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The Waste Lands (The Dark Tower, Book 3)
 
 
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The Waste Lands (The Dark Tower, Book 3) [Hardcover]

Stephen King (Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (228 customer reviews) |

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Book Description

Publication Date: June 23, 2003 | Series: Dark Tower (Book 3)
Beginning with a short story appearing in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1978, the publication of Stephen King's epic work of fantasy-what he considers to be a single long novel and his magnum opus-has spanned a quarter of a century.

Set in a world of extraordinary circumstances, filled with stunning visual imagery and unforgettable characters, The Dark Tower series is King's most visionary feat of storytelling, a magical mix of science fiction, fantasy, and horror that may well be his crowning achievement. In November 2003, the fifth installment, Wolves of the Calla, will be published under the imprint of Donald M. Grant, with distribution and major promotion provided by Scribner. Song of Susannah, Book VI, and The Dark Tower, Book VII, will follow under the same arrangement in 2004. With these last three volumes finally on the horizon, readers-countless King readers who have yet to delve into The Dark Tower and a multitude of new and old fantasy fans-can now look forward to reading the series straight through to its stunning conclusion. Viking's elegant reissue of the first four books ensures that for the first time The Dark Tower will be widely available in hardcover editions for this eager readership.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

King's third volume on Roland the gunfighter's search for the Dark Tower offers charming bits of whimsy, some splendidly tense moments and one rip-roaring horror scene. At times, however, it is pretentious and the direction of the sprawling plot uncertain. Roland has two companions on his quest for the tower at the portal of all the worldsp. 53 : Susannah Dean and Eddie Dean, who entered his world from New York City of 1963 and 1987, respectively. When the three track down the den of a 70-foot-tall cyborg bear, they are pointed down a path leading to the Tower. But Roland is slowly going mad, a fact that seems linked to his past experiences with Jake Chambers, a boy who died twicestet ital in the first book of the series. Jake reappears here, displaying great resilience in crossing over from 1977 New York City to join Roland & Co. (As Susannah notes, "This time-travel business is some confusing shit.") They press on, plumbing the depths of a children's book that tells a profound and ancient tale. Unfortunately, the questers don't reach the Tower; in fact, they're caught in a cliff-hanger ending--King says, he'll write volume four if we want it. Illustrations not seen by PW. 1.5 million first printing; $400,000 ad/promo; BOMC and QPB selections.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal

YA-- The third installment in the offbeat fantasy saga involving the enigmatic Roland (the last gunfighter) and his quest for the Dark Tower. While the story (inspired by Robert Browning's narrative poem ``Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came'') is entertaining, what really makes it outstanding are King's unique, multifaceted characters. This is Stephen King at his best.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 448 pages
  • Publisher: Viking Adult; 1st Edition 1st Printing edition (June 23, 2003)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0670032565
  • ISBN-13: 978-0670032563
  • Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.5 x 1.4 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (228 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #219,334 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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More About the Author

› Visit Amazon's Stephen King Page
Stephen King
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.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
While the novel itself is quite good, the Kindle edition, which I purchased and shortly returned for a refund, is littered with typos and formatting errors. It appears that some unpaid--and maybe even hung-over--intern simply scanned the paper version of this book and ran a quick spell-check on random chapters. There are random periods strewn throughout the text, words are often misspelled, italics bleed into following paragraphs, short dashes and long dashes are often confused, ellipses are sometimes spaced, sometimes not... at one point, a closing double-quote is written as a superscripted 99! At 60% I had marked over 100 typos and formatting errors.

If I'm paying nearly the same price as a real-life book for an ephemeral digital copy (with DRM chains, no less!), I expect the same standard of formatting and typography as I would get in a real book. This Kindle edition is a lazy money-grab--do yourself a favor and download the torrent instead so you can correct the errors yourself if you want to read it.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
The quest endures! May 10, 2005
Format:Hardcover
The Wastelands-King's third installment in the Dark Tower saga-marks the true beginning of the quest in many ways. Roland finally gathers his ka-tet (group bound to him by destiny) as he draws young Jake into his world amid a demonic rainstorm. And it is here, as the group prepares to embark on a seemingly insane journey through the Waste Lands (part of Mid-World that has been utterly ravaged by war and the decay of the Tower), that we finally get a look at the true nature of Roland's world.

From the City of Lud-a post-apocalyptic industrial ruin-to the lost cyborg-bear Shardik and the dread portal he guards, it is clear from the start that Roland's world-and perhaps our world as well-contains vastly more than meets the eye. Perhaps the greatest asset to The Waste Lands is the sheer imaginative scope that binds the tale of Roland's ka-tet. Here is a world so complete in its history, so flawless in its realization, and so utterly compelling in its people, that it is far too easy to lose yourself in.

In The Waste Lands, the Dark Tower epic picks of steam and sends the reader hurtling down the dark halls of King's fantastic world.

