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When I started reading The Drawing Of The Three, the second book in the Dark Tower series, I was amazed to discover that it actually picked up the thread of the story from exactly where the end of the first book let off. Roland is still on his all-consuming mission to find the Dark Tower. ... Read review
The last Gunslinger encounters 3 doors which open to 1980s America, where he joins forces ... more
with the defiant Eddie Dean and courageous, volatile Odetta Holmes, and confronts serial killer Jack Mort. As the titanic forces gather, a struggle between underworld evil and otherworldly enemies conspire to bring an end to Roland's quest for the Dark Tower.
Advantages: Gripping, fantasy but so realistically written, being a long series you get to know the characters intimately Disadvantages: SK hasn't finished writting the whole series yet
After the long hard journey, Roland the gunslinger finally reaches the ocean, as far west as he can go. He sleeps on the beach but awakens to find a ‘lobstrosity’ trying to eat him alive. I like the word Stephen King has invented to describe these terrifying creatures. It conjures vivid pictures of an otherwise unimaginable creature in full horrifying details. And yes, the second book in the series has only just begun.
... ...second book in the Dark Tower series, I was amazed to discover that it actually picked up the thread of the story from exactly where the end of the first book let off. Roland is still on his all-consuming mission to find the Dark Tower. Still, nobody knows what exactly it is, or where it is, possibly not even SK himself, but as Roland would put it – it’s Ka. (No not those silly little ford bubbles! (No offence but I just don’t like ... more
After the long hard journey, Roland the gunslinger finally reaches the ocean, as far west as he can go. He sleeps on the beach but awakens to find a ‘lobstrosity’ trying to eat him alive. I like the word Stephen King has invented to describe these terrifying creatures. It conjures vivid pictures of an otherwise unimaginable creature in full horrifying details. And yes, the second book in the series has only just begun.
When I started reading The Drawing Of The Three, the second book in the Dark Tower series, I was amazed to discover that it actually picked up the thread of the story from exactly where the end of the first book let off. Roland is still on his all-consuming mission to find the Dark Tower. Still, nobody knows what exactly it is, or where it is, possibly not even SK himself, but as Roland would put it – it’s Ka. (No not those silly little ford bubbles! (No offence but I just don’t like them!)) Ka is destiny, it’s the way things happen and are meant to be. The driving force of the whole universe, in all its immense, infinite, vastness.
Hopefully I have gone some way to describing the enormous scope of this series. It encompasses all times and places and worlds and dimensions until your head is reeling. This second book mainly concentrates on, as the title might suggest, how Roland acquires his travel companions for the long arduous journey ahead. Already he has lost a couple of fingers and a toe, courtesy of the lobstrosities, and that’s barely before even getting out of the first page. If ‘The Gunslinger’ started a little slowly, this shoots off as fast as a bullet from a gun.
Roland is on a long, seemingly endless beach, which stretches northwards further than the eye can see. In fact, the whole second book remains here on this most westerly beach, with plenty of scrapes with the poisonous lobstrosities, who also turn out to be the only source of food available. Ironic really.
Roland finds the first door on the beach. Just a door in a doorframe with the words: The Prisoner written upon it. This would be Roland’s first drawing. He steps through the doorway and his body slumps almost lifelessly on the beach in front of the door. Roland is in Eddie’s mind. Can control Eddie’s actions, knows everything there is to know about Eddie. Eddie also knows everything about Roland. There is a meeting of minds, two in one body. King has a great skill with words, which is clearly seen in this book. The way he describes Roland’s thoughts whilst in Eddies mind and Eddie’s rising panic while Roland probes for information vital to his needs, are literally the work of a genius.
The prisoner is Eddie; Eddie is a hopeless junkie, who is currently on a drug run for ‘da boss’. Large quantities of ‘devil weed’ as Roland perceives the unfamiliar words to be, are strapped to his body, and he’s in need of his next fix. The whole scene is played out with amazing detail and clarity. You can believe the events; can almost believe that you are there. The poison from the lobstrosities is slowly killing Roland. Eddie also knows this and knows that antibiotics are required. Or as Roland hears the unfamiliar word, ‘astin’. Roland manipulates his host body to achieve his needs.
