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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Have a nice day.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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”.