The Gunslinger

The Gunslinger

Paperback, 280 pages

English language

Published Sept. 11, 2013 by W F Howes Ltd.

ISBN:
978-1-4712-2789-9
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OCLC Number:
987010790

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4 stars (7 reviews)

In this first novel in his epic fantasy masterpiece, Stephen King introduces readers to one of his most enigmatic heroes, Roland of Gilead, the Last Gunslinger. He is a haunting figure, a loner, on a spellbinding journey into good and evil, in a desolate world which frighteningly echoes our own.

In his first step towards the powerful and mysterious Dark Tower, Roland encounters an alluring woman named Alice, begins a friendship with Jake, a kid from New York, and faces an agonising choice between damnation and salvation as he pursues the Man in Black.

Both grippingly realistic and eerily dreamlike, The Gunslinger leaves readers eagerly awaiting the next chapter. --back cover

53 editions

Review of 'The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

I definitely enjoyed this book, but it is also definitely the start of a saga. Throughout the whole novel there's so, so many hints of a larger world, and bursts of rapid-fire world building. The world King is creating is strange and intriguing enough that I want to continue with this series just to see how deep the rabbit hole goes. There are also a fair few Stephen King-isms in here, to be sure, though I'm told not as many as the later entries. Really, it's a matter of how much you can tolerate the particular style. I'm writing this a long time after I read it so I apologize for the vagueness.

I don't get why people like this

2 stars

People say this is a good book and series but I can't agree to that. It's just chaotic and doesn't make any sense, the writing seems overly dramatic and "flowery", meaning he describes things so weird, with weird details and weird metaphors. I couldn't even read it to the end and stopped at like 80 or 90%. I have no interest in reading the other novels in the series, it's just not my type of writing I guess. I never liked any Stephen King books until this one and I read a bunch now. It's not getting any better, maybe I should just give up on trying to like his writing.

reviewed The gunslinger by Stephen King (The dark tower -- 1)

Review of 'The gunslinger' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Escrita ao longo de mais de 30 anos e quase interrompida pelo grave acidente que King sofreu em 1999, a saga The Dark Tower, ao contrário de outros livros mais conhecidos do autor, é uma obra de difícil categorização, apresentando elementos característicos de géneros como a ficção científica, o horror, o fantástico e o western. Apesar de se tratar de uma definição redutora, The Gunslinger apresenta-se, essencialmente, como um misto dos dois últimos; um primeiro passo naquele que é talvez o projecto mais ambicioso na carreira de Stephen King.

"The desert was the apotheosis of all deserts, huge, standing to the sky for what looked like eternity in all directions. It was white and blinding and waterless and without feature save for the faint, cloudy haze of the mountains which sketched themselves on the horizon and the devil-grass which brought sweet dreams, nightmares, death. An occasional tombstone sign pointed the …