Book 1 in The Dark Tower series
AUTHOR: Stephen King
PUBLISHED: 1982
CATEGORY: Adult
GENRE: Fantasy
PREMISE: A man pursues another man in a mysterious western fantasy world..
MY THOUGHTS: Okay, unpopular opinion time: I...am not a huge fan of Stephen King. I like the ideas he comes up with. He has great concepts. I even like King himself, because from the interviews I've seen him in...he's a pretty cool dude. Those interviews and the cool concepts make me really wish I liked his books more. But of the two (and with this one, now three) I've read....I've come to the conclusion his books just aren't for me.
First....his treatment of female characters is frankly....ick. I forgot that but after I started this, I remembered right away why I haven't picked up one of his books in like five years. This one was definitely different from his other two I've read (Hearts in Atlantis and Carrie for those interested). But it still had the same issues I've found with his work: boring writing style, characters that feel more like ideas of characters then actual characters, and a fantasy world that also feels more like an idea then an actual fantasy world. That ultimately is always my issue with his books: they always feel like unfinished drafts of things that need to be worked on much more then they were.
Now, I know some people have said this gets better as it goes on and there's a big plan and yadda yadda yadda. I'm sure it does. I mean, there has to be some reason it has all the fans it does. But me personally? Yeah, sorry, I have zero interest in continuing. I think it's time I just face facts: I'm probably never going to be a Stephen King fan.
WHO SHOULD READ: Stephen King fans, fantasy fans who don't mind very vague world-building
No comments:
Post a Comment