The Dark Tower by Stephen King

I finished it last night.

The last book made me mad...and happy...and satisfied. As I started reading the last book, I had that "don't want it to end" feeling.

7 books.

Publication stretching from 1982, though King had started writing it much earlier than that, through 2004.

The Tower Megology wove its threads through many of King's other works. Characters crossed over, lived, died, or went back home to their fates in their own books.

This was one of the best examples of BIG story writing that I've seen. This stands alongside other Megology stories. The closest analog, in size anyway, is the John Carter: Warlord of Mars series, though I'm sure there are other examples.

Roland should have been Clint Eastwood, but I think Clint is too old to be Roland now. His look could have been pulled off by Lance Hendrickson. But lately I've been thinking that Keifer Sutherland could play Roland in a movie.

I'm less than pleased that Marvel Comics is going to present the Dark Tower story as a comic book. I'm of the opinion that it won't translate to serialized fiction. It needs to be in the long form. breaking it into monthly installments will probably rob it of some of its fire...for me anyway.

This was great writing. This was great storytelling. This was a man following his ka, his soul, his destiny, and printing it out for others to read. You could almost feel King bleed on the page. And when something happened you didn't like, you hated him. And when something else happened that put it all in context, you loved him...like I said...great storytelling.

I may write more about this. I've been going book to book and not reading the series back to back to back. I would read an installment and, then, pause for awhile as I digested it, during the interim reading other books in the meantime. The scope and size of this story requires those of us who were into it to sit and think for a bit when it is complete.

I expected to be sad when it was complete, sort of the losing an old friend, considering the thousands of pages that made up the Dark Tower story, it is an old friend. But I'm not sad. I feel...well...the story was satisfying, not an easy thing to accomplish when you are speaking of thousands of pages over 7 books and 20 years.

Thank you, Mr. King.

I say thank ya'.