(no subject)
I'm re-reading The Dark Tower series because I have nothing new to read at the moment, and I go crazy without delicious books. Mmmm... Words.
Although, you know, I kind of wish I'd stopped reading after the second book, maybe even the third. While the others had some good moments, I didn't devour them the way I did the first two (and third, but only because I had been waiting FOREVER), because Stephen King can be, and usually is, a particularly infuriating author.
I just finished the second book for the second time, and man do I ever love that book. There are parts that are so vivid to me, that whole lame "becoming the characters" stuff is actually true. I can't even go through this book critically because I get so involved in it I forget I was supposed to be doing. The ending of book two is so damn touching and enticing, it almost makes up for the bullshit the Tower turns out to be.
I'm not even sure what was the most maddening about the following books, there was so much about them that annoyed me. I'm going from memory here (and I'm fairly good at remembering unimportant things), book three ended RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE of an intellectual show-down between the gunslingers and this suicidal, highly intelligent monorail train that's going 200 miles an hour on an impossibly old track built, somehow, over a giant pit of monsters. It is science-fiction, I get it, what I don't get is why this book has so many pages describing Roland and Jake's split mind madness and that ridiculous scene where the boy is "born" (i see wat u did thar) into the gunslinger's world, and all that ridiculousness that reminded me of "Escape From New York" only to have the most nonsensical non-ending ever. I don't understand why the book needed to have two (possibly even three, if you count the part where Jake gets rescued) climaxes when he easily could have ended the book sometime after all that ka-tet talk in that town with all the old people and people would still have wanted to continue reading because this is still before some of the more heinous parts. That should have been appealing because it would have meant squeezing another book out of the series, and everyone knows how much King enjoys talking about how many books he has written.
Obviously book four picks up right where book three left off, speeding train, showdown, blah blah blah. I actually found it to be quite funny that the killer monorail was murdered by bad puns. I mean, how else do you defeat a highly intelligent machine in a game of riddles? This would also have been an acceptable ending to book three and would only have tacked on an extra 100 pages, if that. Maybe I'm retarded, but I really hated the telling of Roland's only love. I remember very little about this book, which says a lot especially since I just more or less summarized the whole plot of book three. This book was SO BORING, there was maybe one other redeeming moment, which was when Young!Roland and his chums got the better of the local (adult) bullies through pure dumb luck. It has to be said, though, I fucking love Cuthbert, I can just picture him in that victorious moment with his goddamn slingshot (seriously) wearing the biggest shit-eating grin on his face. Hilarious. I think this one ended with another showdown, but Flagg/Marten/The Man in Black fled like a little titty-baby or something. I can't remember, I was too disappointed.
Is anyone still reading this nonsense?
Booook five, my god. I have such a love-hate relationship with this book, it is so ridiculous. The lady of the group is MAYBE PREGNANT and definitely schizophrenic, but because she may have a bun in the oven she develops another personality and goes out hunting at night eating all sorts of nummy, raw animals and amphibians, mostly because it is gross. This part is actually quite interesting, what is not is the fact that "coincidence is cancelled" causing all sorts of zany (read: predictable) little convienant connections between the books because this is obviously much easier than subtly tying it all together. Of course there's some stuff about the Real World's Tower being threatened and the continuation of that sub-plot before it becomes actual plot, but the actual meat of this book is quite entertaining. The gang has apparently become Those Good Guys Who Travel Around Doing Good Deeds because they save a whole bunch of kids from being kidnapped and ruined (roont, hahaha) by some robots dressed as wolves. There's a whole bunch of absurd bad-assery with throwing sharpened plates and a spectacular scene where Roland dances and sings, which I thoroughly enjoyed. There was a bunch of mystical nonsense with a doorway and world-hopping and the lady running off, but there was only one thing that really pissed me off. This is the book where Mista King starts writing HIMSELF into the story. That man is so in love with himself, I swear. I know I'm not the only one who has seen him, albiet usually somewhat subtly, write himself into things, the movie versions of his novels are notorious for this. (I CAN SEE YOU BEHIND THAT NEWSPAPER, YOU KEEP PEERING AT THE CAMERA WITH A SLY SMILE. I NOTICE THESE THINGS.) But the "character" is actually named Stephen King, and I'll just assume they share the same history and whatnot. He actually becomes a part of the main plot in the other books, and I cannot fathom why he would do this. I just don't get it.
I'm not even going to start on the last two books, because if I do this entry will never end. I can't believe how much I've written already. Whoops! If you made it to the end, congratulations. If you didn't, I can't say I blame you. This entry is so long, I'm not even going to proof-read it.
