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Part Two of the Dark Tower Series. Roland fights sickness and the first man he brings back to his world, Eddie Dean.

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Commentary

This is the second installment of Stephen King's fantasy series, The Dark Tower, which follows the story of the Gunslinger Roland. The gunslinger is a sort of Arthurian knight in King's fantasy world; his quest -- to reach the Dark Tower in order to make his world (and possibly ours) right again.

This installment tells the story of the gathering of Roland's companions on his quest. The term "drawing" refers to the act of taking people from our world to Roland's dying world. Roland does not get to choose which people to "draw", but rather must draw the people chosen for him in an unknown manner. Unlike the other three installments in this series, we do not learn much about Roland's world in this book, a disappointment given how interesting Roland's world is and how good King is at describing that world. Instead, we get to see our world through Roland's eyes. Since Roland's world is, in many ways, a medieval world, his view is akin to the one we would get from a time traveler from several centuries ago. For example, Roland is particularly taken by a pharmacy in which the potions and elixirs non-existent or rare in his world are casually sold with a doctor's note in ours.

Since the process of drawing also requires Roland to enter the minds of the people he draws, we gain unique insight into the minds of Roland's companions which aids us in understanding the characters in later volumes. Furthermore, this allows King to engage in something akin to stream of consciousness as we see into the minds of Roland's companions. Although King is, of course, no Faulkner, it should be noted that two of the characters Roland enters are mentally disturbed and therefore, as in The Sound and the Fury, King competently describes the thoughts of characters with minds totally alien from our own.

Finally, for those who are fans of action and were not enamoured by The Gunslinger, this book will not disappoint you. It is chock full of action, including shoot outs with cops, races against time to save characters from death and eerie, intelligent animals called lobstrosities who are almost as scary as some of King's evil characters in his horror books. Thus, even if you disliked The Gunslinger, read this book. You might even decide to re-read The Gunslinger after this book gets you excited by the series. -- Adam S, Amazon