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Whidden
KANSAS LAW DOG
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Aight, this is going to be an extremely low dollar synopsis of the Dark Tower series by Stephen King, so that those that don't want to invest the time and money in reading it, can read this post and move on with their lives.
However, you really are missing out if you don't give them a shot. I would suggest skipping books one and two, and go straight to 3. Then finish the series out from there. Then go back and read one and two if you get bored and want some back story.
Like all King books, these are supernatural thrillers, more so than "horror". But also like all King Books, there are some graphic moments, that if put into a movie, would make it rated X for gore and violence.
I find reading such things, I have a high threshold for it. Unlike watching gore on the t.v. or movies, with a book, your mind can decide how much of the grossness to envision.
At any rate, I will go into the major plot points, but not get to everything in the book. I can't write everything that happens in 7 books, or it would be a book in itself. This will be short and dirty. I'm also going to put a lot of my own crappola view of things in here, so take it with a grain of salt.
Plus, I might get things slightly out of order to fully explain things. Plus, this story is convoluted and complicated in parts, so it's easy to get lost. Don't curse me if this turns out a big OLD MESS.
I say short and dirty, but the story is long and convoluted, and even though I'm only hitting some major points, this synopsis is still a long read. Sorry.
But to sum up the series in one paragraph:
In the late 60's, Stephen King saw the Good, The Bad and the Ugly starring Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef. It inspired him to write a book based on the Man With No Name character, played by Eastwood. A story about a Cowboy who is searching for a Dark Tower, a pylon that controls all space and time, and an infinity of universes.
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01-29-2006 08:13 AM
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Whidden
KANSAS LAW DOG
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We meet Roland in the desert. He is the last Gunslinger, a bad ass Cowboy with hard calibers and fast hands.
He is tired, worn out, walking the hard pan of the desert. He is chasing the Man in Black. We later learn that the man in black is, in fact, the Dark Man from the Stand. The man of many names and faces who has lived for centuries. In the Stand, he led a group of survivors of the plague that decimated the population of the earth against another group of survivors led by Stu Redman and Mother Abagail.
He lost that battle, but still survives under the alias Walter or the Ageless Stranger, instead of Randall Flagg.
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The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.
The desert was the apotheosis of all deserts, huge, standing to the sky for what might have been parsecs in all directions. White; blinding; waterless; without feature save for the faint, cloudy haze of the mountains which sketched themselves on the horizon and the devil-grass which brought sweet dreams, nightmares, death. |
Roland doesn't know where the Dark Tower is or how to reach it, he is chasing the Man in Black to find the answer. We find he has been after him for years, and is now closing in on him and will soon catch him.
Roland stops at a shack in the desert and meets a red haired weirdo who gives him a meal. Roland then recounts a flashback from a short time back, before he entered the desert, when he had a bad experience in a town called Tull. We see that the world is the distant future, after the world has "moved on". A very advanced society had existed before, a world of robots, super dipolar computers with logic circuits, advanced nuclear slug power supplies. A world that has destroyed itself, perhaps by chemical warfare. Rolands time is roughly 800 years or more after the world destroyed itself.
In the flashback, we learn the town had been visited by the Man in Black right before Roland got there, and he put a hex on the people. Long story short, he resurrected a dead guy, and put some kind of voodoo spell over the whole town. When Roland rolls in, he gets to know them, then they all turn on him like Zombies and try to kill him.
He takes them out with his 6 guns, all the men, women and children.
I found this the worst part of the series, it was brutal. Exciting to read, but just a wrong feeling about it. He had to shoot up the town to survive, but it's like it cost him something to do so.
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He had been scream— ing all along. His eyes felt like cracked ball bearings. His balls had drawn up against his belly. His legs were wood. His ears were iron.
The guns were empty and they boiled at him, transmogrified into an Eye and a Hand, and he stood, scream— ing and reloading, his mind far away and absent, letting his hands do their reloading trick. Could he hold up a hand, tell them he had spent twenty—five years learning this trick and others, tell them of the guns and the blood that had blessed them? Not with his mouth. But his hands could speak their own tale. |
Roland comes out of the flashback, and continues across the desert.
He comes to an old way station, and meets a young boy around 10 years old. The boy, Jake, was killed in a 1980's New York by a car. He then just appeared at the way station.
Roland takes the boy and heads for the mountains. He grows to love the boy, but his only goal is the Tower, and the man in black has the info. He knows the boy is a test for him, to cry off the tower to save him. But he doesn't care.
On the way to the mountains, they camp one night and the boy Jake wanders into a speaking ring, which is some sort of ancient stone circle. A spirit thingy is in there and wants Jake. Roland winds up, er, how to put it...
Roland winds up having sex with the spirit to get info from it, and to get it to let Jake go. This winds up being very important later on down the road.
They go under the mountains and fight some slow mutants. They survive this, and almost make it out. But towards the end of the giant tunnel under the mountains, Jake slips of the edge.
The Man in Black in nearby and tells Roland there is no time, if he saves the boy, Jake, he will miss out on catching him. If he comes ahead now, they will stop and pavaler.
Roland does not save the boy, but lets him drop, sacrificing him and goes after the man in Black. A decision that later makes him very guilty. Before Jake falls, he tells Roland, "Go then, there are other worlds than these".
Roland enters a little area full of bones, and the man in black prepares a rabbit over a fire under the starlit sky. He explains to Roland what the Dark Tower is, and various other things.
It's a pylon that controls not only the universe, but an infinity of universes.
The Man in Black then reads Roland's fortune using some tarot cards. Most of them have to do with 3 peeps he will pull from various where and whens, that will help him on his quest to find the Dark Tower.
One card says, "Death, but not for you Gunslinger".
Roland is then sent a vision, a vision of the Dark Tower in a field of Blood, but it turns out he field is littered with roses. We later learn that each rose is a universe in and of itself, a vast plain of them, in the Scarlet Field of Kan Ka' No Rey.
