Stephen King has a new "Dark Tower" book coming in 2012

Stephen King has written another installment in the Dark Tower books, a long-running, seven-volume series that concluded (somewhat unsatisfactorily, I think) in 2004. The new book, The Wind Through the Keyhole, will fill in some of the action between the fourth and fifth books, and I'm pretty excited to learn that it's coming. Despite my misgivings about the series' conclusion, I really, really enjoyed these books and have returned to them more than once over the years.

At some point, while worrying over the copyedited manuscript of the next book (11/22/63, out November 8th), I started thinking--and dreaming--about Mid-World again. The major story of Roland and his ka-tet was told, but I realized there was at least one hole in the narrative progression: what happened to Roland, Jake, Eddie, Susannah, and Oy between the time they leave the Emerald City (the end of Wizard and Glass) and the time we pick them up again, on the outskirts of Calla Bryn Sturgis (the beginning of Wolves of the Calla)?
There was a storm, I decided. One of sudden and vicious intensity. The kind to which billy-bumblers like Oy are particularly susceptible. Little by little, a story began to take shape. I saw a line of riders, one of them Roland's old mate, Jamie DeCurry, emerging from clouds of alkali dust thrown by a high wind. I saw a severed head on a fencepost. I saw a swamp full of dangers and terrors. I saw just enough to want to see the rest. Long story short, I went back to visit an-tet with my friends for awhile. The result is a novel called The Wind Through the Keyhole. It's finished, and I expect it will be published next year.

The Dark Tower: The Wind Through the Keyhole

(Image: Michael Whelan/Wikipedia)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Anonymous

I’m a long time fan of SK and have read everything I could get my hands on. I, like many others, had followed the journey of Roland and his troop for years, enduring a lengthy wait for the appearance of the fifth (?) book after his hiatus, (and I think I read that he had a writer’s block about this saga…the delay was due to that, rather than his accident) but I didn’t mind, because books 1-4 were just THAT good!

So my feeling, after all those years of being a ‘constant reader’, was one of complete betrayal. I felt strongly at the time that the ending was a complete cop out and that it was a seriously lazy way to end the series. I should read it again to see if I still think that way.

But to release a ‘tween’ Book 4 and 5? A money spinner if you ask me, and I won’t be purchasing it. There’s a limit on how much of a fan I’m going to be.
endymion

Oh, Stephen King. I read everything you wrote until my first year of high school, up through, but not including, It. I still remember the details of Cujo (“Nope, nothing wrong here”), the plot twists of Apt Pupil and the now-banned Rage. I remember every single story from Skeleton Crew, even the weird one with the milk truck.

Twenty years later, and I’ve tried to go back several times. I want to immerse myself in your work again– Lord knows there’s plenty of it. I’d love to throw myself wholeheartedly into the Dark Tower… but I’ve tried you several times recently, and I just can’t. The 50% of brilliance no longer sufficiently offsets the 50% of bad writing where it seems like you’re not even trying.

Or maybe I’m trying too hard. You can’t return to your childhood. Anyway, Stephen King: I do love my adult literary world, my Pynchon and my Beckett, my Gene Wolfe and David Foster Wallace. But I do miss you sometimes.

- A fan
Anonymous

WORST ENDING EVER.

They find a kid who can draw anything in to reality and THEY BARELY USE HIS TALENTS.

They build up the crimson king to be some massive red badass red army and it ends up being a lone old guy….

The problem with king is he’s good on concept and description but then he gets bored and wants to move on so he ends it shitily.
cory

I seem to be in the minority of people who thought DT7 had a great ending.
- pyroPrints
  
  I enjoyed it as well
JonStewartMill

I stopped reading Stephen King after The Stand, but not because I disliked that book. It’s one of my favorite novels of all time. It’s so good that I’m certain he’ll never write anything to equal it. Sadly, the only intact copy I have is the “uncut” version, which I didn’t like nearly as much as the original edition. No matter, I practically know it by heart.
Anonymous

books 1 – 4 are good… the true ending is great. everything betwix was not so good. I’ve joked that King seems to be getting paid by the word in his later years here..

This is of course my opinion, likely not shared by too many.
Anonymous

He gave everybody two endings if I’m not mistaken, and while I hated the ending right after I read it, a few minutes later I really liked it.

