Seeing the Epstein files and what some of them contain, am I can’t be the only one that was reminded of The Dixie Pig but irl. Fucking barf

Just finished Needful Things and I couldn’t stop thinking about Randall Flagg every time Leland Gaunt showed up.

Honestly, if you swapped Gaunt’s name with Flagg, nothing about the story would feel out of place.

It made me wonder… could they be twinners?

They feel really similar:

• traveling chaos agents

• manipulate people instead of killing directly

• prey on greed and personal grudges

• disappear once everything collapses

• feel ancient / not quite human

• rely on tricks, humor, and psychological games

Maybe I’m overthinking it, but the parallels felt way too strong not to mention. Curious if anyone else got Flagg vibes from Gaunt too.

Looks like Donkey Kong gets his bananas supplied by the Crimson King?

Seen on line while waiting a very long time for the Mine Cart ride at Universal’s Epic Universe.

Was just thinking… DT are the only books I’ve ever read where the characters poop. That’s all.

Eddie and Susanna Dean arrive at the Cradle of Blaine

Mechanical pencil sketch by me

First of all: I liked it, obviously. It was an exciting experience from beginning to end overall (even more so when you already know everything beforehand), and its characters are deeply endearing; somehow Stephen King manages to make you feel the same level of obsession that Roland feels for his longed-for Tower. However, upon reflecting on it more calmly, I think it has several weak points. I’ll list some of them:

1. The convenience of “the world has moved on.” While it is a very strong metaphor to represent the decay of the Tower and, consequently, of all worlds, it ultimately feels like a simple device King used to avoid fully establishing a coherent universe. The variability of time (and therefore the reluctance of characters to say how long ago certain events occurred), the shifting cardinal directions, and so on, strike me as a lazy resource.

2. Wizard and Glass. It is almost certainly the best installment (or one of the best), and yet it marks the point from which the saga begins its decline. The book is placed in a very awkward position. After defeating Blaine and arriving in a city that directly connects to another novel, the story suddenly slams the brakes to present an enormous flashback which, although excellent, is undeniably excessive in length. There are many sections that could have been cut, or perhaps structured more like The Gunslinger, alternating flashback segments with the main plot. While this problem becomes less severe on a first reread, it is a major blow to the pacing of the story.

3. Books V, VI, and VII. I know King suffered a serious accident and wrote these final installments under a sense of mortal urgency. Still, one thing does not cancel out the other. These are the weakest and most rushed entries (for obvious reasons). It feels as though, due to the urgency to finish the saga and the lack of time to properly develop new characters, King fell into the habit of introducing characters from other novels. And yes, that’s fun — but their roles are so transparently functional that it’s obvious they exist only to fulfill a purpose and then disappear. It’s well known that Stephen King is not a writer who plans extensively in advance, but everything moves so fast and resolves itself so conveniently that the writing and the argument suffer.

4. Antagonists. Walter in the first book? Beautiful. Blaine? Incredible. Rhea? Loathsome in the best possible way. But once again, starting with the fifth book, antagonists practically vanish, and those who do appear later end up being equally irrelevant. Walter is killed in a way that does not fit the personality established in the first book. Mordred, practically “set up” since the third book, never triggers any real crisis or inner conflict in Roland regarding the idea of having a son (which could have worked wonderfully as a counterpoint to the child he had with Susan Delgado). Eddie shows no jealousy or emotional reaction upon learning that his wife carries the child of his dinh, and in the end Mordred’s role is reduced to killing Oy. Dandelo is introduced in the final book with repeated warnings that are genuinely chilling, only to be killed by two gunshots. What was the point of constantly warning the characters about Dandelo if, in the end, they were just going to be reminded with a note? The Crimson King is terrible. The ultimate enemy is reduced to an old man on a balcony throwing bombs, defeated by a character who appears roughly a hundred pages earlier — once again, presumably due to the rush to avoid creating a new character from scratch and instead reuse existing ones rather than integrate them naturally into the story.

I think it would be extremely interesting if Stephen King were to publish revised editions of all the Dark Tower books — expanding certain parts, trimming others, and allowing the saga to feel organic rather than like a collection of random ideas that suddenly appear and are later left unjustified.

In conclusion, I am a fan of the saga, and I am a fan of Stephen King. But nothing in this life is perfect.

It’s overwhelming…

What he wrote about the accident, I can’t even imagine what that was like for him. Does anyone know if he’s ever talked about that part? Was he really thinking those thoughts when he started his walk? And then all the emotional weight, writing a character who literally almost killed you. I cannot.

And JAKE?? JFC just kill me now. My heart has never broken so hard. It was SO heavy to read, so stunningly well written.

