"The end was worth the wait"

In spite of shifting time and place, Roland the Last Gunfighter knows he is nearing his destination and thus the final confrontation of his quest. The center of the time-place continuum, THE DARK TOWER beckons just beyond the horizon. However, as he has learned through his dangerous journey time is not linear and his path still has detours and setbacks as Roland and his ka-tet battle vampires in New York City's Dixie Pig.

That takes a bite out of his compatriots, but Roland knows the real adversary is Mordred, Mia's offspring from him and the were-spider Crimson King. Mordred, the essence of pure evil, confronts Roland to stop him from completing the mission besides expecting a tasty morsel. Though experienced with killing his own blood, Roland has no prayer against his superpowerful antagonist. As members of his ka-tet fall, Roland needs the help of a talented somewhat befuddled individual to attain any chance to defeat his son. Will Roland realize his necessity in time and will this being leave his personal tower to fight alongside the last gunfighter?

Over two decades in the making, the climax to thought- provoking THE DARK TOWER series is an exciting epic fantasy that ties together much of the previous novels in an intriguing ending that readers will either love or hate, but not feel indifferent toward. The key cast members remain consistent to their personalities, especially Roland as the silent hero (from the 1960s spaghetti westerns). The story line moves at a frantic pace still leaping about in time and place until "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" (Robert Browning's poem) for the final unification of Stephen King's opus.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted September 7, 2004

Summary

All good things must come to an end, Constant Reader, and not even Stephen King can make a story that goes on forever. The tale of Roland Deschain's relentless quest for the Dark Tower has, the author fears, sorely tried the patience of those who have followed it from its earliest chapters. But attend to it a while longer, if it pleases you, for this volume is the last, and often the last things are best. Roland's ka-tet remains intact, though scattered over wheres and whens. Susannah-Mia has been carried from the Dixie Pig (in the summer of 1999) to a birthing room -- really a chamber of horrors -- in Thunderclap's Fedic; Jake and Father Callahan, with Oy between them, have entered the restaurant on Lex and Sixty-first with weapons drawn, little knowing how numerous and noxious are their foes. Roland and Eddie are with John Cullum in Maine, in 1977, looking for the site on Turtleback Lane where "walk-ins" have been often seen. They want desperately to get back to the others, to Susannah especially, and yet they have come to realize that the world they need to escape is the only one that matters. Thus the book opens, like a door to the uttermost reaches of Stephen King's imagination. You've come this far. Come a little farther. Come all the way. The sound you hear may be the slamming of the door behind you. Welcome to The Dark Tower.