"THE MAN IN BLACK FLED ACROSS THE DESERT, AND THE GUNSLINGER FOLLOWED."

THE DARK TOWER is a series of seven novels telling one long, genre-defying, all-of-existence-encompassing story.

...which sounds foreboding, i know. but this is stephen king -- he's going to make us adore his characters and take us on a 4000+ page roller coaster of emotion and adventure and imagination... and yes, horror.

the idea for roland deschain's journey to the dark tower began brewing when king was 19, and the first chapter was published as a short story more than ten years later in 1978. between his culture-defining novels and their equally iconic film adaptations he would keep revisting THE DARK TOWER, taking years between installments -- often to the frustration of his constant readers, as many of the novels ended on a cliffhanger -- and more than 25 years later, the conclusion of the series was published when king was 57.

like many who grew up in the '80s and '90s, i started reading stephen king at an absurdly young age. we didn't have the internet, we didn't have access to every movie ever made with a click, and we definitely didn't have porn (the luckiest day of your life was getting a glimpse of a playboy). if you were 11 or 12 and wanted to be scared, titillated, grossed out, or have your mind blown, you had to fucking read. scary movies and lyrics with cursing might get you into trouble, but you know what a parent will never question? a kid with a book.

i did test this theory, admittedly. as a child i would somehow get in trouble for reading too much, and i had the kind of shitty parent that would destroy books as "punishment" -- an idea so absurd and a person so unequipped to handle parenting that they might as well have come straight out of... you guessed it, a king novel.

at first, reading king's books felt like getting away with something. i remember my group of friends sharing the more prurient and disturbing passages of MISERY with each other in the schoolyard -- we'd even memorized which page numbers to flip to in the school library to shock the uninitiated.

but once high school came, i wasn't reading king to be shocked. those of us who fall in love with his work know that the occasional moments of gruesome horror or shocking gore or weird horniness are just the fun bits meant to grab your attention. king writes about humanity. he understands why we love what (and who) we love, and is absolutely perplexed as to why we hurt and hate each other.

more, king understands america -- maybe better than any writer i've ever read. to a little brown kid stuck in oppressive catholic schools who was already scared of the world, king understood why the world is scary. that's why it's never the monsters who are the "bad guys" in stephen king stories, not really. a willful child can defeat a monster. it's the bullies, the abusive parents, the religious zealots, the sadistic and the cruel... it's people that are terrifying.

even with all that king reading in my youth (and in a decision i can't explain in retrospect), i never started THE DARK TOWER series. how could i have seen the enigmatic titles of what was clearly my favourite author's "epic life's work" listed on the early pages of every novel and resist reading them? i know not, and i cry your pardon.

but come 2005 or so, with all seven novels finally published and a complete set of hardcovers (including gorgeous art pages) in my possession, i began my journey. i had been reading king for more than a decade at this point, from my childhood to my teens and through adulthood, and somehow i'd never realized that every stephen king story i'd ever read was really about this story. heck, some of them were literally just practice for this story.

THE DARK TOWER isn't just a story, see... it's all stories. it's about stories, and the power of them. it blends reality and fiction and makes you wonder if maybe those two things aren't quite as cleanly separated as you thought they were.

the journey to the tower changed me, and it's a journey i take again every few years, experiencing something new every time. king wrote the series over a lifetime, he was a different person every time a new novel started, and that's an experience he shares with us as we read his tale.

i hope you're intrigued, and i hope you want to go on this adventure with roland, susannah, eddie, jake, and oy. you will fall in love with them, you will want them to win their way to the tower (just what is that tower, anyway?), and you will experience every emotion you can possibly imagine with them.

and when the story ends -- though does any great story ever really end? -- you won't be the same.

STEPHEN KING'S THE DARK TOWER.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

a warning every tower junkie has to give new readers: part one, THE GUNSLINGER, is a rather cold book written by a very young author. when we meet roland, the last gunslinger, he's lost not just everyone he loves but an entire world, see? and worse, he's lost his humanity.

THE GUNSLINGER still has much to offer (weirdness most of all), and the imaginative final chapter reveals just how far young king's aspirations for this story went. it's also by far the shortest novel of the series, functioning as more of an introduction before the story truly begins.

but if you're finding that first one difficult to get through, worry not. just jump straight to the second book, THE DRAWING OF THE THREE. here roland meets his new companions, and this is our author after he's written some of his biggest hits. king is at the top of his game and the novel takes off like a fucking rocket from the very first page. there's a short summary of the first book that will catch you up on what you need to know.

the download above was curated and tagged by me, and contains the seven main novels plus two additional stories. king actually revised the text of THE GUNSLINGER in 2003, but i have chosen to include the original text rather than the revised edition. i think it's better, even if there are inconsistencies here and there -- and feeling the novels (and king's writing) progress is part of THE DARK TOWER experience.

the download also includes the artwork that was published in each original edition as well as the original covers. i chose more modern, unified covers for the audiobooks themselves so they will look cool playing on your device.

the first four novels are read by the fucking incredible frank muller.

1 THE GUNSLINGER (1978-1982)
2 THE DRAWING OF THE THREE (1987)
3 THE WASTE LANDS (1991)
4 WIZARD AND GLASS (1997)

WIZARD AND GLASS is probably king's best work, if i may say so myself. books two and three are the greatest movies we've never seen, but book four is king with access to all of his superpowers... and he uses those powers to make us feel.

it's here we need to make one note from the real world, though: in 1999, king was struck by a drunk driver in a van while taking an evening walk near his home in maine. he nearly died, and we are glad he did not. once he recovered he was determined to finish THE DARK TOWER series all in one go, intent on completing what had turned into his life's great tale.

he did.

the final three novels are read by george guidall.

5 WOLVES OF THE CALLA (2003)
6 SONG OF SUSANNAH (2004)
7 THE DARK TOWER (2004)

there are two additional tales in THE DARK TOWER cycle:

a short story, THE LITTLE SISTERS OF ELURIA (1998) is read by frank muller and is a standalone story from roland's youth.

THE WIND THROUGH THE KEYHOLE (2012) is a story within a story within a story, and mostly a fairy tale roland tells his new family of gunslingers. it technically takes place between books 4 and 5, but is really just a lovely side story and a beautiful resolution to one little bit of roland's unresolved backstory. it is read by stephen king himself.

to any readers and listeners and to all kids for whom stories are an escape from a frightening world, i hope you enjoy stephen king's THE DARK TOWER.

long days and pleasant nights.

2023.10.05