| Book 7 "ends" it, for all intents and purposes. The series never meets the expectations set up for it in the first three books, all three of which I absolutely loved. I think the problem is one that King himself has admitted in other books' forewords and afterwords: he typically writes by instinct, and only rarely does he have a vague idea in which direction a story will head. In the case of the gunslinger, in a lot of ways that approach becomes incredibly apparent because he creates this mythology and world that on the surface are incredibly huge and interesting, but then when you get past that glittering surface you realize there was and will never be any substance to it.
I still readily recommend the series to anyone, if only for the first books. Just temper your expectations somewhat. While books 5-7 are well written and paced, I ripped through all of them, they don't bring to a conclusion numerous plot lines that are hinted at in the first books (or if they do, in a most unsatisfying way), and to this day that pisses me off. And book 4, well, 2/3 of it flat out sucked. Why King chose to dedicate a significant portion of the series to a pointless love story, I'll never know. |