I’d be interested in hearing what a preferable ending would be, because when I hear complaints about endings like these I wonder if it’s a complaint that the story ended.
Brainspore

Hoping for the best I guess, but it’s really hard to do prequels well- let alone “fill in the blank” ones. How can a writer create dramatic tension when the audience already knows the background AND the future of all the key characters?
Lucky

Mr. King as some hits and misses, but DT ranks up there with one of the best, in my opinion. I liked how DT7 ended, in fact I couldn’t see it ending any other way.
Ceronomus

I enjoyed the End of the series, what I hates was his adding of himself as a character. That really killed a great deal of my enjoyment.
- Anonymous
  
  Whereas I was almost the opposite. I loved him including himself as a character (although there were a couple of points, like where he mailed Jake a magic hotel keycard, that it felt really cheap), I did not care for the ending at all.
  
  Now, if King wanted to be really cool and a little subversive with this installment, he’d mention Roland having the horn in this book, and make a few things not quite match continuity with the other book.
Anonymous

I will admit, the ending of the Dark Tower series did upset me a little but. But the end of anything truly amazing usually upsets me. I have read nearly all of his books… and I must say, next to ‘Through a Dragons Eyes’ They are my favorites.
I understand though, why he ended the books the way he did. The book to me is a metaphor for life… I do believe in the whole if you don’t live life the way you were supposed to, you re-live your life over and over again until everything is “right”. Yeah o.k, you go through hell and back.. but if it’s not “perfect” you have to take it over… ‘Purgatory’ if you will. Then, once it is all done right, you can move onto whatever you believe is the afterlife destination. (my little rant :3)
Also, I’ve been saying this for years.. The Dark Tower series would make FENOMINAL movies. and I say movies, because if you try and squish all 7 into 1 movie, I will be extremely pissed off at whoever made it for getting rid of SO much important information.
Thank you :3
-Fan since I was 10
Grey Devil

I also enjoyed the ending to the Dark Tower quite a bit, and would not have it any other way. Though i think the story stumbles around Wolves of Calla and to some extent Song of Susanna, but the last book concludes everything quite well.

Not sure how i feel about King writing a book that takes place between some of the existing story. I think i would much rather see him write a parallel story with other character, that tie into some events in the books.
bex

Adding him self into the story made it worse not better. Self indulgent springs to mind. The ending works but does not make up from all the nonsense that proceeded it
Anonymous

You say above that it ended unsatisfactorily, but in 2004 you said this: “And it is marvellously [sic] enjoyable” and this “…I’m grateful it ended so well.”

Well? This is a grievous disparity which must be addressed!

http://boingboing.net/2004/10/20/stephen-king-finishe.html#previouspost
vinegartom

Dear Tons of Fun,
A note on your nostalgia: You’re doing it wrong.

Have a nice day.
Stjohn

I’ve been a King fan since middle school. The parents used to leave his novels lying around where I could get at them. I’ve been hooked since Dead Zone. “Hooked right through the fucking bag,” you might say. Dark Tower has been a constant companion throughout my adult life, and I love seeing it as the source code for so much of King’s other work. The Dark Tower is the American Lord of the Rings and even if the new novel is basically him writing his own fan fiction, I’m happy to see more.
pjcamp

I like the way it ended. Roland has to keep doing it until he gets it right. King’s usual stadium endings have typically been pretty weak, but this one, really, I don’t see any other way it could have legitimately ended. Saving the world is not something you only do once.
drunknmunkky

I came to SK in my late 20′s, never looked back since. I couldn’t believe i had ignored his writing because of my (at that time) literary snobbishness. How wrong i was.

I also loved the DT ending, i though it was fitting and honest.
Flying_Monkey

Sorry, I’ve tried to read King, old and new, but I just can’t get around the impression that he is stylistically limited and tedious. There’s nothing snobbish about it: I just find his writing pedestrian. It does not move me, thrill me or make me want to read more. He writes a lot (too much, perhaps) and his stuff makes for good films, in fact films that are far better than their source material in many cases; one exception to a general rule. He has a wide readership and influence. So he is, no doubt, a significant writer. As to whether he is a good one… well, someone would have to a very good job to convince me of his literary merits.
- Stjohn
  
  It’s how he writes the characters. I can’t think of too many other writers who put you in a character’s head like King does. Maybe it just works that way for me, YMMV.
Anonymous

SPOILER –

I think the bad ending and the insertion of himself were both explained by King directly to the reader. When he says that he had the whole story mapped out, then lost most of it while on a drunk, plus the fact that he never wrote the rest of it down – then he gets almost killed by the drunk driver (irony!) and forgets the last half of the story. He has to throw in a lot of silly and misplaced narrative just to get Roland to the Tower, and then the Crimson King goes down in a really foolish way and has foolish weapons (sneetches, realllly?)

