In an alternate universe, perhaps one just next door to ours, Amazon gave the green light to formerWalking DeadshowrunnerGlen Mazzara’s adaptationofStephen King’s magnum opus,The Dark Tower. In our (perhaps lesser) reality,Amazon passedon the project, possibly because with itsWheel of Timeseries and the upcomingLord of the Ringsshow, a third big-budget sci-fi/fantasy series is just not feasible.
Loosely based on theRobert Browningpoem “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came”, King’s epic series consists of seven main novels and two other longer narratives which are tangential to the main story. Very briefly, Roland Deschain’s world is one of magic, chivalry, demons, and lots of guns and doors. Roland is the last of the gunslingers, heirs of Arthur Eld, the figure we’d know as King Arthur of Camelot. We meet Roland as he crosses an impossibly huge desert, trailing the Man in Black. All we know is that he seeks The Dark Tower, which readers come to learn is sort of a linchpin of reality itself. Something is wrong at the Tower, and its effects ripple through time, space, and the multiple realities Roland finds himself traveling through.
He is eventually joined by others on his quest: a boy named Jake Chambers from our world of 1977, Eddie Dean, a tough and streetwise but deeply insecure heroin addict from 1986, and Odetta Holmes, a wealthy African-American heiress and activist from 1964. Odetta contains a much nastier personality named Detta Walker, and after Roland forces the two aspects of the same woman to face each other, they become a third woman: Susannah Dean, Eddie’s spiritual wife.
Anyone new to King’sDark Toweruniverse should, of course, read them all in order. However, here we look at how well they work as individual volumes, relative to their place in the overarching narrative.
Here are Stephen King’sDark Towerbooks, ranked.
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9. Song of Susannah (Book 6)
Song of Susannahpicks up seconds after the end of Book 5,Wolves of the Calla. Roland and his ka-tet have successfully defended the town of Calla Bryn Sturgis against cloaked, hooded, child-snatching creatures they call the Wolves. A nearby cave holds strong magic, and with the help of a black orb known as Black Thirteen (one of many multi-colored magic balls crafted millennia before by the great wizard Maerlyn), Roland and his band can get themselves closer to the Dark Tower. When Susannah, possessed by an entity called Mia, takes the black ball and goes through by herself, their plans are suddenly upended.
None of theDark Towernovels are “bad,” butSong of Susannahis so different from the other books that it sticks out like a sore thumb. This seems to have been King’s intention, but it comes at a crucial point in the overall narrative when adjusting the style halts the story’s momentum. King structures the book in “stanzas” which culminate in the most “meta” plot twist in the series when the author himself shows up as a character. Roland and Eddie encounter the 1977 version of Stephen King, a functioning alcoholic and family man with a newly-established career as a novelist. It’s a pivotal scene, expanding the metafictional nature of the series. It’s also very confusing, adding a tangled origin story to the entire mythology far too late to truly resonate.Song of Susannahis important for its focus on the story’s major female character, but upending the structure so late in the game is a narrative miscalculation. The story nearly stops cold right before the long-awaited final entry, which is why Book 6 remains on the bottom of this list.
8. The Wind Through the Keyhole (Book 4.5)
Set after the flashback events recounted inWizard and Glass, and before we catch up to the gunslinger in the first book of the series,The Wind Through the Keyholerecounts how Roland’s father, Stephen Deschain, sends him and his friend, Jamie de Curry, to deal with a shapeshifter, who has been terrorizing some outer territories. There’s a story within a story, which follows a young boy named Tim, who lives with his mother on the edge of a great and dangerous forest. What follows is a fantasy fable peppered with characters like The Covenant Man (a parallel to the perennial king villain, Randall Flagg, or The Man in Black) and an intelligent white “tyger” revealed to be the legendary wizard Maerlyn, whom Tim eventually frees.The Wind Through the Keyholeis an enjoyable tangent, but not essential reading relative to theDark Towerseries as a whole. King might have benefited from either splitting this into two or three short stories or novellas.The Wind Through the Keyholeultimately feels unnecessary, even though it reveals a piece of backstory about Roland’s mother. King could have found a way to get this into the main novels, and make it relevant in a way this book is not.
