Dark Tower Omnibus [Hardcover]

Stephen King (Author), Peter David (Author), Robin Furth (Author), Anthony Flamini (Author), Jae Lee (Illustrator), Richard Isanove (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 21, 2011

The ultimate Dark Tower collection! An oversized hardcover collecting the first five volumes of Marvel's Dark Tower series plus Dark Tower Companion, a separate volume of bonus material, both packaged in a deluxe slipcase!

DARK TOWER OMNIBUS

"The Man in Black fled across the desert...and the gunslinger followed." With those words from a short story published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Stephen King launched one of the most seminal characters in his lifetime of writing into a destiny fraught with danger, death, triumph and loss. In the almost thirty years since that momentous occasion, King introduced millions of readers to the densely textured realm of Mid-World through his magnum opus, the Dark Tower series of novels. King joined with Marvel in 2007 to bring his masterwork of fantasy to a new generation of readers. Adding stunning new textures to the mythos of Roland and Mid-World for four years, the initial arc of King and Marvel's union is now complete, and the entire run is collected here. Collecting DARK TOWER: THE GUNSLINGER BORN #1-7, THE LONG ROAD HOME #1-5, TREACHERY #1-6, SORCERER #1, THE FALL OF GILEAD #1-6 and THE BATTLE OF JERICHO HILL #1-5. 296 PGS



Dark Tower Omnibus Companion

Chock full of essential short stories, bonus material and apocrypha, this volume is a must-read for Stephen King enthusiasts. Three guidebooks overseen by Dark Tower: A Concordance author Robin Furth unlock the many secrets of Roland Deschain, the Gunslingers, Gilead and the dark forces of Farson - bringing readers greater insight into the people, places and things of Mid-World. And supplemental material from the first thirty issues of Marvel's Dark Tower series shed even more light on King's epic - with short stories by Furth, and a tour through artists Jae Lee and Richard Isanove's sketchbooks, and more! Collecting DARK TOWER: GUNSLINGER'S GUIDEBOOK, END-WORLD ALMANAC and GUIDE TO GILEAD; MARVEL SPOTLIGHT: DARK TOWER; and material from DARK TOWER: THE GUNSLINGER BORN #1-7, THE LONG ROAD HOME #1-5, TREACHERY #1-6, SORCERER #1, THE FALL OF GILEAD #1-6 and THE BATTLE OF JERICHO HILL #1-5. 600 PGS.

©2011 Stephen King. All rights reserved.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Peter David has had over fifty novels published, including Sir Apropos of Nothing and the sequel The Woad to Wuin, Knight Life, Howling Mad, and the Psi-Man adventure series. He is the co-creator and author of the bestselling Star Trek: New Frontier series for Pocket Books.

Peter's comic book resume includes an award-winning twelve-year run on The Incredible Hulk, and he has also worked on such varied and popular titles as Supergirl, Young Justice, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2099, X-Factor, Star Trek, Wolverine, and many others.

Robin Furth is the personal research assistant to Stephen King and the author of Stephen King's The Dark Tower: A Complete Concordance, which was published by Scribner on December 5, 2006.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 896 pages
• Publisher: Marvel (September 21, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0785155414
• ISBN-13: 978-0785155416
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 3.4 x 11.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #184,434 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Stephen King is the author of more than fifty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. Among his most recent are the Dark Tower novels, Cell, From a Buick 8, Everything's Eventual, Hearts in Atlantis, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, and Bag of Bones. His acclaimed nonfiction book, On Writing, was also a bestseller. He is the recipient of the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.

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#23 Overall (See top 100 authors)

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#11 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy

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#11 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

82 of 88 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An absolute beautiful package - ruined by Amazon September 8, 2011

