My Dark Tower Journey So Far… | First 2 Books

Añadido: 2026-05-12

[00:00:05][music] >> The sun is out.

[00:00:08]Not a single cloud in the sky.

[00:00:15]>> [music] [music] >> Just saw a butterfly flying around.

[00:00:26]Beautiful. Beautiful day.

[00:00:29]Each day is a new day. [music] A new opportunity to learn and grow and enjoy life.

[00:00:38]Hope you got a cup of coffee.

[00:00:39]>> [music] >> Today, I'm going to talk about my thoughts on the first two books of The Dark Tower series by Stephen King.

[00:00:50]About a month ago, I announced that I was going to start The Dark Tower series and do the extended reading order. I would start with the first two books, The Gunslinger and The Drawing of Three.

[00:01:07]Then, I would transition into The Stand, which is kind of an origin story to The Man in Black. I absolutely love this book. This was unlike anything I've ever read.

[00:01:23]And especially, this was unlike anything Stephen King has ever written. It was the most ambiguous writing I've ever seen him attempt. The thing about Stephen King, he's very good at foreshadowing. And sometimes, he foreshadows a bit too much, a bit too heavy to the point where you can predict what's going to happen.

[00:01:46]You know that twist. You know that monster is right around the corner.

[00:01:50]You know what's up ahead. Sometimes, that's fine.

[00:01:54]But most of the time for me, I like to stay in the dark.

[00:01:59]I like to know very little.

[00:02:02]I want to be surprised.

[00:02:04]I want to be intrigued. I want to be asking questions. I want to be confused.

[00:02:09]And that's what this book, The Gunslinger, did.

[00:02:12]It left me confused.

[00:02:14]But in the best way possible. Wondering who is Roland? Who is this gunslinger?

[00:02:19]Where did he come from?

[00:02:20]What is this world? How did this world come to be?

[00:02:24]And who is the man in black? The man in black was probably my favorite part of this book.

[00:02:32]This mysterious figure. This ancient dark sorcerer.

[00:02:37]The way people talk about him.

[00:02:40]The way people see him.

[00:02:42]What's real? What isn't? Is what the man in black is saying, is that true? Or is it just a ploy or a trick? And the funny thing is, when I read a book, I always like to latch on to characters.

[00:02:55]Especially the main character. I want to care about the characters.

[00:03:01]I want to root for the characters. I want to get to know the characters a little bit more.

[00:03:06]And the thing about The Gunslinger, Roland, the main character, the man that you follow, didn't care for him much. All I cared about was the man in black. I was so excited to hear him mentioned, to hear him seen, to hear him talk. I love a good villain.

[00:03:25]And I felt the man in black was a well-written villain.

[00:03:30]And mainly that's because of Stephen King with how ambiguous he wrote this book.

[00:03:36]It felt very similar to Cormac McCarthy, The Road and All the Pretty Horses, Blood Meridian.

[00:03:45]Not a lot is said.

[00:03:48]Few things are shown.

[00:03:49]But most of it is very subtle, hinted, and you really don't know what's up and down, what's left and right, what's real and what's a vision. Stephen King's writing style is very accessible.

[00:04:06]It's like popcorn.

[00:04:08]It's like a candy bar to me.

[00:04:10]It's not juvenile or too simplistic.

[00:04:15]It's just good storytelling.

[00:04:17]And that's what made The Gunslinger so different because I've never seen him write like this.

[00:04:23]King was trying something new here.

[00:04:25]Trying a writing style that he's never really attempted.

[00:04:29]Apparently, this was an adaptation of a poem or kind of inspired by that poem.

[00:04:37]Also, this book has one of the greatest opening lines in the history of books and stories and literature.

[00:04:45]The man in black fled across the desert and The Gunslinger followed.

[00:04:49]I just want to dive right in.

[00:04:51]I want to reread this again.

[00:04:54]Now, I'm not going to go into great depth about this book. I'm not going to spoil things, especially the first one.

[00:04:59]But where I might spoil things is within The Drawing of Three.

[00:05:05]But don't worry, I'll alert you of any spoilers ahead of time. The ending of this book immediately pulled me in even more.

[00:05:14]I wanted to continue on. So, I finished it and grabbed the second book, The Drawing of Three, and started it immediately.

[00:05:25]Here is where I might get a little hate in the comments.

[00:05:30]The Drawing of Three, oh boy, I didn't like so much.

[00:05:36]I want to reiterate that I approach a lot of the books I read with little to no expectations.

[00:05:44]I want to go in blind.

[00:05:47]I want to go in fresh.