7. The Dark Tower (Book 7)
Split up throughout the duration of Book 6, Roland and his ka-tet reunite and discover the source of the decay in Roland’s world. Powerful psychics called Breakers have been working (semi-unconsciously) to erode the Beams, energy tethers which intersect at the Dark Tower and are responsible for holding all of reality together. Roland’s evil misbegotten son Mordred (it’s a long story) is after them as they attempt to stop the Breakers. We learn that the major villain has always been a creature known as the Crimson King. While he has breached the Dark Tower, he is now shut out on some kind of balcony. His magic and influence still makes him a powerful enemy even from afar.
For many fans,The Dark Tower’s concluding volume feels somehow rushed, even at 845 pages. King beganThe Dark Towerin the late ‘70s as something close to a psychedelic, fantasy Western. It became much more over the decades, refracting and reflecting many of his most famous stories through a near-infinite prism of alternate realities. Diehard fans will find something close to fan service, with characters from several other King stories and novels in the finalDark Towerbook. While Eddie, Susannah, and Jake are given satisfying endings, a surprising amount of story happens “off-screen,” recounted in a lot of clunky exposition. These side stories often come across as far more interesting than the main narrative, and they raise a lot of questions. A character we met briefly inSong of Susannahbecomes a major player over several decades, but we only get to hear about it second-hand. King’s constant readers can hardly blame him for wanting to see his story through to the end as quickly as possible, but Book 7 really could have been split into at least two volumes.
6. Wolves of the Calla (Book 5)
The Dark Towertakes place in a world which has always seemed like a surreal, funhouse-mirror image of ours. King doubles down on the meta aspect ofThe Dark TowerinWolves of the Calla. Roland and his ka-tet enter a classic Western plot as a town needs help defending themselves from what they describe as child-snatching werewolves in cloaks and hoods. The truth is much more complicated. The travelers encounter Father Callahan, the priest who failed to defeat the vampire Barlow in King’s second published novel,‘Salem’s Lot, and his long, winding tale drops him into theDark Towersaga as far back as the first book. While the Constant Reader has been aware that theDark Towerseries takes place somewhere within King’s other stories,Wolves of the Callagives its characters their first inkling of the larger structure of their story. The book provides a much more detailed look at the ordinary citizens in the far flung lands of Roland’s “Mid-World.” We see how the grand, epic tale affects the people who are just living out their lives, unaware (and largely uninterested) that they are part of something bigger. Still, King opens the book with dense descriptions of this new corner of his universe, rendering it inaccessible in a way his previous novels were not.
5. The Waste Lands (Book 3)
Throughout the first twoDark Towerbooks, we don’t see much of Roland’s world beyond a desert and a dying town at its edge. The “present” state of Mid-World is a mystery untilThe Waste Lands. Drawing heavily on themes and imagery fromT.S. Eliot’s epic 1922 poem,The Wasteland, the third book in theDark Towersaga builds on what we learn about the gunslinger from the first two books while adding much more nuance to his personality. Eddie and Susannah both face their tests as gunslingers, and acquit themselves honorably.The Waste Landstakes theDark Towernarrative into more expansive territory than the first two novels. It contains a series of exciting sequences which would be at home in a big-screen blockbuster: the ka-tet pulls Jake from the maw of a monster borne from a crumbling house, they battle a bear the size of Godzilla, and must survive a mad dash through a bizarre city called Lud, which feels like a post-apocalyptic New York.The Waste Landsfinds King’s imagination firing on all cylinders, conjuring a vibrant and detailed universe which rivals some of his best work.
