earth. The imagination reaches out (and in) without limits in 'Kingian Physics'.
Why this thread? Because I'm new here, but NOT new to SK and good fiction in general. You can discuss anything you want, as long as you are at least willing to acknowledge that Mr. Constant Writer has created a modern template for other ambitious writers to try and match.