By Gerald Pennington

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I got my Dark Tower Omnibus in the mail today and will be returning it tomorrow. The two (!) books come slipcased in a nice cover. I love the fact that Marvel split the Omnibus into two books: The story of Roland's journey from childhood to Jericho Hill and a second volume that included all the wonderful backup matierals that were originally published in the monthly comics that provide quite a bit of back story on Roland's world. If you haven't seen the art in the Dark Tower books, you are in for a treat. The illustrations are gorgeous, surreal and grotesque and manage to capture the world of the Dark Tower perfectly. I absolutely love this package and highly recommend it. So why am I returning it? Because Amazon has once again destroyed these books with inadequate packaging. The books came in a box with the only packing being a single small airbag. So this 7 pound book bounced around a cardboard box for a couple of thousand miles. The front corner of the slipcase had visible damage where it was crushed. When opening the first book, it shows that the impact went through the corner of the slipcase into the book causing rippled, wrinkled pages all the way through. Clearly a person does not buy this type of book just for the reading of it. It is a collector's piece and if I am paying almost $100 for a book, it needs to be in mint condition when I get it. Maybe Amazon needs to offer a deluxe packaging offer that comes with styrofoam peanuts or bubble wrap. Anyway, I'm not going to ding the rating on the actual product because I love it, but be aware (and most of you probably already are) that the packaging for shipping of this product is terrible.
**UPDATE** I returned my original damaged copy to Amazon and had a brand new perfect copy in my hands within 48 hours. Amazon even paid for Saturday delivery. Although once again Amazon did not provide any packing materials, the box was more form fitting to the books which limited them banging around. Hopefully Amazon will figure out these heavier books require special handling! Although it was a problem of their making, I do have to commend Amazon on quickly handing the problem.

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Gorgeous book, Bad shipping September 9, 2011

By Prime Risk

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Marvel and R.R. Donnelley have produced a stunning and gorgeous book set on heavy-weight paper and reasonable attention to detail. This is certainly not a fine collectors book set, but it is a very nice addition to your King collection. Even if you are not a fan of the Dark Tower comic book format, the imagery is stunning.

Unfortunately Amazon decided to ship this 11 pound tome in a box with absolutely no padding whatsoever. The 2nd day air box showed up at the door with the seams splitting. The plastic wrap was rubbed through in places and the set's slipcover is crushed on all 8 corners and seriously scuffed. The books themselves only took damage on the spine. I can't imagine what shape this book is showing up in for deliveries via ground service.

Now you can't even return it to Amazon for a replacement.

For now I'll hold off on returning it to see if Amazon fixes the packaging and I can get an exchange, but if not I guess I'll just miss out on this one.

What a shame.

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Perfect for die hard fans September 20, 2011

By Faucon

Format:Hardcover

Marvel has put together a collection that die hard Dark Tower fans will all want to add to their collections. The slip case contains two large books with sewn binding.

The contents of the first book are fairly straight forward; it contains all the material that was previously published in graphic novel form in the first five graphic novels that Marvel has released of the Dark Tower series: Gunslinger Born, Long Road Home, Treachery, Fall of Gilead, and the Battle of Jericho.

The second volume in the set collects all the material that has previously been left out of the graphic novel releases of the Dark Tower. Each of the original comics featured a chapter of the story and then a brief essay on Roland's world by Robin Furth. This volume collects these essays together for the first time. Also collected for the first time are the Gunslingers Guidebook, the End-World Almanac, the Guide to Gilead, Marvel Spotlight: Dark Tower, and the Dark Tower Sketch book. Added to this are more than a hundred pages of sketches with commentary.

Pros of the Collection: It has everything that was written, drawn, and published up to the end of Jericho Hill. It is beautifully bound and collected. The companion volume gives relatively easy access to material that would otherwise have required you to remove a comic from its bag and board to re-read. The companion volume will be completely new to any readers who didn't collect the series in comic book form but only collected the graphic novels.

Cons: This doesn't make for a very convenient way to re-read the comic books. Certainly, more convenient than removing a comic book from a bag and board but nowhere near the portability of the other graphic novel releases. The material in the companion volume makes for a fascinating read, but isn't essential for understanding the story and was probably ignored by many readers when originally released in comic book form. There is a table of contents page at the start of the companion volume; however, the pages of the volume aren't numbered which renders the page numbers in the table of contents rather point less.

For most readers, this volume probably won't be worth the investment. However, dedicated Dark Tower fans who live and breathe the series, can rest assured that this is a high quality product, that is very comprehensive. This volume will tempt the Constant Reader to send a pithy note to Marvel: Thankee-Sai!