GENERAL INFORMATION
TITLE: THE DARK TOWER 3 (THE WASTE LANDS)
AUTHOR: STEPHEN KING
PAGES: 584
PUBLISHER: NEW ENGLISH LIBRARY
YEAR: 1991
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Tower_(series)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Tower_III:_The_Waste_Lands
BLURB FROM THE COVER
Roland, the Last Gunslinger, is moving ever closer to the Dark Tower, which haunts his dreams and nightmares. Pursued by the Ageless Stranger, he and his friends follow the perilous path to Lud, an urban wasteland. And crossing a desert of damnation in this macabre new world, revelations begin to unfold about who – and what – is driving him forward.
EXTRACT
It was her third time with live ammunition…and her first time on the draw from the holster Roland had rigged for her.
REVIEW
The Waste Lands is one of my favorite novels in The Dark Tower series. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed it until I read it again. I love it. I love The Drawing of the Three a fraction more.
STRUCTURE: King continues using a standard, linear structure in The Waste Lands. Roland and his ka-tet’s tale unfold in chronological order. The first section, Jake: Fear in a Handful of Dust move back and forth between Roland, Eddie and Susannah on their quest for The Dark Tower and Jake, the boy Roland met at the way station in The Gunslinger. Roland and Jake are both going insane because Roland saved Jake from dying when he made Jack Mort jump in front of a train. This creates a paradox and time is being splintered. Jake is called to Roland’s world. The second section, Lud: A Heap of Broken Images deals with Roland’s larger ka-tet moving along the path of the bean to the cradle (train station) in Lud where an insane train called Blaine waits. Each section is split into chapters that contain many sections. I liked the way King unfolds the story.
PLACE: King spends a lot of time in Roland’s world in The Waste Lands. I got much more sense of Mid World. I loved the scene towards the start of the novel when Roland, Eddie and Susannah are attacked by a giant cyborg bear that has gone insane and need to kill it. I also loved it when Roland tells Eddie and Susannah all about the beam, the twelve portals and their guardians. I found King’s description of Roland’s world and the dying and poisoned towns very vivid. The world king created in The Waste Lands is very real. I enjoyed the little links between Roland’s world and the world of the rest of his ka-tet. The people of Lud have been driven crazy by Blane who constantly plays a song by the group Velcro Fly. This music compels them to sacrifice each other. Blaine features in a book Jake brings from his world. Jake finds a rose in his world that he believes is The Dark Tower. He knows somehow if the rose dies the tower will fall.
CHARACTERISATION: The characters develop well in The Waste Lands. Roland grows the most. He starts to really care for Eddie and Susannah. He isn’t quite as cold blooded as he is in The Gunslinger and The Drawing of the Three. I liked the chapter where Roland and his ka-tet stop at a little village called River Crossing. The elderly villagers treat Roland like some kind of God. His companions start to see what it must have been like when he was one of many gunslingers. Eddie and Susannah also develop. They fall even deeper in love. In The Drawing of the Three they resented Roland for dragging them out of their world. In The Waste Lands they don’t want to leave his world. Jake is also a much stronger character than he was in The Gunslinger. He fights to hold onto his sanity better than Roland. He follows the clues that lead him to places and people that will be important in future novels.
PLOT: The Waste Lands is a lot more complicated than The Gunslinger and The Drawing of the Three. The Dark Tower series really takes off with The Waste Lands. Roland and his ka-tet really get started on their quest in The Waste Lands. I loved the mythology King develops in The Waste Lands that he started to develop in The Gunslinger. I loved the story about the portals and the guardians. I loved it when he ka-tet persuade Blaine, the insane mono to given them a lift to Topego and agree to let them live if they stump him with a riddle. Trust King to come up with a suicidal train run by a super computer. I loved everything about The Waste Lands.
RATING
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The Dark Tower 4 (Wizard and Glass) by Stephen King