4. The Little Sisters of Eluria (Book 0.5)
This excellent prequel novella takes place some years before the first book, when a younger (and slightly more optimistic) Roland finds himself in a seemingly abandoned town called Eluria. He finds a medallion on a dead body and is then attacked by slow mutants, creatures who are remnants of the unnamed catastrophe which King has referenced vaguely in otherDark Towerbooks. Roland wakes up in a hospital tended by the Sisters of Eluria, whom the gunslinger slowly realizes are actually vampires. One of the Sisters, a young woman named Jenna, tends to his wounds, and the two of them slowly fall in love. Sister Jenna is one of the two great loves of Roland’s life, adding a new dimension to the gunslinger’s past. WhileThe Little Sisters of Eluriadoes not factor into the mainDark Towernarrative, King gives us a valuable look at both the narrative universe and Roland right before things begin to truly fall apart. We’ve seen glimpses of Roland’s origin story, such as his early test of manhood inThe Gunslinger, but this is a mature Roland who is still vulnerable and even hopeful.
3. The Drawing of the Three (Book 2)
The end ofThe Gunslingerleaves Roland on a beach overlooking the great Western Sea.The Drawing of the Threepicks up minutes later. Roland is attacked by giant lobster creatures and ends up with wet shells, a wet gun, two missing fingers on his right hand, and a serious fever. He picks a direction and walks up the beach, eventually encountering three free-standing doors. They bear inscriptions: “The Prisoner” (Eddie Dean), “The Lady of Shadows” (Odetta/Detta/Susannah), and “Death.” Each door leads straight into the minds of the people Roland must draw from their world into his own, whether they want to or not.
The Drawing of the Threeis a remarkable novel, unlike any other by King in that same era. The metaphysical territories the author explores rank with the best of the genre, as King uses Roland, Eddie, and Odetta/Detta/Susannah’s innerscapes to explore aspects of each version of the world he visits through the doors. King shows us the New York of three different time periods through Roland’s eyes. This skewered perspective allows King to provide commentary on our society that is missing from the other books.
2. Wizard and Glass (Book 4)
The cliffhanger at the end of Book 3 resolves with Eddie Dean ingeniously out-riddling Blaine the mono. They then find themselves inside a version of King’s epic novel,The Stand. After flirting with the metafictional aspects of the story, King finally makes it explicit:The Dark Toweris part of a grander narrative universe. They have jumped dimensions, which compels Roland to tell a long story about his past. Roland falls in love for the first time, and this leads to the real beginning of his quest for the Dark Tower.Wizard and Glassis heartbreaking, with some of Stephen King’s finest prose.
As King states in Book 4’s introduction,Wizard & Glassis the work of a man who understands the mature love of a long marriage and middle age. He had to rediscover the intense teenage emotions that fuel Roland’s affair with Susan Delgado. This is King’sRomeo & Juliet, a tragic tale of two lovers whom fate will forever separate. This is also the origin of Roland’s obsession with the Tower, a metaphor for addiction. Roland will end up sacrificing nearly everything for his quest, and while Susan does not die by his hand, King strongly implies that Roland could have sacrificed her, as well. All these elements come together seamlessly inWizard & Glass, making it one of King’s finest novels to date.
1. The Gunslinger (Book 1)
“The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.”King has never bettered the opening to 1982’sThe Gunslinger, which introduces us to Roland of Gilead, son of Stephen, the last gunslinger in a world that has “moved on.” The surreal Western was nothing like King’s previous books. The later installments would be more experimental or more sophisticated, but the first one set its own unique tone.The Gunslingerpresents a stripped-down, deceptively simple premise, and King follows this down the rabbit hole. There are some bravura set pieces in this book: Roland’s chilling massacre of the town called Tull, the still-compelling flashbacks to his early test for his guns, he and Jake’s terrifying trip under the mountains on a handcart while surrounded by slow mutants. The cold and pitiless killer in this book gains back more of his humanity as the series goes on. Here, the challenge for the reader is to sympathize with such an enigmatic, ruthless character as Roland of Gilead. King has revised parts ofThe Gunslingerto make the series’ continuity more cohesive, but this has not diminished any of its power.
