A dark and gritty fantasy world rich with religious undertones.

Stephen King has a great way of grabbing you by the face, and making you read each word with bile threatens to escape. In a good way. He shows the dark and morbid sides of death like he does in most of his books.

But this does suffer from any real sense of progression or resolution. The reader is trudging along this gruesome journey without any directional signs.

Some of the Flash backs within Flashbacks were jarring to read, while others worked effortlessly into the story.

Ultimately a great read, short introduction to this world, but I can’t help but feel nothing happened; and hopefully this is setting up a much grandeur, and better, plot line. ( )

i don't know that it's fair to judge this, after all it's really just the first few chapters of an epic story. that said, if this was all by itself, it really wouldn't work all that well. there's so much that he's just setting up for later and that doesn't make any sense at this point. which is ok, because this is just part of a much bigger work. but alone, it's not so great, this volume. it's also the writing style of someone who hasn't developed his craft all that well yet which is weird because out of the gate his books were him and well done. but this one falls way short. i know the series will get better though, and i can't wait.

i was surprised to find such a long philosophical passage toward the end, and i suppose that it's something to mark and look back on as i move forward in the series. it felt like too much as i was reading it, and more than he needed to include, but i suspect that it'll end up being crucial. in fact, that conversation with the man in black and some of the memories of roland's training are probably the only truly important things in this book and most of the rest could be cut, i suspect. i'll find out more soon, i guess.

"If you don't start out too big for your britches, how are you gonna fill 'em when you grow up?" ( )

An interesting and vibrant start to a series, which I had meant to read for some time. A wide variety of interesting characters accompanied by uncertain agendas, and a mysterious plot makes the reader want to go on to read further. Quite what the dark Tower, beams, the gunslingers, or mean remains unknown with any luck this will become more apparent in books to come. ( )

"There are quests and roads that lead ever onward, and all of them end in the same place -upon the killing ground."

Over three decades ago, Stephen King introduced readers to the extraordinarily compelling and mysterious Roland Deschain. Roland is a haunting figure, a loner on a spellbinding journey into good and evil. In his desolate world, a landscape strewn with the wreckage of civility, he tracks the man in black, encounters an enticing woman named Alice, and begins a friendship with a boy from New York named Jake. Both fiercely realistic and eerily dreamlike, The Gunslinger is the first book in what is perhaps the greatest odyssey Stephen King has ever written.
I have never read anything by Stephen King, I was always more of a watch the movies type with his work. This book was recommended to me by a friend and I have to say I was engrossed pretty early on. In the introduction he gives King says its inspired by LOTR (so win automatically because I love LOTR). I was a little confused when the book started about what exactly was happening; but I couldn't stop reading. King has an interesting style in which he tells the narrative that I really enjoyed. He would give these long sections of flashbacks, but only things that were important to understanding the narrative. (So win for me).
Usually I am not a fan of world building or even the first book in a series because of all the world building, but I think the way King did it was perfect for what I needed. He gave me just enough, but left so much unanswered that I want to read what comes next. I was honestly surprised by the entire book and the outcomes of all the events; I thought certain things would play out differently because it's how it always goes... but this book was like... nope let's be real. I can't wait to see what happens next in Roland's saga and journey. ( )

Pour satisfaire un challenge que je me suis auto-infligé, je me plongeai donc à la poursuite du Pistolero, lui-même aux trousses de l’Homme en noir, dans une quête mystique implacable aux relents œdipiens. Honneur, amour, haine et violence au sein de mondes qui s’entrechoquent sur le tempo des cycles arthuriens : le jeune King en geek avant l’heure nous noie sous une pluie de références allant de Tolkien à Sergio Leone en passant par Lovecraft, la mythologie antique ou les grandes sagas eschatologiques et se délecte de scènes hors du temps au symbolisme lourd et aux allusions obscures où l’on sent que, parfois, il se regarde écrire. Le rythme est chaotique, les ellipses fuligineuses et intensément frustrantes.
On débute par une course-poursuite immobile dans une « apothéose de désert ». Le Pistolero est avant tout un western : un justicier poursuit un homme malfaisant dont on ne sait rien, dans un paysage à la végétation rare et aux habitants encore plus rares. Et puis, subrepticement, au hasard des quelques dialogues, des fenêtres s’ouvrent, des réalités se dissolvent ou s’entremêlent. Il y a des démons, mais aussi des mutants ; des sorciers et des chevaliers.

J’ai adoré.

Malgré les (ou sans doute à cause des) imperfections, ruptures de ton parfois abruptes, descriptions complaisantes, en dépit d’un (ou grâce au ?) mélange des genres osé, nonobstant une gestion de l’action peu évidente, King réussit son pari : nous ouvrir les portes d’un univers riche d’opportunités créatrices, bâti sur les ruines de mondes familiers et mitoyens et dont la dynamique repose sur un subtil équilibre entre forces opposées, et nous y abandonner, jouissant de notre propre jouissance à l’idée de se frotter à chaque épreuve initiatique, à chaque passage transitoire, à chaque gardien mythique. ( )