Thursday, January 15, 2015

2015 Reading Challenge Book 015 The Dark Tower:The Gunslinger Born

2015 Reading Challenge Book 015 The Dark Tower:The Gunslinger Born written by Peter David and Robin Furth art by Jae Lee and Richard Isanove
 BOOK TITLE-The Dark Tower:The Gunslinger Born
AUTHOR-Peter David,Robin Furth and Stephen King
FORMAT-Hardcover
FIRST TIME READING-No
COST-$15

I love Stephen King. It was through him that I got into horror fiction. Out of all his books I love his Dark Tower series the most. Having now read the 9 books in the proper series at least 3 times each. So I heard King was letting Peter David,who I have never cared for much,and Robin Furth to write comic books that will fill in some of the gaps in the story of Roland I was really excited. Knowing that these mini series would get put out in hardcovers and trades I skipped buying the single issues. Got this beautiful hardcover in a Sci Fi Book Club sale. And since then have read the second collection. I plan on getting them all one day. But have been wanting to get them all in hardcover and all fairly cheap.

The Gunslinger Born is made up of stuff from Books 1 and 4 of the Dark Tower series. With some new stuff added in. We start off with pre-teen Roland being set up by a magician who has been sleeping with Roland's mother while his father is away. Roland finds out about his mother's affair,and this prompts him to go and take his test of manhood way ahead of time. In Roland's world the gunslingers are the closest thing they have to the knights of ancient times. And if you fail the test of manhood you are banished and leave the civilized part of the world in shame. But thanks to some quick thinking and an unusual choice of weapon Roland passes the test. And becomes the youngest gunslinger ever.

Before Roland has a chance to exact his vengeance on the man his mother has been cheating on his father with,he gets assigned a mission. Roland and 2 friends go out to Hambry. They are there to do a census on the various goods Hambry has that will help out the fight against an evil man who is trying to take over what is left of the world. They get there and find out the leader and law enforcement of Hambry are working for this evil man.Also Roland meets the love of his life.

With the Dark Tower novels my least favorite is book 4.  When it came out I had waited 5 years for the next volume of the Dark Tower series to come out. And instead of getting more adventures of Roland and his band of gunslingers in training,I get a bit of that story then the rest of the novel is a flashback of Roland's trip to Hambry. Now that the entire series is over I see why King felt the need to tell this story of Roland's past. I prefer the comic version of book 4. Cause it cuts out some of the "fat" from the novel.And you get some amazing Jae Lee artwork. I have been a fan of Mr Lee for a long ass time now. And his artwork on this series is the best stuff I have seen from him since Hellshock.

I do wonder how accessible this hardcover would be to someone that hasn't read any of the Dark Tower novels.So if anyone reading this post has read the hardcover and not the actual novels let me know what you thought.

The Dark Tower:The Gunslinger Reborn gets a 4.60 outta 5.

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