Ratings89
Average rating3.9
In his New York Times bestselling The Wind Through the Keyhole, Stephen King returns to the spectacular territory of the Dark Tower fantasy saga to tell a story about gunslinger Roland Deschain in his early days. The Wind Through the Keyhole is a sparkling contribution to the series that can be placed between Dark Tower IV and Dark Tower V. This Russian doll of a novel, a story within a story within a story, visits Roland and his ka-tet as a ferocious, frigid storm halts their progress along the Path of the Beam. Roland tells a tale from his early days as a gunslinger, in the guilt-ridden year following his mother’s death. Sent by his father to investigate evidence of a murderous shape-shifter, Roland takes charge of Bill Streeter, a brave but terrified boy who is the sole surviving witness to the beast’s most recent slaughter. Roland, himself only a teenager, calms the boy by reciting a story from the Book of Eld that his mother used to read to him at bedtime, “The Wind through the Keyhole.” “A person’s never too old for stories,” he says to Bill. “Man and boy, girl and woman, we live for them.” And stories like The Wind Through the Keyhole live for us with Stephen King’s fantastical magic that “creates the kind of fully imagined fictional landscapes a reader can inhabit for days at a stretch” (The Washington Post).
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The Wind Through the Keyhole fits into the Dark Tower series between book four and five when Roland and his Ka-tet are forced to take shelter from a storm. While waiting the storm out Roland tells a tale from his past where he and Jamie DeCurry are sent to investigate some murders that involve a shape shifter called a skin-man. During this tale Roland tells the tale of “The Wind Through the Keyhole” to a scared child just as his mother did for him when he was a child. This addition to the Dark Tower series does not affect the story in the other seven books but instead adds a little insight to Roland's past and Midworld itself. Though not an essential story to the Dark Tower, it is a short fun read for any fan of the Dark Tower series and is also written well enough that readers do not need to read the first four books to enjoy it!
This was so much better to read in sequence. The first read was when it initially came out which was several ?years? after the series ended and my memory of details was let go.
Great flow, great story telling, it is a bit tricky to remember that there is one story around a campfire within another story around a campfire. Warning, this book is still more world building, no progress towards The Tower.
It was nice to re-visit Roland and his friends, although there was a little less of them than I had hoped. The primary story while taking place in Roland's world has little to do with Roland or his friends.
A decent tale that enlightens us a bit more about Roland and his ka tet. It's not up to the best that King wrote in the other Dark Tower novels, but neither is it his worst. Fans of the series will certainly get their money's worth and be eager for more afterwards.
Featured Series
7 primary books9 released booksThe Dark Tower is a 9-book series with 7 primary works first released in 1974 with contributions by Stephen King.