The Dark Tower (The Dark Tower, Book 7) (Hardcover)

by Stephen King (Author), Michael Whelan (Illustrator)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
At one point in this final book of the Dark Tower series, the character Stephen King (added to the plot in Song of Susannah) looks back at the preceding pages and says "when this last book is published, the readers are going to be just wild." And he's not kidding.

After a journey through seven books and over 20 years, King's Constant Readers finally have the conclusion they've been both eagerly awaiting and silently dreading. The tension in the Dark Tower series has built steadily from the beginning and, like in the best of King's novels, explodes into a violent, heart-tugging climax as Roland and his ka-tet finally near their goal. The body count in The Dark Tower is high. The gunslingers come out shooting and face a host of enemies, including low men, mutants, vampires, Roland's hideous quasi-offspring Mordred, and the fearsome Crimson King himself. King pushes the gross-out factor at times--Roland's lesson on tanning (no, not sun tanning) is brutal--but the magic of the series remains strong and readers will feel the pull of the Tower as strongly as ever as the story draws to a close. During this sentimental journey, King ties up loose ends left hanging from the 15 non-series novels and stories that are deeply entwined in the fabric of Mid-World through characters like Randall Flagg (The Stand and others) or Father Callahan ('Salem's Lot). When it finally arrives, the long awaited conclusion will leave King's myriad fans satisfied but wishing there were still more to come.

In King's memoir On Writing, he tells of an old woman who wrote him after reading the early books in the Dark Tower series. She was dying, she said, and didn't expect to see the end of Roland's quest. Could King tell her? Does he reach the Tower? Does he save it? Sadly, King said he did not know himself, that the story was creating itself as it went along. Wherever that woman is now (the clearing at the end of the path, perhaps?), let's hope she has a copy of The Dark Tower. Surely she would agree it's been worth the wait. --Benjamin Reese

From Publishers Weekly
A pilgrimage that began with one lone man's quest to save multiple worlds from chaos and destruction unfolds into a tale of epic proportions. While King saw some criticism for the slow pace of 1982's The Gunslinger, the book that launched this series, The Drawing of the Three (Book II, 1987), reeled in readers with its fantastical allure. And those who have faithfully journeyed alongside Roland, Eddie, Susannah, Jake and Oy ever since will find their loyalty toward the series' creator richly rewarded.The tangled web of the tower's multiple worlds has manifested itself in many of King's other works— The Stand (1978), Insomnia (1994) and Hearts in Atlantis (1999), to name a few. As one character explains here, "From the spring of 1970, when he typed the line The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed... very few of the things Stephen King wrote were 'just stories.' He may not believe that; we do." King, in fact, intertwines his own life story deeper and deeper into the tale of Roland and his surrogate family of gunslingers, and, in this final installment, playfully and seductively suggests that it might not be the author who drives the story, but rather the fictional characters that control the author.This philosophical exploration of free will and destiny may surprise those who have viewed King as a prolific pop-fiction dispenser. But a closer look at the brilliant complexity of his Dark Tower world should explain why this bestselling author has finally been recognized for his contribution to the contemporary literary canon. With the conclusion of this tale, ostensibly the last published work of his career, King has certainly reached the top of his game. And as for who or what resides at the top of the tower... The many readers dying to know will have to start at the beginning and work their way up. 12 color illus. by Michael Whelan.
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 864 pages
• Publisher: Donald M. Grant/Scribner; 1st Trade Ed edition (September 21, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1880418622
• ISBN-13: 978-1880418628
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 2.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (722 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #19,470 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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• This is item 7 in The Dark Tower Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

56 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars One 'Constant Reader' to another... NO SPOILERS, February 16, 2006

By	Roger FitzAlan "Aranarth" (Ithaca, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Dark Tower (The Dark Tower, Book 7) (Paperback)