As the title suggest, there are three drawn from the world. But all three are from a different time. Eddie was taken from 1987, while the second person is taken from the sixties. She is Odetta Holmes. Or Detta Walker. Or Susannah Dean. She is what a psychologist would call a ‘perfect’ schizophrenic. Neither personality has any idea of the other. Even down to believing her brains invented reasons for time lapses and missing memories. Odetta is a kind, thoughtful black woman who is missing her legs from just above the knees down. The reason for this is intricately woven into the story, and is very cleverly done. Detta on the other hand is a mean bitter and twisted old hag. A very dangerous lady, regardless of her being a cripple in a wheelchair. SK makes good use of non-words here to emphasize the almost inhuman nature of Detta. Honky Mahfah! Being a frequently used throughout the book.
I won’t go into too much more detail but this is definitely a must-read book. Indeed the whole series is. (What’s written so far anyway.) I’m currently re-reading the first four books as I am anticipating the arrival of the fifth in the series towards the end of this year/beginning of next year, (according to SK’s website anyway!)
I will re-read the third book before I review it (like I did with this one), but I have to retrieve it from a friend who borrowed it after being sucked in by the Dark Tower series, courtesy of me! Yes I rave about this series. In my opinion it’s the best work I’ve ever read, of King’s or anyone else’s for that matter! Hope you think so too if you check it out.
Advantages: the second installment of a fantastic epic Disadvantages: waiting to read the rest
...really going to comment on the main features of the plot, which believe me still leaves a lot for the reader to discover for themselves.
Coincidently this was also the first King Novel I ever read; at the tender age of thirteen I had completely missed picking up the bit on the front that said Dark Tower Series Three. At that point I had not fully understood this book I only knew that I had loved it and that this was the novel that began my own long ... ...a close. This journey was the quest to own and read everything written by this, in my opinion, amazing author. With only four books to go I am pleased to say I have nearly reached my goal.
The Drawing of the Three begins where The Gunslinger left of with Roland on the beach after his encounter with Walter (the Man in Black) at the end of which Walter may or may not be dead. Appearances say he is but Walter was always very good at deceiving the eye ...
katiemacf 22.07.2004
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The Drawing of the Three - Stephen King
Advantages: More character development and a better flow Disadvantages: Means you may just have to buy the next one!!
...get this free box-set through the post from my book club, and after noting that it was Stephen King, I cancelled my subscription and shoved the set under the bed...
I mean, Stephen King? I'd always heard positive things about the author, but invariably it was because the guy writes scary books, all blood and gore and psychological thriller, and that really isn't my thing. But one particular week I had nothing to read on my commute, so I resignedly ... ...expected, with you initially following The Gunslinger, whom the author seems adverse to letting you learn anything about. Although the book is very good, I admit I found it quite hard going, being forced to relate to a character that I knew little about and a world that was literally alien, although eeriely famiiar. As a result I left picking up The Drawing of the Three for a while, as I wasn't sure whether I felt up to the task again. How wrong ...
Sa1sysoo 20.03.2007
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of The Drawing of the Three - Stephen King
Advantages: Another good read Disadvantages: King's occasional Waffle.
In "The Drawing of the Three", the second book in Stephen King's epic Dark Tower Series, we catch up with Roland Deschain of Gilaed exactly where we left after the first book, sat on the beach facing "the Western Sea"
During this book Roland will meet 2 of his future ka-tet (tight group of friends is probably the best description.) the prisoner and the lady of the shadows, changing their lives dramatically as he pulls them into "his world." Before ... ...a premature end at the hands (or pincers) of monsters that come of the sea at sunset - "Lobstorites" the name given to this creatures conjures up quite a picture of what Roland faced as he awoke from sleep.
The second book in the dark tower series is again well written, s you would expect from King, the only complaint can be King's tendency very occasionally to disappear off on a tangent and talk about things that are not relevant to the story. ...
skipper6 04.08.2008
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of The Drawing of the Three - Stephen King
Advantages: Draws you in and holds you Disadvantages: One day there won't be anymore DT books. :-(
...ground covered in other ops the basic story is that of Roland, the last Gunslinger, of which there was once a whole "race", trying to reach the Dark Tower (Dark Tower) set in the fantastical land of Gilead.
This book (The second in a series of 7) introduces three new companions of Rolands. Eddie Dean, a heroin addict from 1980s New York pulled through to by Roland while trying to smuggle drugs through an airport. Odetta/Detta Walker from 1960s New ... ...when he is killed by the same person who caused Odetta to be confined to a wheelchair. These three reluctantly journey with Roland to the Dark Tower.
