Product Description

The first novel in Stephen King's unique, bestselling epic fantasy quest - fully revised and expanded, and relaunched in B format with a new series look.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1643 in Books
• Published on: 2008-03-27
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Synopsis
In the Gunslinger, 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. And the tower is closer!

About the Author
Stephen King is the bestselling author of more than thirty books of which the most recent are DREAMCATCHER, EVERYTHING'S EVENTUAL and FROM A BUICK 8. He lives with his wife, the novelist Tabitha King, in Bangor, Maine.

Customer Reviews

One of my favourites, this series gets under your skin
This is my favourite series of books and Gunslinger is probably one of the books I re-read most. "The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed"....great opening! This book is a bit weird and different to the others in the series, but it still works well.

We get a great introduction to the enigmatic Gunslinger, Roland Deschain and his quest to catch the man in black and to find the Dark Tower. His world is a strange echo of ours, but it has 'moved on.' A strange mix of the old Wild West and a post apocalyptic future, where paper is rare and machinery is ancient, with its original purpose forgotten. Roland meets a boy called Jake, who appears to have died in our reality and somehow crossed over to this other world. They form a fragile partnership as they pursue the man in black...but things seem pretty doomed from the start.

There are many questions raised in this book, and you have to read the rest of the series to find the answers. You enter the story in the middle of it really, and there is a lot of hopping around the timeline to explain things. Roland is a tough character to love, but you get there in the end! That is his appeal, his harshness and his fervent determination to get to the Tower, no matter the cost.

Try this if you want a change! It's not like anything I have read, but it goes without saying, it's a must for King fans and people who like a good, epic fantasy. Thankee sai! Long days pleasant nights! If you read the set you may find you end up talking oddly, it has that effect! READ
Try the graphic novel too, based on the Wizard and Glass book. Great representation of young Roland.

The Gunslinger
The first instalment of Stephen King's fantasy series is unashamedly inspired by that other fantastic series, "The Lord of the Rings". King made no attempt to hide this and refers to it in each of his surprisingly-interesting forwards, but the thought of reading something so obviously "inspired" put me off. It was only after the release of the final book in the series I was persuaded to pick up "Gunslinger", and was appalled at how brilliant it was.

It's easy for people to say King's off his game, but he wasn't then and he isn't now - the final book, released only recently, is testament to this. "Gunslinger" is arguably everything that Stephen King isn't: beautiful, poetic, and not really horror. Technically it's fantasy, post-apocalyptic fantasy, and on top of that it's a Western of sorts. It's a glaring divergence from King's usual style, but what appalled me was that it was good. Very, very good, and despite the assumption that King's unfamiliarity with the genre would prove to be the novel's downfall, it is also full of everything that King is wonderful at: suspense, mystery, and very real characters.

A review column isn't the place for a synopsis, so I'll keep it brief. This book has one real character and that's the mysterious hero, the eponymous gunslinger who is a throwback from a bygone age that existed before the world "moved on". The brevity of the novel lends itself to this kind of storytelling, in which we follow a single character in a series of events, a tale told in a surreal, rippling narrative that is like looking through water at an alternate world. The other novels don't keep up this dreamlike form of storytelling, which makes "Gunslinger" all the more precious.

If you like King, you'll love this, regardless of the change in genre. If you pick this up and hate it, you'll still come away with a fresh idea on what novels are all about, reminded why people write. Simple story. Complex characters. You don't have to read the others if you don't like it, but if you want a fresh piece of fiction from an established super-writer, then for God's sake try "Gunslinger"!

A good 'part one' book.
If you're thinking of getting this book I can't list a reason you shouldn't except that this really isn't a stand alone novel, rather it's an introduction to a world and a character to be taken up by the many later instalments of the series. Yes, it has it's own plot, but really it's just there to get us started on the journey. Thus, don't read this unless you're prepared to be hooked and end up forking out for all the others.
Having said that, it's hardly a major flaw and the book really is very enjoyable and extremely intriuging. King creates a world which is brutal, surreally dream-like and a million miles from anything else in fantasy, horror or any other genre. His protagonist is tragically human, his antagonist eerily sinister and beautifully cruel, and everyone who gets caught between them is made hugely sympathetic by their status as just that - something that gets caught in the way.
King's experience as a horror writer really comes across here, making this a fantasy world born of and premeated by the horror genre. The setting is a vast and desolate wasteland to which none of it's inhabitants really belong, lending the whole thing an eeriness that keeps the reader on edge throughout and adds a certain grotesque quality to much of what happens.
If you're a fan of King, a fan of horror, a fan of fantasy, or just a fan of really great storytelling then you should definitely check this out. But prepare to be hooked.