The Dark Tower by Stephen King - Spoiler alert!

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I read the last volume yesterday – I was reading it for the whole day. Today I’m reading Duma Key. The book was a bit disappointing to me.

First of all, there was too little time gap between Jake’s and Eddie’s deaths which meant they seemed less shocking – one of the characters has just died and suddenly the same’s happening to the other, it would make a bigger impression on the readers if they already had shaken themselves free of the shock caused by Eddie’s unexpected death and the other death took place just then.

Walter’s death was also something unexpected and simply too fast, he didn’t have any chance to defend himself even being such a powerful wizard.

Another King’s idea I didn’t like was introducing too many new characters for my taste but on the other hand I realize some of them served an important purpose, like Joe Collins thanks to whom Patrick Danville appeared again. I’m not sure whether Patrick suffered from mental retardation like it was said by Susannah or was only an uneducated, simple-minded teen who didn’t have any chance to develop mentally for he could be kidnapped by Dandelo when he was a child.

But I loved the idea of a town of the Breakers.

I really enjoyed this series. Almost all of King's works somehow tied into it, even minor ones like The Mist (movie sucked compared to the short story) which I thought was pretty cool. I originally got inspired to read through the Dark Tower about 10 years ago when I read Insomnia, which is one of my favorite King books, and which is pretty much a spin-off of the Dark Tower. Overall it was a great series, though I thought the ending left a little bit to be desired. Who knows, maybe King will continue it?

the DT is pretty much the only thing I like of Stephen King's. Very well put together, though the latter few books were more cohesive than the first few. I loved the ending.
Callahan's death was brilliant, and seemed an interesting counterpoint to Jake and Eddie - the man who ran away from things his whole life died like a hero, whilst the heroes who were relentless on their quest were used up and thrown aside by Ka. Maybe there's a moral in that - the end doesn't justify the means, or something.
I'm working my way through the comics now.