So I just finished my last book, Devil in the White City, and keeping with the dark themes, I decided to pick up a Stephen King novel.  As I decided to fully invest myself in a long-term reading project, I picked up the first in his longest and most near-and-dear series, The Dark Tower Series, the first of which being The Gunslinger. As his magnum opus, the Dark Tower series embodies all that is Stephen King, presenting a completely strange, surreal, and supernatural world in which nothing is what it seems.

The Gunslinger follows the unnamed title character as he pursues another man, known simply as the man in black, through a vast desert toward a mysterious tower--the Dark Tower.  The reader is thrown into this pursuit right away with absolutely no explanation, being forced to find their bearings amidst the barren landscape of King’s dreamworld.

Being most of the way through the first chapter, I can’t help but think that nothing I’m reading is actually meant to be taken literally.  With such a strange premise, reminiscent of the midnight movies of the ‘70s, it seems to me to at this point be some fantastical dream-journey through a metaphorical landscape of King’s devising.  As to the purpose or overall message contained within said metaphors, well, I can’t speak to that just yet.

Overall, it’s a great read so far.  King’s writing style leaves nothing to be desired, with beautifully crafted sentences rich in visual detail.  In addition to his fantastic writing ability, King was really able to let his imagination run free with this series, and it definitely pays off. The world he’s created, both with the characters and the imagery is both stark and bleak as well as dream-like and fantastical.  If you enjoy Stephen King, or are simply a fan of epically fantastical adventures, I’d definitely recommend picking this one up.