A word of warning: Have a copy of Wizard and Glass (Book IV) on hand when you finish this; it ends with a really agonizing cliff-hanger.
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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Strange and Wondrous Realms October 5, 2001
Format:Paperback
Book III of the Dark Tower series continues the quest defined in the first book (The Gunslinger) with the traveling companions introduced in the second book (The Drawing of the Three).

This book is basically a group of adventure episodes: an encounter with a 70 foot high bio-mechanical bear (Shardik), relic of a past age, a strange fight with a demon, a visit to a dying suburban village, an abduction and running battle in a ghost town city, and finally a fantastic trip on a suicidal mono-rail train. Each episode provides a little more insight into Roland's fantastical world, both past and present. By the end of this book, a fairly coherent picture of this world emerges, from its obvious high technology past, to its current sadly deteriorated state, to some of the rationale behind why certain things work the way they do in this world. The book is very action oriented; there is very little reflection on grander philosophical themes here, and continuing character development of the main characters is fairly minimal.

There is a nice variant on the old time-travel paradox. In The Gunslinger, the boy Jake is sacrificed to Roland's determination to catch the 'man in black'. In this story, we find Jake alive and well and still living in (our) New York, due to an action by Roland in The Drawing of the Three that caused the previous history to never occur. But both Roland and Jake have memories of the 'other' past, and this duality is slowly driving both to the edge of insanity. The resolution of this problem requires that Jake be brought back to Roland's world, and how this is accomplished forms the major portion of one of the 'episodes'.

At various points throughout this book, King makes allusions to other famous science-fiction and fantasy authors and their creations (and some of his own), from Richard Adams (Shardik and Watership Down) to Isaac Asimov's 'positronic' brains of his robot stories, to J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit with its riddling games. For those who have read these works, these allusions provide an enhanced view of this world and how it works, but I am not sure how well some of this plays with readers who haven't read these other works.

Overall, this book is a page-turner, and does a good job of holding the reader's interest in the fate of the major characters and the overall resolution of the quest. The ending of this book is a cliff-hanger, like the movie serials of old, and for this reason I don't recommend you start this book unless you have a copy of book IV, Wizard & Glass, handy, as you will definitely want to immediately find out the resolution to the end situation here.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews
King's Creativity Continues To Peak (*spoilers included*)
When Stephen King began the Dark Tower series with the collection of short stories that made up The Gunslinger, his guarded vision of a magnificent fantasy world tantalized readers... Read more
Published 5 days ago by J. Hill
Solid third Dark Tower book. 4 1/2 stars
The Wastle Lands, while not quite as good as "The Drawing of the Three", is certainly worthy of following it. Read more
Published 1 month ago by AN AVID READER
Happy Reader
I was new to ordering anything on-line, but my experience has been pleasant. The books are in great condition, very pleased with my purchase from order to delivery.
Published 1 month ago by Harmony
Terrible formatting in the Kindle edition
March 19 2012 and the Kindle edition is still full of typos, random periods and other formatting errors. Read more
Published 2 months ago by S. COLEMAN
The Aphotheosis of Blending Genre
I'm a triple threat guy; I love horror in all three major mediums--film, videogames, books. Whereas The Dark Tower III: The Waste Land's can't straight up be called a horror book,... Read more
Published 2 months ago by JCStreetSoldier
Rmd King
I don't know what more there is to say (see my other Dark Tower reviews), Stephen King is the "Master of the Pen". This entire Dark Tower Series, is a must read. Read more
Published 2 months ago by r.doolittle
My favorite of the Dark Tower series
This is a phenomenal book and my favorite of the Dark Tower novels. The first two books are really King laying the foundation of the novel. Read more
Published 3 months ago by J B Lash
Once you enter the realm of the Dark Tower there is no turning back
Yet another fantastic leg of the tremendous journey to the dark tower, the chilling and intense story continues with our friends on the quest that threatens to claim their lives at... Read more
Published 3 months ago by - Kasia S.
King in the 90's
King's quality of writing dropped off substantially in the beginning of the nineties, his last great book being Needful Things. Read more
Published 4 months ago by A. Alexandrov
Excellent entry in the series, I just hope the editor was fired for...
This is a fine entry into the Dark Tower series, which I have always thoroughly enjoyed, but now as I find myself going through the books again having finally purchased a kindle I... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Carter
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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First Sentence:
The Waste Lands is the third volume of a longer tale inspired by and to some degree dependent upon Robert Browning's narrative poem "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came." Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
high speech, dipolar computers, gunslinger nodded, albino twins, ventilator grille, speaking ring, pretzel vendor, monorail track, plaster hand
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Tick-Tock Man, Engineer Bob, Aunt Talitha, New York, Charlie the Choo-Choo, River Crossing, Dark Tower, Detta Walker, Final Essay, The Mansion, Blaine the Mono, Jack Mort, Susannah Dean, Great Road, Jake Chambers, Second Avenue, Eddie Dean, Old Mother, Little Blaine, Great Old Ones, Calvin Tower, Elmer Chambers, Roland of Gilead, The Street of the Turtle, Western Sea
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