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Imagine the sand of the Mohaine Desert, which you crossed to find me, and imagine a trillion universes — not worlds but universes — encapsulated in each grain of that desert; and within each universe an infinity of others. We tower over these universes from our pitiful grass vantage point; with one swing of your boot you may knock a billion billion worlds flying off into darkness, in a chain never to be completed.
Size, gunslinger... Size....Yet suppose further. Suppose that all worlds, all universes, met in a single nexus, a single pylon, a Tower. A stairway, perhaps, to the Godhead itself. Would you dare, gunslinger? Could it be that somewhere above all of endless reality, there exists a Room...?
You dare not.
You dare not.
_
“Someone has dared,” the gunslinger said.
“Who would that be?”
“God,” the gunslinger said softly. His eyes gleamed. “God has dared. . . or is the room empty, seer?”
“I don’t know.” Fear passed over the man in black’s
bland face, as soft and dark as a buzzard’s wing. “And, furthermore, I don’t ask. It might be unwise. |
We learn much later that the Dark Tower was made my men to uphold the magic of the universe, a technological wonder designed to control something that was winding down. Now the Dark Tower is also winding down, growing old, or sick and the myriad of universes are in danger of complete destruction.
Roland awakes from the vision, and the Man in Black is gone. A skull and bones lay in front of him. The man in black. But we learn later that the Dark Man put the bones there to make him think that, that he is still alive and well.
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01-29-2006 08:15 AM
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Whidden
KANSAS LAW DOG
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Posts: 16673
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Roland then moves on and finds himself on a great beach. He falls asleep and is attacked by some Lobster thingys that mutilate his right hand and make him violently ill.
He walks down the beach, wounded and sick with fever, and finds a door. This is the first of the 3 peeps he has been promised.
This takes a great deal of wordage and time in the books, but to simpify it, he finds a heroin addict in the first door, and brings him into Rolands world. Roland also gets some antibiotics.
In this way, after finding more doors and various adventures, Roland draws the heroin addict, Eddie Dean from the 70's, a multiple personality black woman from the 60's and the other door is for some strange serial killer. But Roland kills him instead of drawing him.
Roland and his two new friends move into a great forest and he teaches them the art of Gunslinging. They find that the woman, Susana and the dude, Eddie, have a natural talent for it. And Roland is no longer the last Gunslinger, which we learn is more than just a cowboy, but the surviving royalty of long ages past, more Knights of the round table than a cowboy.
A giant Cybernetic Bear, part Bear, part Robot, and the size of King Kong comes out of the woods and attacks them. It is sick and dying, infected with mystery snot and worms, but it still lives. They manage to kill it with the guns, shooting a little radar dish on the top of its head. As it powers down, it's pretty cool the stuff it says.
Roland says it is one of the guardians of the beams. There are 6 beams, that intersect at the Dark Tower, the beams come from the tower. At each end of the beam is a Guardian, two for each beam.
We learn some of the beam ends are protected by a Bear, a Hare, A Fish, a Turtle, a Wolf, etc. Don't remember them all.
But this is the Bear that guards one of the beams, so this is the path of the beam, and it will lead them to the Dark Tower. We learn later that the Beams uphold creation, that they come from the tower, and that creation, the infinity of universes emanated from them. The Beams feed the Roses, the Roses feed the Tower, the Tower feeds the Roses and the Beam. They all support each other.
They cruise out from the bear, along the path of the Beam, which they can see the effects of it in the sky, the clouds parts in certain ways, the trees are effected in certain ways if you know what to look for, like everything is clearer in the path of the Beam.
Roland starts having problems. Bad problems. He remembers a boy falling, and he doesnt' remember a boy falling. A paradox is destroying his mind. It turns out when he did not draw the serial killer earlier from the door, and instead killed him,
well that serial killer was the one that had pushed Jake the boy in front of the car and resulted in his death. The death which brought him to the way station where he met Roland.
Since Roland offed the dude, Jake was not killed, and stilled lived, creating a paradox which is ripping apart the Gunslingers mind.
The Jake who lived, is in New York in the 80's and after not dying in the car accident, not being pushed by the serial killer, he too is having trouble. There was a gunslinger, there was not a gunslinger. He is in a paradox, since both things happened.
He goes to a book store and meets some side characters that are important later, but I won't get into them too much. They give him a book about a choo choo train, and a book of old riddles.
Then the boy, Jake, cruises by an empty lot, where he discovers the Rose. It grows in the vacant lot and he sees it is in danger. Also that it is the universe itself.
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The rose was growing from a clump of alien purple grass.
As Jake neared this clump of alien grass, the rose began to open before his eyes. It disclosed a dark scarlet furnace, petal upon secret petal, each burning with its own secret fury. He had never seen anything so intensely and utterly alive in his whole life. Then the heart of the rose opened for him, exposing a yellow dazzle of light, and all thought was swept away on a wave of wonder. It was a sun: a vast forge burning at the center of this rose growing in the purple grass.He leaned closer to the rose and saw that its core was not just one sun but many . . . perhaps all suns contained within a ferocious yet fragile shell. |
He then goes to an old house, where Roland will draw him into his world.
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01-29-2006 08:18 AM
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Whidden
KANSAS LAW DOG
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Registered: May 2003
Local time: 02:49 AM
Location: Yon Woady Pump
Posts: 16673
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Meanwhile, back in Rolands where and when, the 3 of them, Eddie, Roland and Susanna come to another speaking ring, where they will draw Jake into their world. Eddie has carved a wooden key he saw in a dream and it will open a door into Jakes where and when.
However this not without a price, as the spirit in the ring wants to have sex. This time, it is Susanna who has sex with it while Roland and Eddie open the door and draw Jake into the world.
This turns out important later too.
So, Jake, the final third member of Rolands team is drawn back with them. The paradox is fixed and Jake and Roland at reunited and healed of the mind problems at the same time. Roland loves Jake and tells him he will never drop him or betray him again.
They cruise out and enter the ruined city of Lud, which is a version of New York City inhabited by geeks and weirdos'.
