Elaborating at great length on Robert Browning's cryptic narrative poem "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came," the second volume of King's post-Armageddon epic fantasy presents the equally enigmatic quest of Roland, the world's last gunslinger, who moves through an apocalyptic wasteland toward the Dark Tower, "the linchpin that holds all of existence together." Although these minor but revealing books (which King began while still in college) are full of such adolescent portentousness, this is livelier than the first. Roland enters three lives in the alternate world of New York City: junkie and drug runner Eddie Dean, schizophrenic heiress Odetta Holmes and serial murder Jack Mort. If King tells us too little about Roland, he gives us too much about these misfits who are variously healed or punished exactly as expected. Typically, King is much better at the minutiae and sensations of a specific physical world, and several such bravura sequences (from an attack by mutant lobsters to a gun store robbery) are standouts amid the characteristic headlong storytelling.

Even though I wasn't really blown away by The Drawing of the Three, I still love the concept of the Dark Tower series and consider the first book to be an amazing tale. For whatever reason, I had a hard time paying attention to this book. I found myself rolling my eyes more than is healthy, and even had to force myself to get through some chapters.

King's use of the "shuffle" was awesome but over used, and his characters were well-written as always, but didn't grab my attention. If Roland weren't such an incredible character and the Tower such a point of interest, I probably would've skipped Book II altogether. But I don't want to miss any point along this road — I want to see everything so that I can fully appreciate the destination, and that meant reading The Drawing of the Three. All of it.

It's not one of King's best, but it's definitely worth reading to get one step closer to the Tower. And answers to the mysteries of Roland and his world.

I took this to tonight's Meetup at St. Elmo's. It almost was picked up by another BookCrosser, but ultimately she decided her pile of to-be-read books was big enough (I know that feeling).

So instead, it will accompany me to Westminster, Md., for Carroll Community College's 9th Annual Random House Book Fair. BookCrosser MaryZee will be manning a table to promote our BookCrossing, so hopefully someone will pick it up, enjoy it, and journal it!

RELEASE NOTES:

This will be at the BookCrossing table at Carroll County Community College, which is hosting the 9th Annual Random House Bookfair from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.

To the finder of this book:

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