The Gunslinger

I just finished listening to The Gunslinger, the first book in the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. This series made it onto my potential reading list because of the suggestion of Scott Johnson, a web cartoonist who also has several podcasts which I enjoy (The Instance, Film Sack!) I am currently training for a marathon, so my weekend runs are fairly long (in the multiple hour range) and I decided it would be a good opportunity to listen to some audiobooks. I just picked The Gunslinger from my list because I had the audiobook and it seemed like a good place to start.

So how did I like it? It was really good. You can look it up and read all about it, so I won’t rehash the details of the novel and what it is about. The thing I liked was that it mixed so many different genres. It is a cowboy western with some sorcery/magic mixed in. There is also a “knights of the round table” feel and some modern day sci fi. Throw in some religion (a somewhat blasphemous take on Christianity no less – not my favorite part) and multiple/parallel universe thinking and you have yourself a mixed up jumble of interesting reading (or listening in my case).