Jake is kidnapped by this loser dude called the Tick Tock man, which reminded me of the TrashCan man from the stand, cept a whole lot cooler. Anyhow, Roland proves himself and sends Eddie and Susan on, while he rescues Jake.
Eddie and Susan go through Lud, hear some old ZZ top tunes on the speakers, the drum section from Velcro Fly, kill some natives in a gunfight and finally wind up at a train terminal.
Above is a statue of a Cowboy and some of the Guardians. I found this part surreal and awesome and I cried a little. Don't ask me why, don't make no sense, but it was just crazy *** stuff to read.
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Eddie touched her shoulder and pointed higher. Susannah looked . . . and felt her breath come to a stop in her throat. Standing astride the peak of the roof, far above The Totems of the Beam and the dragonish gargoyles, as if given dominion over them, was a golden warrior at least sixty feet high. A battered cowboy hat was shoved back to reveal his lined and careworn brow; a bandanna hung askew on his upper chest, as if it had just been pulled down after serving long, hard duty as a dust-muffle. In one upraised fist he held a revolver; in the other, what appeared to be an olive branch.
Roland of Gilead stood atop the Cradle of Lud, dressed in gold.
No, she thought, at last remembering to breathe again. It's not him . . . but in another way, it is. |
At the train terminal is a futuristic train, Blain the Mono. Insane, evil, Pink and twisted, the train makes them solve a math riddle to get on. Eddie and Susan solve it, and Roland joins them with Jake the boy, having saved him from the Tick Tock man.
They enter the train, and it takes them on their merry way towards the Dark Towers at supersonic speeds. As it leaves the city of Lud, Blain the Train kills the inhabitants with nerve gas.
It also seems he is suicidal, his sister train, Patrica, which was blue go figure, having killed herself not too long ago.
He wants to be asked riddles. If asked one he can not solve, he will let them all live, if not he will crash himself into the last station and kill them all.
Roland asks a bunch of neato riddles, but Blain gets them all. Jake uses his book of riddles he got from the book store, but Blaine also guesses them all. Eddie cracks a few crappy jokey ones and is rebuked by Roland for being an ass.
Blaine mentions that he has seen the Dark Tower.
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"Yes," Roland said. "There is some deep sickness at the Dark Tower, which is the heart of everything. It's spreading. The lands below us are only one more sign of that sickness."
"I CANNOT VOUCH FOR THE TRUTH OR FALSITY OF THAT STATEMENT; MY MONITORING EQUIPMENT IN END-WORLD, WHERE THE DARK TOWER STANDS, HAS BEEN DOWN FOR OVER EIGHT HUNDRED YEARS. AS A RESULT, I CANNOT READILY DIFFERENTIATE FACT FROM SUPERSTITION. IN FACT, THERE SEEMS TO BE VERY LITTLE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO AT THE PRESENT TIME. IT IS VERY SILLY THAT IT SHOULD BE SO—NOT TO MENTION RUDE—AND I AM SURE IT HAS CONTRIBUTED TO MY OWN SPIRITUAL MALAISE." |
However, as it appears they are out of riddles, Eddie goes next and pulls a Captain Kirk and frys Blaines computer mind by telling him stupid asinine joke riddles. Blaine is fried and they survive the minor crash after he goes kerplunk.
They find themselves in Kansas, the Kansas from the Stand, the Kansas wiped out by Captain Trips, the plauge which killed the earths population. This is not Rolands world, but they have traveled through a Thinny, a hole or tear in space time, and found themselved temporarly here.
At this point, Roland has a very very long flash back, which was very interesting and took up a whole book, but I won't get into it much here. The brunt of it was, Roland and his childhood friends of Alian and Cuthbert enter a cowboy town when they were in their teens and fought a witch named Reah of the Coo's. Also an exiled Gunslinger named Eldred Jonas. Roland meets and falls in Love with a girl named Susan, who is killed by the town after the witch perverts them into doing it.
It was a very interesting read, and Roland kicks some major ass in this book, taking out the exiled Gunslinger and about 100 of his crew by drawing them into a "thinny", which is a tear in space and time just like the one they went into to get into Kansas.
Turns out later, that Eddie is the reincarnation of Cuthburt, Susanna of Susan, Jake of Alian, though they never really see it. Roland does but they don't know it.
This was a great read, a real western, but all a flashback and is part of the book Wizard and Glass.
While there Roland finds a pink grapefruit Crystal ball, and it transports him in a vision to the Dark Tower and the field of blood. This is where Roland first enters his quest for the tower, after seeing this vision.
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01-29-2006 08:21 AM
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Whidden
KANSAS LAW DOG
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But back to the present.
Roland crew see a tall green tower in the Kansas from the Stand. Very tall and green, it's a tower based on the emerald city from the Wizard of Oz. They enter it and meet the Dark Man, now in his Randall Flagg mode, all this of course during the events of the Stand. He tells them to cry off the tower, but they shoot at him and he leaves in a puff of smoke, like the humbug Wizard of Oz himself.
Now believe it or not, things get awful damn complicated. I'm going to do the best I can here, but it's convoluted and complicated, and involves the last 3 huges books, but I will do the best I can. Bear with me here.
Our group enters an old wild west town, though ripe with produce. More of a farming town. Everyone is cool, cept we learn that there are a boatload of twins. Also we learn that every 30 years of so, monsters come out of the plains and kidnap the kids, take them wherever it is they take them, then return them retarded.
Retarded and super huge. They grow big and giant, and don't know crap. They die around around 30.
The rest of the town is normal. They ask Roland and crew to help them. Since Roland is a gunslinger, he has to help them and he does. Skipping over a lot of stuff here, he gets a few of the women to help him, they throw a neato razor plate.
During this time, we see that Roland and Eddie and Susan and Jake are seeing the number 19 over and over. They see it in the sky in the clouds, in the trees, the various settings.
19 starts to mean to them, that this isn't real, that's it fabricated, that even though they are here and real, that something is wrong. This is fantasy.
