The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger by Stephen King

"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed"

I first read this book sometime in the 90’s and found it surprisingly hard going. It’s effectively an overture for The Dark Tower series, King’s magnum opus, and introduces the themes that will be explored over the course of seven volumes. For someone used to reading about horror authors in small Maine towns, the idea of a gunslinger who was also somehow an Arthurian knight, chasing a mysterious adversary through an arid, dying world that has ‘moved on’ was a challenging one. 

I persevered, eventually making sense of the flashbacks and the story of how Roland of Gilead came of age and earned his guns, taking the first steps on the road to the Dark Tower. I eventually picked up the subsequent books in the series and at some point, the Gunslinger clicked for me as the throwaway references to characters like Susan Delgado and Roland’s Ka Tet were fleshed out. 

This book was originally written as a series of short stories, very early in King’s writing career, then stitched together and revised as the rest of the Dark Tower series took shape. The edition now in print and audio form is the perfect introduction to lead you into the series, and you can be assured that you are in safe hands on this quest. I’ve not read these books for a long time but this feels like the right year to revisit them.