The Drawing of the Three

Woohoo! Now that's what I was hoping for when I started reading the Dark Tower series. Book one was a bit of a drag for me (though probably undesevedly) so I was happy to find that this is where it really starts being awesome.
Full review here: http://sffbookreview.wordpress.com/2012/07/05/stephen-king-the-drawing-of-the-three/

I read the first book in this series (The Gunslinger) over a decade ago now. I didn't really care for it, but there were things about it that I did like, and the fans of this series are very vocal in their praise of it, and there is a possible new tv show in the works for it. So I thought I'd try to continue on.

I'm not sure how I feel about this one. At times it is thrilling, but at other times I find it to be either a slog or just straight up off-putting. The story of "edgy" King that I don't love tends to rear his head a fair bit.

I was leaning towards a 2/5 on this, but the last section of the book is a string of tense action scenes that had me captivated.

I'm not super eager to contine the series, but I probably will get around to it in under a decade this time.

This book is weird, man. Even for a Stephen King book, it's weird. I suppose the weirdest thing about it is that if Stephen King hadn't written it, I wouldn't be reading it. It reads like a very long short story: there are few characters, the world is sparsely populated, and although the characters get through an ordeal, they don't truly make much progress. Well, they do and they don't. I suppose you could argue either way. A lot happens, but it doesn't get Roland much closer to The Tower.

The point is Stephen King did write it, so it's a lot of fun to read and hard to put down.

Now this is a little more like it. Far more intriguing, cohesive, and epic than The Gunslinger, Drawing of the Three continues to follow Roland on his quest to the Dark Tower - only now he's discovered worlds other than his own, and companions to help him locate the Tower. Those companions help us better understand the scale of what Roland's undertaking, the same way birds or structures are added to fantasy art to show something is at a much larger scale than otherwise assumed.

Also, the relevation of the identity of the man in black brought a big smile to my face; I knew going in that The Dark Tower had connections to a lot of the other King books I've read (Hearts in Atlantis being the one that always first comes to mind), but I assumed that that was just a one-way relationship. It will be interesting to see how that develops further in this series.

A wonderful sequel to The Gunslinger that draws us deeper into both Roland's character and world as well as introducing two interesting new characters. While The Gunsslinger can be seen as a brief introduction that promises much in terms of story, The Drawing of the Three delivers on those promises with some fascinating glimpses into what Roland's quest for the Dark Tower actually means. Highly recommended.

After the first in the series, the story really starts to pick up with this one and become the sort of Stephen King writing that I enjoy so much, particularly in audiobook format. I had to rewind the audiobook of The Gunslinger a few times when my mind had wandered and I'd missed bits. That didn't happen with this one.

I got it from Audible and the narrator was superb.

I've been thinking about reading this book for years. After 3 different false starts I finally finished it and am glad I did. It feels very different from other King novels but it is well written and engaging. The world of the story is intriguing and I am excited to begin the next book this is the year I make a dent in my king collection.

Definitely a 4.5 stars for me. I feel like the gunslinger (book 1) is really just a 250 page prologue to this book, which I feel overall is book 1, this books is definitely THE book to drive forward the plot and establish our main characters. Which I really enjoyed having this fresh new idea of how to tell a fish out of water story. Kings way of telling his own version of a fish out of water story was so fun, seeing Roland travel to our earth inside of Eddie's body and having to learn and help Eddie and the other two “drawings” with their earthly problems was extremely fun. The book definitely slowed down for me once we got to odetta/detta but only when Roland traveled to her time period of New York to “draw” her, after the “drawing” this character really shined having that element of (when is this character going to eventually shift to her “evil” alter ego to cause more chaos for Eddie and Roland was for sure one of the best parts of this book). And of course the “third drawing” was great.
Overall this book definitely felt like the true first book in to (what I can already guarantee) one of my favorite series I've read so far.