Or reality from fantasy.
Also, in this town, made up of general townfolk from that era, there lives the lost Catholic priest from Salems Lot. Father Callahan, the priest who lost his faith in the book Salems Lot by Stephen King. In that book, Callahan fought vampires and lost, being marked by one as he left town. Not quite turned into a vampire, but able to see them for what they are.
We find that since he left Salems lot, he traveled to the territorys, much like Jack Sawyer did in the Talisman. (we also learn that Jack Sawyer and the Talisman are part of the Gunslingers world in the book, Black House.)
Travlings to various where and whens, Father Calahan kills vampires. Finally, one bad ass one catch's up with him and kills him. Actually, right before the thing can turn the Father into a vampire, Callahan jumps out a window and suicides himself.
When he awakens, he is in the Calla, the town Roland and crew find him in.
He has been living here awhile, and runs a local church. Underneath the church is Black Thirteen. Which is the sister globe of the pink grapefruit that Roland found in Wizard and Glass. It's an evil crystal ball and may actually be "the Tailsman" that Jack Sawyer found in the book of that name.
Excerpt from the Tailsman, when Jack lifted the Orb:
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He was transported with wonder.
In one sense he was not in the Agincourt at all, not in Point Venuti, not in Medocino County, not in California, not in the American territories, not in those other territories, but he was in them,
and in an infinite number of other worlds as well, and all at the same time.
Nor was he simply in one place in all these worlds, he was in them everywhere because he WAS those worlds.
The Talisman, is seemed, was much more than even his father believed. It was not just the AXLE of all possible worlds, but the worlds themselves,
the worlds and the spaces between those worlds.
Here was enough transcendentalism to drive even a cave dwelling Tibetan holy man insane.
Jack Sawyer was everywhere; Jack Sawyer was everything.
A blade of grass on a world fifty thousand worlds down the chain from earth died of thirst on an inconsequential plain somewhere in the center of a Continent which roughly corresponded in position to Africa. Jack died with that blade of grass.
In another world, dragons were copulating in the center of a cloud high above the planet, and the fiery breath of their Ecstasy mixed with the cold air and precipitated rain and floods on the ground below.
Jack was the he-dragon; jack the she-dragon; jack was the sperm; Jack was the egg. Far out in the ether a million universes away, three specks of dust floated near one another in interstellar space.
Jack was the dust, and jack was the space between. Galaxies unreeled around his head like long spools of paper, cosmic player-piano tapes which would play everything from ragtime to funeral dirges. Jack's happy teeth bit an orange; Jack's unhappy flesh screamed as the teeth tore him open. He was a trillion dust kitties under a billion beds.
He was a joey dreaming of its previous life in its mother's pouch as the mother bounced over a purple plain where rabbits the size of deer ran and gamboled He was ham on a hock in Peru and eggs in a ne4st under one of the hens in the Ohio hen house Buddy Parkins was cleaning.
He was te powdered henshit in Buddy Parkin's nose; he was the trembling hairs that would soon cause Buddy Parkins to sneeze he was the sneeze; he was the germs in the sneeze; he was the atoms in the germs; he was the tachyons in the atoms raveling backward through time toward the big bang at the start of creation.
His heart skipped and a thousand suns flashed up in novas.
He saw a googolplex of sparrows in a googolplex of worlds and marked the fall or the well being of each.
He died in the Gehenna of Territories ore pit mines.
He lived as a flu virus in Etheridge's tie.
He ran in a wind over far places.
He was...
Oh he was...
He was God. God or something to close as to make no difference.
No! Jack screamed in terror. No, I don't want to be God! Please! Please! I don't want to be God, i only want to save my mother's life!
And suddenly infinitude closed up like a losing had folding in a card sharps grasp.
It narrowed down to a beam of blinding white light, and this he followed back to the Territories Ballroom, where only seconds had passed. He still held the Talisman in his hands. |
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01-29-2006 08:22 AM
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Whidden
KANSAS LAW DOG
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Also, in this town is a messenger robot, left over from the old days, named Andy the messenger Robot. He is friendly enough and helps the townfolk. though Roland and crew don't like him or trust.
Turns out Andy is a spy robot for the evil monsters and Eddie Dean kills him, after shooting out his eyes and trapping him in an outhouse.
Aight, long story short, The monsters, or wolves of the Calla, as they are called arrive on horseback, wielding Star Wars Light Sabers and riding green Robot Horses. They are Robots with Dr. Doom masks on. They throw Harry Potter sneetchs, that explode like grenades when they hit you.
Roland and crew take them out, with a couple of deaths of side characters. Jake and Eddie don't get all the cultural references, but they do see that Dr. Doom costumes and light sabers are out of our worlds fiction and it disturbs them.
Also, earlier and this is kind of out of the storyline, but bear with me here, they had this subplot that the rose in the New York of Jakes where and when had to be saved, the one in the vacant lot. So, Eddie used a cave up near the edge of town to travel to the bookstore in New York where Jake got the riddle book and talked the owner, Calvin Tower, into doing some lease legalese junk to save the lot.
(sigh)
Ok it's cool, I'm not losing my aim here, it's just I hope I don't lose you with this side stuff, but it's important, but I will skim over it.
Turns out that the bookstore owner, owns the vacant lot and some thugs are trying to make him sell it. The lot must be protected, or the Rose, the universe, will be destroyed. Thats bad.
While there, Eddie has to bring a bookcase full of books back to make Calvin Tower happy, for protection or whatever.
All this happened right before the Wolves attacked.
Also,
(sigh)
during this time, Susan finds out she is preggers. And since she is having sex with Eddie and also had sex with the spirit in the speaking ring, to save Jake, she don't know WHO IS THE DADDY.
Unknown to her, all this time, she is possessed by the spirit who impregnated her, whose name is Mia.
So....right after the gunfight against the Robots Wolves, Mia takes over Susan and heads towards the cave and door and leaves.
