The Wastelands - Stephen King

I have to admit, these reviews are probably going to be a bit repetitive for the next few books. I have chewed my way through the third volume of The Dark Tower and I don't seem to be showing any signs of stopping yet. It is as good as the others and well worth the three days I spent doing nothing else but reading it. Instead of giving away copious amounts of plot details, I do hope you will go and read this book and I don't want to spoil it for anyone. Not will I  spend another blog worshipping the pants off Roland (Although....). I will focus this blog post on the world building skills found within the novel.

The old saying is true: The Devil is in the Detail and King has this down to a fine art. The world in which the story is set is a post apocalyptic danger zone, no too dissimilar to our own. The points of reference and objects that are easily recognisable can be a little discomforting too. At one point our troupe of adventurers are forced  to cross a decaying suspension bridge, this is made scarier for myself as I live near one and had a perfect image of what was happening. The crossover from our world to theirs is highlighted fully when a downed Nazi plane is found and explored. This would seem a bit ludicrous in a fantasy story, had not 2 of the main characters already crossed over.

The explanation of the plane is left out, due to Roland not being aware of how it arrived there in the first place. Both him and those they encounter are fond of explaining these things with the simple adage: 'The world has moved on.' This also gives reason for why most, if not all, the technology in the world no longer works. The world has simply left these things behind, no longer finding a use for them.

The more you read, the more you come to realise that it is not just the physical things the world has moved on from. Time and distance also seem a bit slippery in Roland's world and this can leave you feeling a bit disconnected, there is no point of reference, for example, we don't really know how old Roland is, maybe he doesn't either (Or I am yet to find this out of course).

Either way, the little details like this, makes Roland's world an interesting, if not altogether pleasant, place to spend your time.

Next comes: Wizard and Glass (it's good, I am half way through it) in a few days time.

The Drawing of the Three - Stephen King

 I have to admit, when I read the blurb of this book, I was a bit apprehensive. I was unsure how King was going to get Roland, our 'hero' (I'll come back to this conundrum in a moment), from his world into 1980's New York. What he did, was not what I expected and expertly done. The world construction is once again superb, the details are often omitted. However, what is left behind is a whisper of information, the reader's mind fills in the rest, making this a book you can really engage with.

The story itself is interesting and very exciting in many places, the pacing is wonderful and I felt my heart pounding in more than one place while reading. I even found myself laughing out loud at times as well, which earned me some well deserved strange looks in the staffroom at work. The undercurrents of tension build to the climax of the story so subtly that its not noticible until it bursts in the final chapter.

For me, a good book is in the characters. The story can be mundane so long as I have good characters I can interact with.The hero, and I use this term loosely, is exactly that. The story continues to build on the knowledge we learnt in the last book. Roland gets screwed in this novel, physically at least. The gunslinger, the one who did a number on a town in the last book without really blinking an eye, who did some rather unpleasant things to those he claimed to love, gets some comeuppance. I don't want to give much away because I want you to go and enjoy these wonderful books for yourself but believe me when I say Roland will leave you wondering, most of all, why?



But Roland isn't the only character in the book, he is joined by a junkie, a schizophrenic and a murderer, all of which make this a most compelling story. Despite their many faults flaws, you do what them to conquer their demons and survive.

You learn very little about the tower, only that Roland wants to get to it, and that everything is at stake. The book has left me wanting to know what's so good about it, this man would sacrifice everything, everyone he loves, everyone who aides him, everything, to get to it. This is what I don't understand yet and I don't think I will be any closer if I read the next one, but that's what I'm going to do!