I have always loved the first book, the second book is also pretty good, but the 3rd book could quite literally be 1/3 the length without sacrificing anything of value. Now I am on the 4th book and wishing for King to get on with the damn story. King really forgot the face of his father when writing a good portion of this book. Literally hours and hours of reading about two teens sneaking around while the advancing plot points are glossed over in minutes… and I’m only 50-60% of the way through the book 😭 The overall bones of the story are great, I am truly invested in Roland, Eddie, Cuthbert, Suzanna, and especially Jake… but dear lord almighty, why TF does a good portion of it need to feel so mundane? We experience the mundane everyday in our human existences already, do we need to bear them in our books? I feel like I’m reading the Inheritance Cycle all over again, a story of padding that borders on the extreme.
Take for example Ender’s Game. I have read it 4ish times and never once do I feel like a moment of my time has been wasted. Orson Scott Card masterfully tells a tight knit story that tells all it needs to tell without being loaded with palaver. The book respects* the time of the reader. So too the books from the likes of Neil Gaiman. Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neverwhere, American Gods, Coraline, all books that masterfully deliver information at a pace that don’t linger, or feel overwhelming… but The dark tower WL & WaG absolutely have no respect for the time of the reader. They just feel like a mass intended to fill up a word count imposed by an english professor. I plan on reading the rest of the series as I have heard that books 6 and 7 make the whole series worth it, but I do wish that books 3 and 4 had been trimmed significantly and made into one book because there is really no reason for them the carry on for anywhere near the lengths that they do.
I’m just worried that books 4.5 and 5 might kill my will to continue on before getting to the best parts. Minor additional grievance, does there really need to be so many sexual encounters in these books? Of the 4 1/2 books about gunslingers that I’ve now read, there are significantly more scenes of a sexual nature than scenes of a gunslinging nature…
by SalamandersRreal