Roland and crew go up to the cave, and Father Callahan sees a book in the bookshelf, the book is Salems Lot, by Stephen King. He is horrified. He screams that he is not a character in a book.
Eddie and Roland, having been seeing this 19 over and over, plus seeing the simality of the events they just lived through to the movie The Magnificant Seven, which is a movie about gunslingers saving a town,
start to think they just might damn well be in a book.
Aight, more watering down here, but the gist of it is, Eddie and Roland go through the door and go to 1970's Maine, where Calvin Tower the bookstore owner has gone to hide from the thugs.
Father Callahan and Jake go to 1990's New York to find Susan/Mia.
Jake and the Father learn Susan is being held in the Dixie Pig, a restaurant that is closed for a private dinner. The place is full of vampires and they know it's suicide, but Jake the boy, by now a seasoned gunslinger, and the Father go in anyway. This was an awesome moment for me, because Father Callahn redeems himself. Entering the Dixie Pig, he kicks some major vampire ass,
restoring his lost faith, he uses the old priest light trick on em, and burns em up, but in the end there are too many, and they overcome him, he gets a ruger to his head and suicides himself, but he goes out like a man. It makes me tear up just thinking about it. Redemption is a beautiful thing, and also finding ones faith again after having lost it.
Jakes kicks some major butt as well, and makes it' out the back, and into a tunnel that leads deep under the city and which leads to a door back into Rolands world, in Thunderclap, the place where the Robot wolves took the twin children and made them roont. (ruined, and retarded).
This is where Susan/Mia is, giving birth to the anti christ child, or whatever it is. We learn that the child is Rolands, Susans, Mia's (the speaking ring spirit) and the Crimson Kings.
What the ???????
I know, that's weird. But here is the deal. The spirit, Mia, had sex with Roland, took his sperm, had sex with Susan, took her egg, returned to Thunderclap, where robots and vampire scientists that still had some left over technology from the old world, mixed it with the sperm of the Crimson King, who is the Man in Blacks boss and the highest evil bad guy in the universe.
So, the Crimson King, who lives right next to the Dark Tower, just a few days away from it, the Satan figure, is the father of the child, as is Roland. So this fellow has two dads and two moms. Two human and one quasi human and one spirit.
So go figure. Aight, somehow they split Susan/Mia into two separate people, both physical, but they need them both for the birth. Mia is the one actually giving birth. She has the appearance of a white woman. Susan and her are linked by some telepathic techno hyper link and they need them both for the birth.
Anyhow, Mia gives birth and the baby is a were-spider, which is the same as a were-wolf, but turns into a spider instead of a wolf. It comes out a human baby, but turns into a spider and eats his mom.
The vampires are so shocked by this that Susan gets a gun from one of them and takes them all out. She also blinds a robot that looks much like Andy the Messenger Robot did.
She caps the spider in the legs and it runs off. The little bugger.
The spider baby is Mordred, and he is the worst thing ever born. He has strong telepathic power, but he is still weak, as he is a baby.
Susan gets the Robot to help her and she finds she is in a vast underground labyrinth of doors to all where and all whens.
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01-29-2006 08:24 AM
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Whidden
KANSAS LAW DOG
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Now, that sounded crazy, and it was, but lets backtrack to Roland and Eddie, and it's get even worse Homer. Get ready for this crazy stuff.
I might just add, that as surreal as all this sounds, King did a good job of it, and made it believable. It sounds goofy as hell in a synopsis, especially the next part here, but it worked in the book.
Ok, get ready to mind stretch.
Eddie and Roland come out at a gas station in Maine. Thugs are waiting there for them, and start shooting. Mia the spirit, before she got killed by her own baby, tipped someone off and they knew where Roland would come out, the specific where and when in the myriad of Dark Tower Universes.
Roland and Eddie kick ass, and subdue the thugs, blow up the gas station and escape in a boat and meet a old dude who helps them. They get a truck from the old dude and cruise to where Tower the book store owner is hiding and do some paperwork mumbo jumbo to save the vacant lot where the Rose is.
After leaving, they experience a Beam quake, which was kind of neat. They floated around awhile and had some visions and stuff, got to see Father Callahan go out like a man, etc.
Then, and here comes the weird part, they drive over to Stephen Kings house. That's right, the author of the Dark Tower series, they go over to his house and meet him. It's the 1970's Stephen King, and he has only written the Gunslinger and a couple of other books, and is not super famous yet.
King is scared to death of them and can't believe it's happening. By this time, Roland and Eddie realize they are characters in a book written by this man, though they don't know what the deal is, because they are real to themselves.
They hypnotize King and ask him stuff, and it turns out that King is one of the many voices of Gan, Gan being God, the creator. I don't fully understand this part myself, but the way I understood it, is that the tower, though made by men and a thing of science and technology,
is also the very body of Gan, or God.
When God speaks, (the word of God spoke and the universe existed) things are created. Sometimes God works through Poets and Writers and Artists, so that sometimes whatever an artist draws or a writer writes comes into existence by the power of the Dark Tower.
The Tower, which is Gods body, actually creates a universe.
The jist of it was, it's God or Gan doing the creating, and the writer is an unknowing idiot in the process, so that even though King was writing what he thought was fiction, it was actually God inspiring him to write these things, and the Tower makes them exist, as the tower makes all universes and all times exist.
King is lazy and stupid, but they tell him to finish the books and cruise on. They drive up to Sarah Laughs, the lake from the book, Bag of Bones, and find a portal to the underground tunnel that Jake is in.
Jake has been chased by the thugs from the Dixie Pig, and is almost caught, but finds the door at the end, and enters, finding Susan and the myriad of doors on the other side, leaving the vampire crew behind him.
Roland and Eddie arrive in the tunnel right by the thugs and Roland takes them out. Ha, ha, the guy is like Jack Bauer from 24, he is a bad ass.
They enter the door, and Jake, Susan, Eddie and Roland are reunited.
Meanwhile, the baby/spider, Mordred, sits in a room spying on our crew. In comes the Dark Man, aka Randall Flagg, aka Walter the ageless stranger, The man in Black.