For me The Drawing Of The Three is one of the best books in the series as King still seems to have a passion for writing it unlike with some of his later book where he simply seems to want to rush through and get to the end of it all.
Most of Kings books have some reference to the Dark Tower (Some ...
Calldean 08.10.2003
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of The Drawing of the Three - Stephen King
Advantages: What an imagination - Stephen King Disadvantages: Still another 5 books to read...
I have now read the first 5 in the Dark Tower series and I definitely enjoyed this one the best so far. The imagination of Stephen King - I just could not put this book down. I just had to find out what happened next - because this is a fantasy world (Roland's world - not New York!! (-:) I am not such a sci-fi maniac - I only picked up this book due to loving horror and thrillers - what I know of Stephen King/Richard Bachman until now. In this book ... ...takes him to New York where he has to bring back 3 people who will join him on his quest. Again, this book has caused me to become obsessed about the dark tower and I am now about to begin book 6 in the series - I've almost finished:-(. ...
ilanadewolff 21.12.2004
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: somewhat helpful Review of The Drawing of the Three - Stephen King
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Advantages: Well-written, mysterious, fascinating story with fantastic characters. Disadvantages: None
of the Three? ? is incredibly fascinating with its strange mutants, dismal landscape and thick aura of mystery? and with the arrival of the first door [there are 3 in all], the feel of the book immediately changes, and the reader can?t help but become conscious of the fact that StephenKing has just managed an incredible coup.
It isn?t just that he managed to find a way to save a situation that appeared to be ?un-saveable?, but he accomplished it in a way that, although fantastical, appears to make perfect sense. The strange door, standing all by itself on a desolate beach with giant mutant lobsters somewhere in the backdrop and the terrifying roars of a mysterious creature wafting down from the mountains. There?s a nightmarish quality to it all, one that you can actually ?feel?.
StephenKing?s imagination is a wondrous thing, and once again ...
Advantages: Excellent imagination and character development Disadvantages: Very confusing at times
The Dark Tower series of books has spanned over 20 years of hard slog from author StephenKing, and features the quest of Roland of Gilead, as he strives to reach the Dark Tower, for reasons unknown to us, to Roland even, and, more worryingly, to King himself. Or at least, as he wrote 'The Drawing of the Three', which is the second of the 7 books in the series, King was unsure exactly of how Roland's quest would eventually conclude.
The first book in the series, entitled 'The Gunslinger', was met with mixed reviews, with many people being intensely annoyed at how random and confusing the tale was, telling of Roland's trek across plains with rare sightings of other life in his pursuit of The Man In Black, who ends up being a mix between a villain from Roland's youth, one from his present and one from another world, inhabited by the boy ...
Advantages: Fast flowing well told story Disadvantages: None!!!!
The Waste Lands is the third book in the Dark Tower series by StephenKing. This book begins some months after the end of Book 2 - The Drawing of the Three and starts with Roland teaching his new companions Susannah and Eddie the ways of being a "Gunslinger" At the same time Roland is coping with slowly losing his mind following the sighting in New York in book 2 of John "Jake" Chambers the boy he let drop to his death in the first book.
During this book we see Roland's ka-tet completed with the addition of "Jake" (eventually following some tense drama that has some serious repercussions in a later part of the long tale.) and Oy the Billy Bumbler (A dog-like creature which the ability to mime human speech.)
Despite the length of the third book that the story moves on at a swift pace as Roland's ka-tet move from the forest ...
Excellently conceived and realised alternative history; epic historical scale yet with memorable and very believable characters; good sense of extrapolation.
May be slightly too wordy for the tastes of some readers; title and publisher blurb gives the impression of a horror novel which is false; out of print. (*)
The writing is taut and effecive, and several stand alone scenes are magnificent. The conclusion, had it been published as a stand alone novella, would have been wonderful.
Nothing happens, and there is some nasty use of forced incest as a means to create a tawdry shock. Oh, and nothing happens. (*)
Stephen King's claim to fame ; Superb atmosphere ; Sublime plot ; A vivid imagination that stretches all supernatural boundaries ; Probably responsible for some of the best horror films of the 70's and 80's
Some unessesary background in the first half ; Kubrik mucked up the story too much ; Could have been much more (*)
A nice gripping and readable novel ; A terrific tale of survival ; Very atmospheric ; The characters thoughts and feelings are projected well to the reader
Suddenly stops flowing towards the middle ; King can be slightly over obsequious towards the main character (*)
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