The quality of the first four are amazing. Some of the best pieces of his writing, and a beautiful dystopic fantasy Western.
Anonymous

Is there another Simpson’s movie coming out? Will the book have the same/similar plot?
Jason A

The only thing good that can come from another DT book by “post-Van accident King” is that maybe it’ll really mess up the proposed embarrassment of a DT movie/tv series being made by Ron Howard. Otherwise, it’ll be terrible and awful, just like DT books 5, 6 and 7 were.
Anonymous

I’m not much of a tree hugger but come on, a thousand or so pages? Think of all the forests chopped down to make another King doorstopper, soon to end up on the remainder pile. Couldn’t he tell the same story in 300 pages and give both the trees and our wrists a break?
- vinegartom
  
  Couldn’t he tell the same story in 300 pages and give both the trees and our wrists a break?
  
  I’ve got to admit I sympathize with this comment. For some reason there has been a trend in a number of big selling authors to write these incredibly LONG- possibly little edited- stories. I mean, isn’t brevity the soul of wit- or something. That said, yes- his characters are a good reason for the attention he garners. His short stories are also often more tightly constructed than the novels and receive higher praise in circles that discern these sorts of things. Myself- I like the way he writes Maine. For something more succinct in novel format I recommend “The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon”.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    I was just re-reading a bunch of SF books starting with ones from the 1970s. In the 70s, they’re around 150 pages. In the 80s, 250 pages. In the 90s, 350 pages. In the 00s, 450 pages. I’m pretty sure that it’s fan-driven. If you write a 500 page book, particularly if it’s in a series, there’ll be outrage if the next one is 400 pages. I’ve also observed that the extra verbiage runs toward internal dialog and angst.
    
    Films have gone in the same direction, to their detriment. Unless you’re adapting LOTR or Harry Potter, going over 100 minutes rarely improves a film.
    - vinegartom
      
      Fan driven? Makes sense though. I wonder if authors concerned with the pith of their prose will respond by writing novellas to begin a three book cycle. That would mean the Wheel of Time series would have begun as a work of flash fiction.
      
      It would be fun to see someone extrapolate the rate of increase. Given the fans as a possible reason it would lend a whole new meaning to the term- gathering interest.
Anonymous

There was a storm… of sudden and vicious intensity… I saw a line of riders… emerging from clouds of alkali dust thrown by a high wind… I saw a severed head on a fencepost. I saw a swamp full of dangers and terrors.

Am I alone in thinking this sounds really hackneyed?

I confess, I have never read any Dark Tower and have heard few bad things about it. The only King novel I have read was Needful Things. It seriously creeped me out, but I will admit I had trouble putting it down.

Now, I don’t know what he’s written but in his (retrospective?) description of the storyline I see absolutely nothing that would compel me to write another book in any series.

Josh
- Lucky
  
  Hackneyed? Well, there is no accounting for taste….waxing philosophical about a favorite anything is like claiming vanilla is better than chocolate, and red is better than blue. I think his book sales speak for themselves, but then Britney Spears has sold millions of albums….
kjs3

I stopped reading Stephen King after The Stand, but not because I disliked that book.

I stopped reading Steven King after The Stand, because as good as it was 99% of the way, any author who had such contempt for me that he would just go “fuck it” and produce the last 20 pages of The Stand and pretend I was so much a fanboi any fucking crap would do isn’t someone I’ll ever read again.

See: Neil Stephenson: really…….you’re gonna wrap this up with the robot dog running up the planes tailpipe. Fuck. You.
- Donald Petersen
  
  the last 20 pages of The Stand
  
  Boy, you said it. What an amazing book, and what a wet fart of an ending.
Calimecita

One of SK’s “Constant Readers” here, to say Thanks Cory for this news!
Though there are a few of his old classics I’ve never read (Carrie and Christine come to mind), I love most of his novels, and the longer the better… so the Dark Tower’s series is the ultimate SK feast for me :-)

I first read the whole DT series in a completely random order, because not all English-language books are easy to find here in Argentina… at least not cheap, LOL. I think I bought “Wizard and Glass” first, then over the years I found the other books as new or second-hand paperbacks, and each time I got another volume, I re-read the ones I had in the correct order. The last one I got was Song of Susannah. Yes, I know what you’re thinking, I already knew the ending(s), but it didn’t matter :-)

I especially enjoy his insights into the mind of children and teens, as well as adults (Gerald’s game is amazing, and it’s a book with very little ‘action’, ‘Duma Key’ is another example). And his forewords and afterwords are so entertaining, and feel just honest.In short, I’m a fan.

