Few fantasy series kick off with lines that reverberate through the genre’s collective consciousness quite like Stephen King’s The Gunslinger. “The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.” It summons an urgent and barren image: one man midstep atop a sandy dune, following his quarry across a vast, dying landscape. It is stark and beautiful, and it is the start of a larger beginning. The Gunslinger opens King’s famed Dark Tower series, and it does so via decidedly unconventional means.
The Gunslinger follows Roland Deschain. He’s the last Gunslinger, and he’s chasing the mysterious Man In Black across a barren and dying world. His goal at first makes Roland feel like a cat chasing the laser pointer, a quest without a proper reward. As the story moves on, it becomes clear that his true destination is The Dark Tower, a place of great power existing at the heart of many realities. During his pursuit of the Man in Black, Roland encounters Jake Chambers, a child from another world, whose destiny seems intertwined with Roland’s own. He hears strange prophecies from religious folks and fights off mutants. Through it all, he chases the Man In Black across the desert.
My close friend and Stephen King fanatic speaks very highly of The Dark Tower as a whole, but I left this book confused. Intrigued, too, but very confused. King wrote The Gunslinger as separate novels for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction from 1978 to 1981. In 1982, it was collected into a single book.
Learning of its unconventional publication put The Gunslinger into stark perspective for me. This is a row of seed planted long before the bountiful harvest. It’s a stage-setting book comprising five original tales, and King even revised it in 2003 to address continuity issues with later books in the series.
The Gunslinger’s origins contextualize its nature, but those origins can’t dismiss everything about the book. The simple fact is that I was glad to be done and, as I said, confused but intrigued. Roland feels more like an outline than a full character. It’s forgivable for me, as I plan to continue. But someone picking up The Gunslinger as the opener to an epic fantasy series might not feel inclined to do the same. Other characters feel more like caricatures or vessels for philosophical ramblings and dilemmas. It’s almost like Stephen King is daring the reader to continue, though I’m not certain every reader will be up for it.
The book truly excels at fostering a vibe. The world of The Gunslinger feels empty yet full, like a husk hanging on to the last dregs of its life. Religious fanatics and questionable oracles breathe manic life into the pages while Roland serves as a grounding force. That vibe is the book’s saving grace, in my opinion. Paired with the reveals at the end, The Gunslinger’s atmosphere piqued my curiosity enough to continue.
BUT (and it’s a big but, as you can see by how I capitalized it), that doesn’t make the book good in a vacuum. As a novel itself, I think The Gunslinger is weak. It’s an amalgamation of ideas that can’t coalesce into a singular whole without (I assume) the remainder of the series to act as glue. I’m not mad that I read it, and it’s not terrible, but it’s impossible to give the book a good score as a book on its own. I was always going to read the next one (and the next, and so on) because I enjoy Stephen King’s work. I’m excited to see what his big ol’ fantasy series has to offer. I just hope it’s better than The Gunslinger.
Rating: The Gunslinger — 4.5/10
