The man in black feld across the desert,

and the Gunslinger followed.

As you or may not know this is the opening to Stephen Kings epic Dark Tower series. As I have mentioned before I am an avid reader, and along with the Wheel of Time, Malazan Book of the Fallen and the Sword of Truth The Dark Toweris one of my favourite series. As you may have guessed I like stories on an epic scale.

This line is however probally my most memorable introduction to any epic, I found it instantly hooked me, posing so many questions that I just had to read on.

Who is the Man in Black, Why is he fleeing; who or what is a Gunslinger?  That line got me hook line and sinker.

I first discovered the Dark tower and set myself on the path of the beam back in my school days, I don’t remember exactly how I came across it, I think it was in the school library. I had never read a Stephen King novel and from what I remember of myself back then it would not have been my number one choice of genres to get into but I am glad I did.

I remember devouring books 1-3 one after the other and the agonising wait of 6 years to find out what happened to the travellers, its a long time to wait on the outcome of a cliff-hanger.  I had a version of the waste Lands that had illustrations and to this day Charlie the Choo- Choo still gives me the chills.

The final book of the series met mixed reactions, it finishes with The Dark Tower and much like Lost it had a lot to live up to, and much like lost any ending was going to be unsatisfactory.  The final book finishes on page 658 (in my version) that’s the end. Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came.

But for some that wasn’t enough, there is another 11 pages to go, King tries to persuade you not to read more, as King says

I tell you this. Should you go on, you will surely be disappointed. Perhaps even heartbroken … There’s no such thing as a happy ending. I never met a single one to equal “Once Upon a Time”. Endings are heartless. An ending is just another word for goodbye.*

Myself I struggled with what to do at this point, do I read on or do I accept that the Journey was far more important than the destination, in the end I did read on. Personally I wasn’t disappointed, I felt that it gave me hope that maybe the world hadn’t moved on and Roland wasn’t quite yet done, he still had something to share with us, It wasn’t the ending that I perhaps wanted although I couldn’t then or now tell you what I did want.

Luckily for those of us wishing to spend one more night with our Ka-Tet a new book is being realised in April.

P.S – Damnit Late night posting means once again I missed a day, no post on the 1st!