The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger

Donald M. Grant (1982)

This heroic fantasy is set in a world of ominous landscape and macabre menace that is a dark mirror of our own. A spellbinding tale of good versus evil, it features one of Stephen King's most powerful creations - The Gunslinger, a haunting figure who embodies the qualities of the lone hero through the ages from anvient myth to frontier western legend. His pursuit of The man in Black, his liason with the sexually ravenous Alice, his friendship with the kid from Earth called Jake, are part of a drama that is both grippingly realistic and eerily dreamlike, an alchemy of storytelling sorcery. Complete in itself, The Gunslinger is the first novel in an epic series, The Dark Tower , that promises to be Stephen King's crowning achievement.

Main Characters:
Jake Chambers
The boy Roland met at the Way Station. He was killed in the other world when pushed in front of a Cadillac. He fell into an abyss when Roland chose to pursue the Man in Black rather than rescue him.
Cort
Roland's teacher in Tull
The Man in Black
the man that Roland pursued, (presumed to be Randall Flagg from the The Stand), Walter, The Prophet of Doom, the voice of Jeremiah. Roland knew that the Man in Black was somehow tied up with his quest for the Dark Tower but could not identify in what way.
Maerlyn
the Ageless Stranger. The Man in Black's master.
Roland
the last Gunslinger
The First
the first of the three that Roland had to draw together. A demon called heroin had infested him.
The Second
the second of the three, she would come on wheels
The Third
the third of the three. He would come in chains.
Notes of Interest:
  1. Please see the Dark Tower FAQ for threads and interesting side notes, for they are too numerous to mention here.


[Stephen King's books]

Ed Nomura

Last updated: Mar 28, 1996