The baby is strongly telepathic and sees Walters backstory, his history, his goals, etc. Walters goal is to kill the baby Modred and use his body to enter the Dark Tower, climb the top and become God.
It's thought that whoever climbs the tower, will control it, and become in essence GOD, controlling all wheres and all whens. And it seems that only a ancestor of Arthur Eld, who was someway involved in the towers making or something I dunno, can enter the tower. Roland is a direct decendent, so since the spider baby is Rolands son in part, Walter thinks he can use him as a key to enter the tower.
The baby, still human, sees all this, paralyzes Walter with some mind voodoo, turns into a spider and gruesomely and slowy eats the man in black. The end of Walter.
Roland, and crew befriend the robot that Susan blinded with her guns while fighting the vampires and it shows them around a little, though he is blind. He mentions he is reading the Dead Zone by Stephen King.
Anyhow, they learn the whole deal. The robot wolves were kidnapping the twin kids to draw some kind of mind energy from them, bottle-ling it, and taking it to a town in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of a chemical warfare zone, where a small town has been built that houses "Breakers".
Breakers are mentally powerful people from all where and whens, that "break the beam". Remember, the beams come from the tower, and hold up the universes. There are 6 beams. Two or three have snapped. The breakers job is too break the beam with their mind energy, and destroy it. They have suceeded so far, and only a few beams remain,
when they succeed in taking them all out, the Dark Tower will fall, and all existence will cease to exist. Only a todash hellish non space will exist full of evil spirits.
They work on the beam day and night, and work in shifts. There existence is pretty cool, they have holodecks, and all kinds of cool perks, but they get a "high" from breaking the beam, and it's like heroin in that they love to do it.
One of the breakers is the old Man from the Book, Low Men in Yellow Coats, from Hearts in Atlantis, Ted Brautigan. He is most powerful Breaker in existence. He doesn't want to be there. There are a couple of other side character breakers, from various wheres and whens, one is a childhood friend of Rolands.
Anyhow, Roland and crew enter a door to the outskirts of this town, meet up with Ted and a couple other breakers, one who can teleport. They set them up with a stash of weapons, including Harry Potter explosive sneetchs, and rifles and ATV vehicles, etc.
Ted and crew return to town, with the other other breakers, which number in the 100's.
Roland and crew attack the town and kick some major ass. They kill a lot of bad guys, though some of the bad guys that ran the place were pretty cool.
They wipe them all out and free the breakers, saving the beam. The breakers are pissed off they can't break anymore, but Roland doens't kill them, rather sends them towards the Calla, the town they saved from the robot wolves. The Ka-tet, or group destiny, our 4 gunslingers, share one last moment of victory together as friends.
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01-29-2006 08:26 AM
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Whidden
KANSAS LAW DOG
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Unfortunately, and this was rough, one of the leaders of the town wasn't quite dead, and shoots Eddie above the eye.
Now, reading a synopsis, be it a long winded one or not, I realize you are not that attached to Eddie, but having read 7 thick books full of Eddie, (well, starting with the second book),
you are very attached to the dude. And it was HARD when he got taken out.
He lingered around a few hours before dying, and it was rough.
However, one of the main goals have been achieved, the Breaker town is taken out, and the Beam is healing itself. The other Beams are sure to regenerate, in essence, the Dark Tower is saved.
Yet, the Rose in the New York when/where (our universe) is still in danger, because Stephen King is a lazy ass and has not finished the Dark Tower series. And is about to be killed by a van driver in 1999.
Roland and Jake, leave Susan to grieve over Eddie, which was her lover and husband, as they married on the trail more or less.
Roland and Jake use the teleporter breaker dude to send them to 1999 Maine and they wind up at the same Gas Station that Roland and Eddie had blown up in the 1970's.
They steal a truck and take a woman hostage to drive the truck. They race toward the site of the King Van crash that almost killed him in 1999.
This turns out to be the origin of the number 19, at least partially, that they had all been seeing. King being almost killed in that year. They speed toward the crash, and see the Van heading for King, who is walking along the road. (all this happened in real life, if you don't know Kings Bio, a van really did hit him and almost kill him in 99.)
Roland jumps out of the truck the woman is driving but his hip fails him, and he falls. Jake moves into the path of the van instead and protects Kings from being killed, though he is horribly injured.
The woman stays with Jake as he dies, while Roland moves to King and tells the dumb son of a ***** to finish the Dark Tower books. Again, this is a synopsis's, and you probably don't care much for Jake the boy, but after 7 books, like Eddie, he was close and personal and it hurt to lose him. I cried like a girl when he died, especially since Roland didnt get be with him as he died, but rather had to talk to King.
Roland, having told King to finish the book, tells the woman to leave, and come back later, entering the forest with Jake, where he bury's him. Roland, in tears, is very distraught, as he loves Jake like a son.
Now, the billy bumbler, which I failed to bring up in the past as yet, is a dog like creature from Rolands world that can talk a little bit. I havn't brought him up, cause this synopsis is hours in the writing and too long, and I forgot really, but he has travleed with our crew thoughout, and was Jakes friend. He also takes the death hard and lays on the grave.
The ambulance arrives and King is taken to the hospital. The woman returns in the Truck and takes Roland and the Billy bumbler dog thingy to New York City so Roland can go back to his world via the tunnel under the Dixie Pig. He makes love to the woman along the way. He is tired, alone, full of grief over the loss of Eddie and Jake. But before going to the Dixie Pig, he goes into a Dark Tower skyscraper in New York, a skyscraper built over the Rose in the vacant lot.
The Rose is in the lobby, in a garden, protected by the building owners, which are the remnants of the society started by the book store owner in the 70's. So, in the 90's, the Rose is protected and always will be, it, our universe is safe.
So the Tower is safe, the Rose is safe, the Beams are safe and rebuilding, Mission Accomplished.
