The Gunslinger

The Dark Tower I

by Stephen King

mass market paperback, 336 pages

English language

Published July 21, 2003 by Signet.

ISBN:: 978-0-451-21084-5
OCLC Number:: 870291546

View on OpenLibrary

(7 reviews)

[The Dark Tower][1] I

The Gunslinger is a dark-fantasy by American author Stephen King. It is the first volume in the Dark Tower series.

The Gunslinger was first published in 1982 as a fix-up novel, joining five short stories that had been published between 1978 and 1981. King substantially revised the novel in 2003; this version has remained in print ever since, with the subtitle RESUMPTION.

The story centers upon Roland Deschain, the last gunslinger, who has been chasing his adversary, "the man in black," for many years. The novel fuses Western fiction with fantasy, science fiction, and horror, following Roland's trek through a vast desert and beyond in search of the man in black. Roland meets several people along his journey, including a boy named Jake Chambers, who travels with him part of the way.

"The Gunslinger" (October 1978) "The Way Station" (April 1980) "The Oracle and the Mountains" …

[The Dark Tower][1] I

The Gunslinger is a dark-fantasy by American author Stephen King. It is the first volume in the Dark Tower series.

"The Gunslinger" (October 1978) "The Way Station" (April 1980) "The Oracle and the Mountains" (February 1981) "The Slow Mutants" (July 1981) "The Gunslinger and the Dark Man" (November 1981)

[1]: openlibrary.org/works/OL81600W/The_Dark_Tower_1-7

50 editions

Parenthesis_Liker reviewed The Dark Tower I by Stephen King (The Dark Tower I)

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.

Anthony Burgess reviewed The Dark Tower by Stephen King (The Dark Tower, 1)

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.