Technically this book is not low quality enough to merit one star, but if you've been with this series since Day One, and believe as I do that this book carries more with it than just itself as a story, to give it anything more than one star would understate the magnitude of its failure.
All of the problems with book six are extended and compounded here in book seven: the reliance on New York and Maine as settings for an adventure story that's supposed to be grander than any one time or place, the prominence of annoying and unwelcome new characters, King's overuse of unbelievable internal dialogue to cram exposition down our throats, his narcissistic inclusion of himself as an important element, (more on that later) and his lack of focus on any one element worth caring about. The bottom line is this: "The Dark Tower 7" is King at his laziest and least original, which is hard enough to sit through in his lower-quality stand-alone output, but shockingly unforgivable in what is supposed to be the center of all his literary creation (his words, not mine) and his bid for greatness in the eyes of posterity.
Perhaps writing the Dark Tower had become a burden not unlike the Tower quest itself. Unlike his character Roland, however, King jumps ship rather than stick it out. Consider the evidence: the books inexplicably marginalize Roland and the Quest the further they go. By contrast, pointless distractions and King himself (with a profound dislike for the burden of being author) appear and assume importance. Roland is relieved of many of his soul-testing responsibilities (sacrificing his friends, dealing with his foes) by cheap plot devices that cause them to disappear outside of any action of his-- even the Tower itself is made practically irrelevant by a series of contrived events and unimportant characters. Forgive me, but wasn't the great central tragedy of this series that he'd give up anything for the Quest, and has in the past? King spent quite a bit of books one, three, and almost all of four dealing with this-- why throw it out the window in the closing 300 pages?
In "Dark Tower 7" Roland sacrifices nothing-- he is LEFT BEHIND and made irrelevant; this is perhaps symbolic of what has happened to the Series on the whole. The final three books in this series have a lurching, breakneck pace and reach their end with all the subtlety of a dump truck hitting a brick wall. Is it coincidental that they were penned all at once, contrasting with the twenty or so years it took King to write the first four? Consider also the growing preoccupation with the Tower in his other works over the last few years. The overwhelming presence in the first four books was the slow decay of a many layered world, one like and yet unlike our own, with complex characters that were all just a little bit crazy from their own mental decay. In the final three books, this world gives way to the familiar rushing and business-like atmosphere of omnipresent New York. The characters we knew fade and are replaced by cardboard heroes or villains, doing what they have to do to bring the story to an end.
The Quest (and possibly King's concern for his own mortality) probably proved too much to bear and King wanted out. If so, that is his prerogative. I do not feel he owes me any duty to "finish the series right," although I can offer my opinion that it would have been better to leave it unfinished than to drop it off a literary skyscraper like he has. In a self-serving note at the end, King remarks that the problem with Constant Readers is that they never want to acknowledge that sooner or later they'll have to let go-- whether there's real closure or not, and that it's a tragic thing to be insistent on some kind of neatly resolved 'ending.' I would answer that he should have taken some of his own advice: in the rush to close and end this series he's given up its soul. Tragic, indeed, as the once-great "Dark Tower" books deserved better treatment than this. If you are (like I was) an enthusiastic reader of the series and began to smell a rat in places during Book Five, I advise you to stop and leave your impression of the books as intact as it can be. If you've already read book six and enjoyed it without any problems, you might want to continue. For everyone else: it only gets worse.

46 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Like an icepick to the temple..., September 20, 2005

By	Jonathan C. Pike (Canton, MA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

...this book will make you want to slam your fingers in a car door just to stop the pain in your head. After I finished this book I just sat and stared dumbly at a wall for 10 minutes thinking, "Arrr?" How could this be a Steven King book? And after the previous books in the series were so good! What happened? A few things that particularly bothered me (and probably you too (Spoiler warning):

1. Mordred: An entire book to build up this character. Nevermind the fact that he's kind of some cheesy spider-man weirdo. We'll accept it, because he's gonna have an epic battle with Roland that will span chapters and wow us all. Right? What's that? Roland shoots him by a campfire and he dies in 2 paragraphs, rendering his entire existence meaningless? Oh. Nevermind.

2. The Crimson King: Ok, so Mordred sucked. But the CK will be awesome! Some really big bad dude that Roland will have a tough time beating. Maybe Roland won't even win! I can't wait! Huh? The CK ends up being some crazy old guy hopping around on a balcony who throws hand grenades at Roland? No way. Steven wouldn't do that to us. CK is like the equivalent to Sauron, or Shai'Tan. He's much tougher than that. And what else? He is defeated by being PAINTED OUT OF EXISTENCE? What? I'll pretend I didn't hear that.


3. The epilogue: Alright so the villains really sucked. But at least the Dark Tower itself will rock! Can't wait for Roland to climb to the top and achieve his quest. Who knows what adventures he'll have inside? Oh wait. Before that, it's a message from Steven King. And he tells us not to expect a good ending. Huh. Gotta tell ya Stevey, that kind of bummed me out. And after the actual ending, King hits us with another dose of suck, telling us not to bother sending him letters about how much we hated the book. It's like his preemptive strike. He knew his book was awful, put no effort into the ending, so instead attacks the READER, and chides us for expecting a good ending! Not sure what's going on here, but man if it didn't make me hate King.

61 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars what happened...?, July 12, 2005

By	ninjajim4 - See all my reviews

Imagine if you had to wait ten years in between each book of the Lord of the Rings. Then imagine after being entranced by the first two books, surprising in their originality, wonder and realistic depth, you wait another decade, pick up The Return of the King, and halfway through, J.R.R Tolkien walks into Middle Earth, shakes Frodo's hand, and proceeds to explain to him how he conceived of the idea of hobbits as a bedtime story for his children.

Then read on for a bit more, and find that Sauron, Lord of Mordor, is in actuality not evil incarnate, but just some pissed off guy, yelling on the balcony of his tower.

Then, just as Frodo walks into the tunnel leading to the Cracks of Doom, there's an interjection BY THE AUTHOR, telling you that it's time to stop reading now.

Imagine all this, and then you begin to get a good idea of how what began as a truly unique and genere shattering epic and potential genuine magnum opus can go out with a groan instead of a bang.

Anybody who loved this series in its entirety, I cannot fault you. But I can say that you were not as dedicated and engulfed in the world of the gunslinger and his new friends as the rest of us were. You are the guys who never watch the ballgames until it's on the news that your team's made the playoffs for the first time in 30 years, and then you go out and buy their hat to wear at the sports bar.

You liked it because you don't care. You liked it because you were expecting just another decent story, and that's what you got. For you it was never real.

The rest of us were expecting a revolutionary epic, because all those years ago when we first found ourselves in the strange world of the gunslinger, we saw all the makings of one.

We saw the potential for something truly magnificent, and we're sad and disillusioned and pissed off as we contrast what could have been with what has come to be. We wonder how something that started so good could end so badly.