[00:05:49]I want to get lost in this world and come up with my own conclusions and my own feelings and thoughts throughout my experience.

[00:06:00]I had no expectations going into The Gunslinger.

[00:06:04]Going into The Dark Tower.

[00:06:06]However, The Gunslinger did lay a foundation of questions and subtle expectations.

[00:06:16]I thought in the back of my head, "There's no way King is going to continue to write this ambiguous, this dry, or similar to Cormac McCarthy.

[00:06:25]There's no way he can keep up that style for seven books long."

[00:06:29]But I hoped.

[00:06:31]And that's what I held on to reading this book.

[00:06:35]Boy, was I wrong.

[00:06:37]The style shifted.

[00:06:39]Not drastically, but it was there.

[00:06:42]Ever so slightly. The first third of this book, I was in.

[00:06:47]I was locked in. Right now, spoiler alert, I'm going to talk a little bit about some of the details of this book. So, if you haven't read, please skip ahead. The book picks up right where this one left off. Few hours after.

[00:07:03]He's on the beach. He's fighting some lobsters.

[00:07:06]Gets his hand cut off.

[00:07:08]Well, some of it. His His main shooting hand. I'm all in. So, this is going to be a survival book. Like The Hatchet or The Road. We're going to get into the nitty-gritty of how he survives. What skills are we going to see Roland use to to survive?

[00:07:23]To keep alive. To fight this infection.

[00:07:26]To fight off these monsters. Some of his shells are wet. How much ammo does he actually have?

[00:07:31]Doesn't have food. Doesn't have water.

[00:07:34]What's he going to do?

[00:07:35]Is he going to find a a plant to stave off infection?

[00:07:39]Is he going to kill one of those lobster things to get some food.

[00:07:43]He finds a a floating door attached to nothing and it says prisoner on it. So, this is where the multiverse happens.

[00:07:53]There's worlds within worlds with another worlds. He walks through this door and now he is inside a person, another person. He sees through Eddie Eddie's eyes and he's able to in a way telepathically talk to him.

[00:08:11]This isn't where it lost me.

[00:08:14]I was into this. This was fun. Okay, so this is how he's going to survive. He's going to use Eddie from New York bringing in things, things that he needs, etc. etc. Along the way he helps Eddie with his problems.

[00:08:30]It just felt like a completely different book compared to the Gunslinger. The Gunslinger felt grounded, felt mysterious, whereas this felt like like a action thriller movie. I just wanted a little more of that mystery that we were introduced to about the world in the Gunslinger. That little western town he came about, the people he met, the man in black.

[00:08:54]The man in black was not in here.

[00:08:57]Well, a little bit. The man in black was like a dream or like an inner monologue.

[00:09:04]I hope the man in black comes back because that's the big thing that I'm interested in. And now I'm intrigued, just a little bit.

[00:09:15]Who Susanna is, who Eddie is, what they're going to do now, where are they going to go?

[00:09:21]It just felt different.

[00:09:24]It felt like two different books.

[00:09:27]Two different styles. Felt like two different authors, too.

[00:09:30]So, I'm not jumping at the gun to dive back in to the Dark Tower series. Taking a little break because the next book I'm starting within the Dark Tower universe is The Stand, the uncut complete edition.

[00:09:47]This is almost 1,200 pages long.

[00:09:49]This is going to be a journey and I am excited about it and I'm excited to get more of that origin story of the man in black and a post-apocalyptic vibe.

[00:10:01]I love broken, torn down, ancient post-apocalyptic, Elden Ring, Fallout, The Last of Us, worlds that have moved on and haven't even really rebuilt. That's what I love so much about the Gunslinger, that emptiness, that desolation, the loneliness.

[00:10:25]This was just little too much action for me.

[00:10:30]I wanted to be lonely with Roland and I wanted to see him struggle a little more and I could sit around a fire with Roland and the man in black for 500 pages just talking.

[00:10:42]But I don't think we're getting that anytime soon.

[00:10:46]So, I am now taking a break from the Dark Tower series and I am currently reading The Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb, the second book in the Farseer trilogy. This is my return to fantasy in over 8 months.

[00:11:02]So, those were my thoughts on the first two books of the Dark Tower.

[00:11:08]I have no idea when I will return to the Dark Tower, but I know The Stand will be waiting for me when I'm ready.

[00:11:19]What are your thoughts on the Dark Tower series? Specifically, what are your thoughts on the first two books, The Gunslinger and The Drawing of Three?

[00:11:26]>> [music] >> Let's talk about it.

[00:11:34]>> [music] >> Mhm.