When everything is said and done, I hated the way the series ended and I am so, so sad for Roland. Poor fictional character, Stephen King loves to torture you. =(
Although, you know, I kind of wish I'd stopped reading after the second book, maybe even the third. While the others had some good moments, I didn't devour them the way I did the first two (and third, but only because I had been waiting FOREVER), because Stephen King can be, and usually is, a particularly infuriating author.
I just finished the second book for the second time, and man do I ever love that book. There are parts that are so vivid to me, that whole lame "becoming the characters" stuff is actually true. I can't even go through this book critically because I get so involved in it I forget I was supposed to be doing. The ending of book two is so damn touching and enticing, it almost makes up for the bullshit the Tower turns out to be.
I'm not even sure what was the most maddening about the following books, there was so much about them that annoyed me. I'm going from memory here (and I'm fairly good at remembering unimportant things), book three ended RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE of an intellectual show-down between the gunslingers and this suicidal, highly intelligent monorail train that's going 200 miles an hour on an impossibly old track built, somehow, over a giant pit of monsters. It is science-fiction, I get it, what I don't get is why this book has so many pages describing Roland and Jake's split mind madness and that ridiculous scene where the boy is "born" (i see wat u did thar) into the gunslinger's world, and all that ridiculousness that reminded me of "Escape From New York" only to have the most nonsensical non-ending ever. I don't understand why the book needed to have two (possibly even three, if you count the part where Jake gets rescued) climaxes when he easily could have ended the book sometime after all that ka-tet talk in that town with all the old people and people would still have wanted to continue reading because this is still before some of the more heinous parts. That should have been appealing because it would have meant squeezing another book out of the series, and everyone knows how much King enjoys talking about how many books he has written.
Obviously book four picks up right where book three left off, speeding train, showdown, blah blah blah. I actually found it to be quite funny that the killer monorail was murdered by bad puns. I mean, how else do you defeat a highly intelligent machine in a game of riddles? This would also have been an acceptable ending to book three and would only have tacked on an extra 100 pages, if that. Maybe I'm retarded, but I really hated the telling of Roland's only love. I remember very little about this book, which says a lot especially since I just more or less summarized the whole plot of book three. This book was SO BORING, there was maybe one other redeeming moment, which was when Young!Roland and his chums got the better of the local (adult) bullies through pure dumb luck. It has to be said, though, I fucking love Cuthbert, I can just picture him in that victorious moment with his goddamn slingshot (seriously) wearing the biggest shit-eating grin on his face. Hilarious. I think this one ended with another showdown, but Flagg/Marten/The Man in Black fled like a little titty-baby or something. I can't remember, I was too disappointed.
Is anyone still reading this nonsense?
Booook five, my god. I have such a love-hate relationship with this book, it is so ridiculous. The lady of the group is MAYBE PREGNANT and definitely schizophrenic, but because she may have a bun in the oven she develops another personality and goes out hunting at night eating all sorts of nummy, raw animals and amphibians, mostly because it is gross. This part is actually quite interesting, what is not is the fact that "coincidence is cancelled" causing all sorts of zany (read: predictable) little convienant connections between the books because this is obviously much easier than subtly tying it all together. Of course there's some stuff about the Real World's Tower being threatened and the continuation of that sub-plot before it becomes actual plot, but the actual meat of this book is quite entertaining. The gang has apparently become Those Good Guys Who Travel Around Doing Good Deeds because they save a whole bunch of kids from being kidnapped and ruined (roont, hahaha) by some robots dressed as wolves. There's a whole bunch of absurd bad-assery with throwing sharpened plates and a spectacular scene where Roland dances and sings, which I thoroughly enjoyed. There was a bunch of mystical nonsense with a doorway and world-hopping and the lady running off, but there was only one thing that really pissed me off. This is the book where Mista King starts writing HIMSELF into the story. That man is so in love with himself, I swear. I know I'm not the only one who has seen him, albiet usually somewhat subtly, write himself into things, the movie versions of his novels are notorious for this. (I CAN SEE YOU BEHIND THAT NEWSPAPER, YOU KEEP PEERING AT THE CAMERA WITH A SLY SMILE. I NOTICE THESE THINGS.) But the "character" is actually named Stephen King, and I'll just assume they share the same history and whatnot. He actually becomes a part of the main plot in the other books, and I cannot fathom why he would do this. I just don't get it.
I'm not even going to start on the last two books, because if I do this entry will never end. I can't believe how much I've written already. Whoops! If you made it to the end, congratulations. If you didn't, I can't say I blame you. This entry is so long, I'm not even going to proof-read it.
When everything is said and done, I hated the way the series ended and I am so, so sad for Roland. Poor fictional character, Stephen King loves to torture you. =(