Sloe Times

Back in about late '83 - early '84 I started reading "The Gunslinger" and last night I finished reading "The Dark Tower" It took me awhile to figure out when I would have read the first book in the series, but I had to figure it was around age 9 or 10. Now that I've read it to the very last page, I have to say that the ending was a mystery right up until about the last chapter (not meta chapter mind you). Thinking back over the whole series I have to say that the ending isn't really too surprising but it is definetly a thinker. My wife on the other hand (who finished the last book a month ago... oh the fight over who got to read it first) hated the ending. I suspect she was hoping that it really would have ended a chapter earlier and now she just knows too much and that offends her senses. :) Things have been hectic enough that I hadn't actually started reading until last week and it was a little slow going but at one point in the story King tells you that it will pass very rapidly now, and sure enough it did. I'm not sure if that was right at the half way point in the book but finishing it didn't take half as long as getting that far. Go figure.

It has been an interesting journey with Roland over the years and like the story, time with him seemed to stretch at times and on others go by in a blink. I think one of the things I've always liked about the Dark Tower series is that even when there wasn't a book specifically in the series, you could glimpse a brief view through his other works. I can't imagine what I could read now that would fill the void that has been left by two major series of books. First was what amounts to the final chapter of the Jack Ryan books (we'll not include his most recent book with JR Jr.) by Tom Clancy and now the last book in the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. Funny, the characters, settings, and stories of both authors intertwine throughout their books in many and interesting ways and I suspect that's why they entertain me so. I call this the incidental series. For there are books that are not neccessarily directly about the characters of previous books or the settings in previous books but if you pay attention the ties are there. John Grisham is another author who does this and I enjoy his stuff very much as well.

Oh well, I recently recieved my autographed copy of "The Annotated Legends" which I'll probably wait just a little longer before I start to read it. It's difficult to want to pick up another large work after screaming through 850ish pages.