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At 15 years old I started reading a well known Stephen King series.  The problem was I started at book number 2.  Here is how that happened.  It was my freshman year of high school at Blaine Senior High in Minnesota (go Bengals).  One of my classes was Advanced Placement English We did book reports every other week.  I read A LOT.  During one of our trips (not that it was far) to the school library a certain book caught my eye.  It was Stephen Kings The Drawing of the Three.  I didn't know anything about the series.  When I went to check the book out the librarian asked if I had read the first one.  "There is a first one?" I remember asking.  She suggested that maybe I find something else from Stephen King first before sort of diving into the story part way through.  If you have read this series you know that in no way does it follow a linear chronology but you could very easily get lost by starting at "the middle" of the story so to speak.  A small part of me wishes that I could have started with book one the first time but now that I look back I actually don't think I would have been as interested or mature enough to understand from the "beginning" of the story with "The Gunslinger".

If I had just one sentence to describe this series it might go something like this.  Roland is the last true gunslinger in a wild west post-apocalyptic inter-dimensional science fiction fantasy on a quest to reach the Dark Tower which might very well be the nexus of all time, space, thought, and existence to either defeat evil or destroy the world.  Unfortunately this would be an oversimplification.  The series is sort of mind boggling but so great it is a must read.  Many critics, fans, and scholars consider The Dark Tower series to be Stephen King's magnus opum.



What I didn't realize, though I should have, is that the graphic novel is on its seventh installment of the series.  The graphic novel has been using the back-story (found mostly in book 4) as its main source of information. Unbeknownst to me it has finally caught up with the Gunslinger, book 1 of the series.  So for me this is truly exciting as I will have come full circle by the time the graphic novel reaches the Drawing of the Three.

Stay "tuned" to this blog for more information on the series and its various forms of media in the future.  Thanks.  :)