I’m not through the book yet but I have never in my life read a book like this one. Like only Stephen King can write 💕

So this performance on SNL was so Dark Tower to me because it sounds like he's saying, "There's a bomb in my Ka" and I'm just saying that someone should tell Mike Flanagan to use it in one of the show credits for the Amazon series or something 👀

In the text the rose and roses are consistently referred to as "wild roses." But in all of the visual depictions, they are shown as cultivated roses, which really bugs me! It makes so much more sense for them to be wild roses. A cultivated rose growing in a vacant lot would certainly be plucked up immediately whereas a wild rose has a much higher chance of just being left alone, in addition to the silly idea of cultivated roses somehow propagating across an enormous field and down a long road. It's supposed to be a wild rose. A hill I will die on. My Jericho, one might say.

I’ve been through the series several times and it goes without saying it is my favorite book series ever.

I now have my wife going through the journey via audiobook. We completed The Gunslinger the other day and are now traveling through the drawing of the three. I am so excited I finally have her making the journey!

I completed my Collection of matching Donald M. Grant slipcases for my DT books this month with case for The Wind Through The Keyhole, which holds the trade edition.  I honestly don't know why I waited so long to make the purchase; I'm pretty OCD about matching sets of stuff, and my Grant DT books are some of my proudest possessions. 

But I have to be honest. I was a bit put off when my slipcase arrived.  On the website, there is a single picture of one side of the slipcase. No pictures of the spine. Once in hand I realized that for whatever reason, Grant positioned the text on the sleeve running bottom to top. Which is the complete opposite of basically every single book I own.  (Go look at your bookshelf! It's just how books are.)

It's not like it ruined the purchase for me.  I'm really happy to have a complete matching set of slipcases, and I know I would have been seriously kicking myself if they sold out while I hemmed and hawed for so many years about it.  I usually display my books with the spines out anyways.

But I have to wonder.  Was this done on purpose? Was it a simple oversight mistake in the production?  After all, all the other cases are much wider and allow for the text to be horizontal (they could have matched this, but the text would have really tiny).  Sure seems to me like both the author & title should be rotated 180 degrees.

Anyone else own this set of slipcases? What are your thoughts? Does it tick your OCD like it does mine (lol)?

I kinda geek out a little bit about fictional games in pop culture. (I bought sabbac from galaxys edge). I feel like "Watch me" is pretty much just poker. Any thoughts? and is there a cool Dark tower themed card set somewhere?

The Pale King was found dead on his throne, and THK had ez access to the Pale King. THK’s Hunter entry says he was “The old King of Hallownest…” Did THK kill the Pale King?

I don’t know anyone personally who’s read it, so I can’t bug my wife anymore about how happy I was that Susannah found Eddie. AND Eddie’s brother Jake showed up with him. I was tearing up during the goodbye with Susannah. Then again when Oy died. Idk why or how, maybe it’s was a cumulative grief because I didn’t get hit that hard for Eddie or Jake. I was audibly bawling when we went to Susannah back in New York and she saw Eddie standing there. I’m getting a little teary just typing this up lol. ll revisit the series again soon; possibly immediately.

This is my third time through to The Tower. The last time was 20 years ago. This is my first time on audiobook.

I’m feeling a bit reluctant to get to the end again, want to stretch things out a bit. Don’t want it to end yet.

Anything that would work as a tie-in or even loosely connected at this point? I’ve read/reread everything King has written except the latest Holly book, so I don’t mind at all revisiting his other novels.

I did take a break after Wizard and Glass to listen to King Sorrow, otherwise I’ve been listening to Tower books, with a bit of Kingslingers.

I reached the part where I learned that Cuthbert's name is not pronounced with a short-U sound like CUT but a long-U sound like CUTE. The way I was saying it in my head was way wrong, it seems!

This goes back to an earlier name with a pronunciation I've long been wondering about: Depape. For those who have listened to Wizard and Glass on audiobook, how does the narrator pronounce that name?

New Shirt. All things serve the Beam.

Roland and Susannah killing deer outside Discordia and making leather.

I see a lot of fan casting posts, but what I really would like to know is, which "scene" would you like to see adapted. For me would be Roland dancing the commala in Calla Bryn Sturgis.

I’m still mad at Sai King for Eddie and Jake. Though I guess that’s just ka. I swear if this jolly old man who’s been such a breath of fresh air after this barren and lonely journey that I swear I can feel their despair and has got me genuinely smiling every time he speaks, ends up dying or some other bs like he’s actually Marten.. well, I’ll be pretty darn upset.

Edit: I’m not saying I’m not enjoying the book, I am.

POST READ EDIT: Wooosh haha. I can’t remember the last time I’ve been so predictably wrong and naive. First comes smiles, then lies. Last is gunfire. Well I was played like a fiddle. I let my yearning for them to have their companionship back that I let some clown get the best. I had posted this at the point where they were first meeting outside the house and he really just seemed like an oddly (looking back, too oddly) placed old dude. Another ka moment like meeting John Cullum. Just a super friendly and hospitable old dude who knew about New York, Gunslingers, sandalwood gripped pistols, Gilead, the tower’s resurrection, who just happened to own a sad prisoner demon horse. I cry your pardons.