The Gunslinger Review

To preface this review, this was my first Stephen King book. I had heard so much about him and his writing but I had avoided reading his books since I do not consume much horror content. I do enjoy some but it is not my genre of choice. There are books like Misery which seem really interesting and I can see why people would like them but they aren’t something I want to read. The reason I decided to read this book was because I had heard so much about the Dark Tower series and how good it is in my consumption of fantasy books. It frequently comes up as one of the greatest fantasy series of all time. Going into this book, I was interested in seeing what Stephen King does which makes him so frequently talked about and also what makes the Dark Tower series so highly praised.

I don’t know if I would have finished this book if it weren’t for two things. The first was that I was warned that this book was slow and was the worst of the Dark Tower books. That was fairly clear from looking at the ratings for this book compared to the rest of the books in the series but, even before I had seen the ratings, I had been told this fact. The second thing was Stephen King’s prose. Over the course of reading this book, I tried multiple times to try and write out an explanation for why Stephen King’s prose is so interesting to me but I keep having trouble finding the words. It is different than anything I have read, in a good way. It is descriptive but not wordy and at times it can be vulgar with its descriptions. It uses simile but doesn’t go overboard with overly flowery language. Honestly, it made me want to read his memoir to try and glean some insight into what is interesting about it. I am very interested in what he has to say about writing and how he crafts his stories.

As for the story, I do think that this is a fairly weak book overall. The main issue with it was that it mostly exists to introduce the reader to the Gunslinger and I don’t think it even does that as well as it could. It also tries to do a little world-building through the flashbacks and the Gunslinger’s journey but the main focus was the character.

The book starts with the Gunslinger in the Mohaine desert on a quest to catch the man in black. It follows the Gunslinger as he gets closer and closer to the man in black until their confrontation at the end. Through the events of this journey, we see how the Gunslinger reacts to situations which gives us some insight into his character. We also get to see some of his past as he remembers several significant events which shaped him as a person. I do think that this is an interesting way to introduce a character and to give us a look into his mind, but I think that the story itself was fairly forgettable. If this story could do the character introduction while also doing more world-building then maybe it would be more captivating? It just felt like the story itself was nothing special with its only purpose being to introduce us to the Gunslinger.

For me, the last part was the most interesting. It involved the Gunslinger and his “confrontation” with the man in black. It felt like the prologue had finished and we were finally at the starting line for what will be an epic journey in the quest for the tower. It made me excited to see what comes next in Roland’s journey and it got me interested in seeing what this world has to offer.

This book is by no means bad and I think even if it wasn’t the stepping stone to get to the “good parts” I still would have finished it and been mostly satisfied. Even with the ending feeling like it was only the beginning of the journey, it would have been like the ending of Warbreaker. In Warbreaker, it felt like there should be a sequel (thankfully there is a sequel published for this book at the time of writing unlike Warbreaker) but where it had completed what it set out to do. In The Gunslinger, it felt like it did what it set out to do well enough even if it felt like it could have done more. I look forward to reading the rest of the Dark Tower books but for now I am most interested in reading Stephen King’s memoir to get a better insight into his writing and what makes it so interesting.