The Gunslinger by Stephen King

⭐⭐⭐⭐

In a desolate reality, one that mirrors our own in frightening ways, a lone and haunting figure known only as Roland makes his way across the endless sands in pursuit of a sinister, dark-robed mystery of a man. Roland is the last of his kind, a “gunslinger” charged with protecting whatever goodness and light remains in his world – a world that “moved on” as they say…and the only way he can possible hope to save everything is to first outwit and confront this man in black, then make him divulge his many arcane secrets. For despite the countless miles he’s already traversed, Roland knows these will merely be his initial steps on his spellbinding and soul-shattering quest to locate the mystical nexus of all worlds, all universes: the Dark Tower.

So this was my first Stephen King novel. For years and years, I’ve always wanted to read Stephen King, mainly because my cousin loves reading his books and he always talked about them, plus there are so many of his books that have been made into movies, it’s like he is everywhere. Also I had never read horror before but I would say that this book is more of a fantasy novel. This book is the first in the Dark Tower Series, so I am not sure if it gets more horror like since I haven’t read the others, we will see in the future.

I did overall really enjoy my first Stephen King experience, it was well written and wonderfully weird. As the synopsis says above, it follows Roland, the gunslinger, on his journey to find the man in black and ultimately The Dark Tower. It’s set in a place that I think used to be Earth at some point but has evolved into something else with elements of Earth. I guess we will find out more in the next books. That or I can just use the Internet to find out but then I might spoil it for myself so I’ll keep y’all updated as I am updated.

Something I really enjoyed was the fact that at times, Stephen Kings writes in the character’s perspective so it’s like you’re in their heads and are thinking their thoughts. I found that interesting because it makes you feel like you’re living in the character’s shoes. It gives a little something to the book that other authors don’t do in the same way which was nice. The reason I gave the book a four star rating, is because the book is a bit slow. I don’t mind that at all but sometimes it lags a bit. I feel that a lot of first novels in a series do this but this one was weird because nothing is really explained in depth but I am looking forward to reading the following books to find out everything! All in all, I definitely recommend this book if you’re into fantasy series!