TLDR

Definitely the first true book to this series with a lot of fun and adventurous ideas. King was definitely more comfortable in his writing style in this one I think

Executive Summary: In the second of the Dark Tower epic, Mr. King ratchets up the action, the conflict and most certainly the weird. If anyone reads [b:The Gunslinger 43615 The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower, #1) Stephen King http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1309288354s/43615.jpg 46575] and wonders “why do people like this series?” I advise them to continue on to this one, and find out. If after this book they still don't get it, then this series is not for them.Audiobook: I listened to the revised edition of [b:The Gunslinger 43615 The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower, #1) Stephen King http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1309288354s/43615.jpg 46575], which is read by George Guidall, who took over starting with [b:Wolves of the Calla 4978 Wolves of the Calla (The Dark Tower, #5) Stephen King http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348608372s/4978.jpg 2754911]. With this book, it switches back to Frank Muller. Like Mr. King, Mr. Muller had a near-death accident. Unlike Mr. King however, he never fully recovered.At first I didn't like the switch, because I thought Mr. Guidall did a good job. I warmed up to Mr. Muller after awhile, especially with his voices for Eddie and Detta.Full ReviewA walk down the beach may sound to you like a perfect setting for a romantic date. Not in Roland Deschain's world.First Roland must face monsters. Monsters that are just a bit familiar yet terrifyingly different at the same time. Did-a-chik!Dum-a-chumThen there are the doors.Doors? Yes. Doors to a strange other world called ‘New York City'. But it's not just another place, but another time. And not just one time, but three.Three. This is the number of your fate.Roland must draw must draw his three, to continue his journey:* The Prisoner* The Lady of Shadows* DeathDeath. But not for you Gunslinger, never for you.And a gunfight, you aren't soon to forget:“...There's going to be shooting.”“There is?”“Yes.” The gunslinger looked serenely at Eddie. “Quite a lot of it, I think.”In this book we learn about those who must accompany Roland as he continues his epic quest for the Dark Tower. Roland must draw these three to him, and convince him of the worthiness of his quest. This is no easy task. Each of them has flaws. Especially Roland himself. But each has strengths as well. Strengths that will be needed if the Tower is ever to be reach.Oh and don't forget to pack the tooter fish popkins you honk mah fah!

This book was much much much better than “The Gunslinger”. It has given me a budding hope that I may actually like this series.

We follow Roland as he goes through 3 different doors to get what he needs to find the tower as prophesied. We meet 3 new characters: Eddie, Odetta/Detta, and Jack. Getting to experience these unique personalities was very interesting to read. The characterization in this book is really what makes this book so successful. We get to see new relationships bloom and grow, while also seeing these characters struggle through their inner demons.

I have 2 big gripes with this book. The first is the caricature that King has made Detta. I understand that this was intentional, but having been written by a white person, it felt incredibly hard to read her parts. The way the dialogue was written and the excessive use of slurs was difficult, to say the least. Again, I know that this was an intentional move by King to create the dichotomy, but I felt that it could've been done more tastefully. My second gripe is the constant use of insta-love in these books. First, we saw it with Jake in the previous book. Then, in this book, we see it again throughout all of the characters. Everyone hardly knows each other, yet they are all constantly professing their love. It felt disingenuous and awkward to me. It brought me out of the story multiple times.

The plot was ok. I think the concept was pretty cool, but I feel like a lot of the action, while fun, isn't completely necessary to the story. I could be completely wrong, so I guess we'll see as I continue the series.

Overall so far, I think this series is worth the read. Even though I really disliked “The Gunslinger”, this book made it feel worth it to me. I hope the rest of the series continues to improve as I go along.

TW: racial slurs, homophobic slurs, racial stereotypes, drug use, drug overdose, explicit sexual content, death, gore, amputation, decapitation, assault, gun violence hospitalization, needles, fatphobia

It took me so long to get into this one and in the end I finished it on audio which was a great choice as the narrator is excellent!

This instalment feels like a completely different book to the first and we really start to get an idea of how this journey is going to be begin for our gang.

I really like Eddie and I really hate Detta which I think is the point of her character being so vile and detestable.

I'm really looking forward to continuing on in the series!

80/100 score

Y'all. This thing is wild. I was very unsure of continuing if the writing style of the gunslinger continued but this is much more the King I know and can understand better. While I do enjoy a lot of this book. It feels like a giant set up. Which is great but sometimes I'm wondering when the main story will continue. We do get some great back story and interesting characters and we do get some excellent and thrilling show downs. But the pacing suffers for me to a point and carrying the narrative is lacking. Very excited to go into The Wastelands next.