I’m looking forward to this new tale of Roland. Btw, there’s also a novella (“Little sisters of Eluria”) that takes place in Mid-World. It was first published as part of a multi-authored fantasy collection. I wonder where my copy is.
sandman_artlover

I’m NOT a fan of most of King’s work… not really into the horror/suspense genre of fiction, but DT is one of my favorite series of all time. I really loved the fact that he put himself in the book (which I thought was brilliant) and I really loved the ending (which was mind-blowing). It is right up there with The Foundation series, the Hyperion Saga, LOTR, the Rama series, and the Ender quartet for me.
Anonymous

Great Writer.

great editing.

then HUGE sales.

Then too big to be edited.

then bad writer.

Editors = Quality.
Anonymous

I wish people would use the SPOILER tag more when talking about the ending…. some people have not read it yet.
Donald Petersen

Been a King fan since I was twelve, when I was given an omnibus edition of The Shining/Salem’s Lot/Night Shift/Carrie. Throughout junior high I bought his books in paperback as soon as they came out, and starting with Skeleton Crew and IT I started buying first editions. I was rarely disappointed for a number of years (Tommyknockers: meh. Dolores Claiborne: ho-hum. The Regulators: gave me a headache. The rest I thought were great), but I kept on buying ‘em as soon as he could print ‘em until I finally had enough after Hearts in Atlantis. Since that point I’ve read about half of what he’s published, but I realize now that I just haven’t loved anything he’s written since his accident. I haven’t yet read Lisey’s Story, and I’m told it’s one of his best, but other than his short fiction, I was inclined to believe that the well had simply run dry. I was actively pissed off by a recurring trend in his later stories (specifically Riding The Bullet, From a Buick 8, and The Colorado Kid) wherein he deliberately refuses to pay off the reader’s investment by offering any sort of explanation as to WTF is going on in the story. I understood the point he was trying to make the first time he did it, but to write three separate stories that seem expressly designed to instruct us that sometimes there just isn’t a narrative, or if there is, sometimes we’re just never gonna know what that narrative is, some things will forever be a mystery, life isn’t like a Hollywood movie, can’t always get what you want, blah blah blah… well, this here Constant Reader rose to the bait and got all bent outta shape. I don’t need Stephen Dadblamed King to tell me that life is full of disappointments and inscrutable mysteries. I need him to tell some Ripping Yarns, and if he can’t be bothered to figure out exactly why there’s a

[SPOILER ALERT]

dimensional gateway in the trunk of an antique Buick, then he shouldn’t bother pounding out 368 pages about that damned Buick in the first place.

[SPOILER ENDS]

I guess now you can predict that no matter how much I loved the first four Dark Tower volumes (which were written over the course of thirty years, and I’ll admit, I loved them a hell of a lot), I wasn’t too heavily enamored with the last three, which read like they’d been banged out over eighteen coke-fueled months. I’m damned if I can even remember why I disliked them so much, but for whatever reason, I can still remember the plots and characters of the first four, though I last read them over ten years ago, and I can’t remember any details from the last three at all. I do distinctly remember thinking that the ending in particular could and should have been much, much different. Wish I could remember how I thought to improve upon it, but whatever. Glad you guys enjoyed it, anyway.
9ifbydarkness

Those of you who hated the ending; I didn’t care for it either. But you’re all gnashing teeth over something you really have no right to complain about. Those of you who read his book On Writing will already know this, but I’ll explain it for you who did not.
King did not write The Dark Tower for you. He wrote it for himself. That is why his stories endings do not always satisfy, not because as someone unceremoniously put it, ‘he gets bored’. If you’re writing the story for the readers, that’s fine. But the best, most intriguing and pure stories are those that are written for what they are, not for what you think the reader might want you to read.
Just my perspective, I suppose. Yet I challenge those who say the ending sucked to rethink your own perspective from this point of view and see if you can not see it in a less negative light.
Anonymous

Frankly, I liked how the series “ended”, and can think of no other way it could have. Looking forward to the new book, however.
EricT

“at least one hole in the narrative progression” At least one? One?! IT’S SWISS CHEESE! IT’S CHICKEN WIRE! IT’S MORE HOLE THAN NOT!