Roland meets the foundation people and they give him a watch, a copy of the poem, Roland Childe to the Dark Tower Came by Robert Browning, and a copy of Insomnia, a book by Stephen King about something else, but which had a side character in it named Patrick Danville who is in some way part of the Dark Tower series himself.
Roland keeps the watch, and the Robert Browning Poem, but winds up throwing away the copy of Insomnia, as it's too surreal to him, he doesn't want to queer the deal and screw up somehow by reading it.
He returns to the Dixie pig, says good bye to his kidnapped woman, take the billy bumbler and returns to where Susan is via the door under the Dixie Pig at the end of the tunnel.
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01-29-2006 08:29 AM
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Whidden
KANSAS LAW DOG
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Local time: 02:49 AM
Location: Yon Woady Pump
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Susan is angry with him, but continues on, and they make their way towards the Dark Tower, after seeing a bunch of doors that lead to various where/whens, some to 911 and twin towers falling, some to gladiator days in Rome with men having their bowls removed by tigers in the Colosseum. Susan remarks on these, saying what was wrong with these people?
They were sick, the people used the doors to enter and witness various disgusting areas of Earths history and see horrific events.
After being chased in a tunnel by a giant worm, they make their way into a very cold area toward the Dark Tower. The Tower is saved, the beams are saved, but Roland wants to, has too, must see the tower and enter it. It is his destiny.
They make their way through the cold, followed by Mordred the were-spider anti chist the whole time.
They have no coats and have a hard time of it. Finally, they come to a a castle and a bridge 3 people approach them. They are 3 Stephen Kings, one logical, one evil ego, one nice ego.
They speak to it, and it explains that the Crimson King, the ruler of the castle has left and went to the tower. Living so long near the tower, he went insane and killed himself by gaggin on a spoon. Though dead, he went to the tower.
Also, they explain that the Tower is now safe, don't approach it, the Crimson King, who is Satan or some form of him, is trapped on a balcony of the tower, forever trapped, and he has weapons with him, it would be suicide to go near the tower.
Then the 3 Kings offer food to Roland and Susan. They refuse. Then Roland shoots the Stephen King on the right and on the left, leaving only the center one. He fades and it's an old dude. A man who was second in command to the Crimson King. The 3 kings ruse was glammer magic, it was just 3 old guys.
The food was severed heads and body parts.
Roland and Susan leave him there, and cruise own towards the tower, hungry and cold. Mordred, the spider teenager now, as he is rapidly aging, advances and kills the old dude, becoming more powerful for doing so.
Roland and Susan enter a snowy area and kill some dear, and tan the hides using the brains and make coats for themselves. Roland knows they are very near the Tower. They cruise on and find a small house and a friendly old man with a sickly horse. The man makes Roland laugh and they join him for dinner and stay there, because there is a Blizzard.
The old man, Dandelo, is in reality a kind of vampire, whose real form is that of an evil clown, and is probably the Spider Clown from the Stephen King Book IT.
It makes Roland laugh, and laugh so hard he starts to die with cheesy internet jokes. Susan, who is in the bathroom, gets a letter under a towel from Stephen King, the author, who put the letter in the story to warn her Roland is dying. He says they are even for Roland and Jake saving him in the Van crash.
What an ass.
Anyhow, as surreal as this is, an auther telling a character in a book to watch out, Susan is warned and goes back in and takes out the evil clown dude, saving Roland. They enter a basement under the house and find a mute in a cage. It is Patrick Danville, the boy from the book Insomnia they gave to Roland, the boy who can draw.
They free him, and he joins them. A robot shows up, much like Andy the messenger robot from the Calla and the one who helped them in the underground bunker full of doors. He is driving a snow plow thingy and drives them toward the tower. When they near it, Roland has them all get out. He wants to walk to the tower, not drive to it, and he is getting worried. His lifes goal, that which he dropped Jake for, that which he has walked for ageless eons, that which he has spilled blood for, is near,
and he had to clear his mind.
Walking, Patrick draws some stuff, and he is the best artist the word has ever known. His art is lifelike. As a matter of fact, he draws some stuff and it changes. Susan sees that like Stephen King, a writer who writes things, and they come to exist, this teenage mute boy can draw things and they exist. He is tied into the Dark Tower somehow. Patrick draws a sore on Susans face, then erases it, causing the sore to cease to exist.
She sees her out, and makes Patrick draw a door. A door into a New York when/where in one of the many universes down the chain. Roland is horrified to see her go, and begs her to stay, but Susan leaves anyway, crying off the tower, going to a New York when, where a version of Eddie and Jake live, even the Billy Bumbler is a dog there, and she reunites with them, and they don't quite know her, but have had visions of her, and they all live together happily ever after. Or as King wrote, they didn't really live happily ever after, but they did live, and there were times of happiness.
Roland sits by the door and grieves for his lost Gunslinger.
Meanwhile, Roland, sadder still, alone except for Patrick the mute teen and the Billy Bumbler dog thingy, moves on toward the tower. They stop for the night and sleep. Before they do, Roland sees 19 in the trees, and knows he is near the tower. His watch is also doing weird things.
That night, Roland trys to watch for the spider, but can not stay awake, he is exhausted. He gets Patrick awake, and makes him take a watch, but the teen mute is feeble minded and falls back asleep.
Mordred, who is sicker than hell and dying, because he ate the old sick horse that belonged to the old man clown vampire dude, and it wasn't really a horse at all, but something sick and sinister and already dead,
has to attack. He is weak, and dying, and though the anti christ or whatever, he knows he is dead and wants nothing more that just to kill Roland. Just for the spite and hatred of being born. He attacks, and the Billy Bumbler, whose name was OY, and who, like Jake and Eddie, we are very very attached too, attacks the spider and is killed in the process, impaled on a tree by it. But the sacrifice wakes Roland, who blows away his spider son with his six guns.
Roland burys Oy the billy bumbler dog thing, and moves on, in deep remorse for losing him.
