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!