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01-29-2006 08:31 AM
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Whidden
KANSAS LAW DOG
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And comes, finally to the Dark Tower, I will be inserting some quotes from the book here, because it's awesome beyond words, but just a few or else I will ruin the book for you. Roland comes to the tower and the field of Roses and beholds it.
The Crimson King, though still miles away in the tower, on the Balcony, taunts Roland and Patrick, yelling at them and throwing Harry Potter sneetchs at them. They hide behind a pyramid, one of many earlier versions of the main monument, the Tower.
Roland shoots them from the sky and banters with the Crimson King, the air is supernaturally clear and carries their voices. Yet it's a Mexican standoff, Roland can not reach the tower without dying, and the King can not let him come. But Roland is being pulled by the tower. To use a sexual metaphor, Roland is the sperm and time of orgasm has come, and there is nothing Roland can do to stop himself from being born. He must go to the tower. Time is running out, the sun is setting, and in his dreams Roland has alway seen himself enter the Tower at sunset.
Roland has Patrick draw the King on the balcony, and though the pic is excellent, the eyes are not right. He can't erase it and cause the King to cease to exist. Roland moves toward a Rose, one of many growing in the plain, and grabs it up, it being a universe, the thorns on the stem sever his fingers. He gives the petals to Patrick, who take them and chews them in his mouth, spitting them out into a paste. The paste is the exact color of the Crimson Kings eyes and he adds them to the pic.
Now, the pic is perfect, it IS is the Crimson King, and Patrick erases this, except for the eyes, which will not erase and will always exist. The Crimson King screams on the balcony as he is erased, and only his eyes remain.
Roland, who can resist the tower no longer, sends Patrick back toward the way they came, and heads toward the tower. Running to it, he hears a horn blow, which is part of the Robert Browning Poem. He calls the names of his dead friends he has lost over the years.
| quote: |
He came to it with the oddest feeling of remembrance; what Susannah and Eddie called déjà vu.
The roses of Can’-Ka No Rey opened before him in a path to the Dark Tower, the yellow suns deep in their cups seeming to regard him like eyes. And as he walked toward that gray-black column, Roland felt himself begin to slip from the world as he had always known it. He called the names of his friends and loved ones, as he had always promised himself he would; called them in the gloaming, and with perfect force, for no longer was there any need to reserve energy with which to fight the Tower’s pull. To give in—finally—was the greatest relief of his life. |
Roland then enters the Tower.
He sees a room off the main internal staircase with his birth ring, something they put on his umbilical cord as a baby being born. He climbs 19 steps and sees more rooms, each containing parts of his life. He see various things as he climbs, including his childhood, the Susan he lost as a teen who was burned at the stake, etc. Passing one room, he see the Crimsons Kings eyes on the balcony. He is still alive and tells Roland to comes out to the Balcony. Seems he went on the balcony after entering the tower and got trapped. Thats why he did not enter the top himself and become God.
But, there are some of Rolands childhood clothes torn by the balcony, so it seems that the tower is for Roland and no one else, and it shows his life and his life alone as you climb it. So this makes Roland something special, maybe Roland is the only one who can become God and rule the universe, and no one else. Maybe Roland is God, I dunno.
Anyhow, Roland climbs to the top and finds a door. The door says "found". He is at the tower top, and he opens the door.
Ooh, this part makes me cry just writing it, cause it's so rude, and you get so close to Roland over 7 books, but he opens the door, and he smells the Desert, and there is blinding light, and the tower, without mercy pulls him into the Desert, and he is BOOM back in the Desert where we first met him, with the realization he has reached the tower countless times, and got thrown back into the desert each time, doomed to repeat this experience over and over again, caught in a CAUSALITY LOOP, forever, seeking the tower, finding it, then relooped, forgetting each time what happened.
A rude ending, a gut punch, one that pissed me off big time, but one later on, after months and years to ponder it, is a beautiful ending, the only one that fit.
| quote: |
He saw and understood at once, the knowledge falling upon him in a hammerblow, hot as the sun of the desert that was the apotheosis of all deserts. How many times had he climbed these stairs only to find himself peeled back, curved back, turned back? Not to the beginning (when things might have been changed and time’s curse lifted), but to that moment in the Mohaine Desert when he had finally understood that his thoughtless, questionless quest would ultimately succeed? How many times had he traveled a loop like the one in the clip that had once pinched off his navel, his own tet-ka can Gan? How many times would he travel it?
“Oh, no!” he screamed. “Please, not again! Have pity! Have mercy!”
The hands pulled him forward regardless. The hands of the Tower knew no mercy.
They were the hands of Gan, the hands of ka, and they knew no mercy. |
And as a final glimpse of hope, it's said that Roland finally has the Horn of Eld in this loop, which he has not had in previous loops, he lost it in a battle. This time around he has the horn and the Tower promises salvation and completeness.
When he reaches the Tower again, it will be different.
| quote: |
This is your sigul, whispered the fading voice that bore with it the dusk-sweet scent of roses, the scent of home on a summer evening—O lost!—a stone, a rose, an unfound door; a stone, a rose, a door.
This is your promise that things may be different, Roland—that there may yet be rest. Even salvation.
A pause, and then:
If you stand. If you are true. |
And thats the end. 
Having re read the series after seeing the ending, I caught a passage about the tower would not let a monster climb it's top and rule everything. So, Roland, who is not perfect, he let a boy drop to his death, he killed an entire town, etc, plus a hundred other crimes, is sent through the loop over and over, each time either paying penance for his sins, or becoming more of a decent person, one who will rule the universes with kindness and humanity.
It's hard to say, that's my theory on it anyhow.
Someday, maybe this next cycle, since he now has the horn of eld, he will enter the tower top and rule the Dark Tower and in doing so, rule all space and time and actually become GOD.
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01-29-2006 08:34 AM
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Whidden
KANSAS LAW DOG
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| quote: |
gaboman said this in post #11 :
Just a quick question: can I read book VI without reading any of the others? I've bought it on special, and if I run out of things to read I'd probably want to start it... |
I think you can. When I finished the series, I | |
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