The Sword and Laser discussion

I am reread the Dark Tower series and wanted to know what everyone's favorites were. I would lost mine as 3 2 1 4 5 7 6

It's been a while since I read the series. so I would find it hard to put the whole 7 in order. But I'd agree with your rankings that the first 3 books are the best and they are less good after that. Still ok but not to the same standard.

I would rate Book 1 as my favourite and 7, by far, the worst.

The Wastelands is my favorite of the series. The last 2 were truly awful. I feel like after Stephen King was hit by that car he was worried he might not live to finish the series and just rushed through them. I would just reread up to book five or better yet find a new series to start. But I'm not much of a re-reader.

I also found 3 to be my favorite with 1 been a really close 2nd.

4321576 for me.

Personally I LOVE Wizard and Glass. I was surprised to see people didn't. But thinking about it though, after how 3 ends, you get a resolution on the cliff hanger, but then little else in the way of present day story as most of it is a flash back.

I guess in a lot of ways I like the stuff of Roland's youth and his original ka-tet better.

But I like every book quite a bit apart from 6, and I still think that it was alright.

My favorite by far is 2, The Drawing of the Three. The characters just blew me away. Next I would rate 1 and 3, followed by 5, 6, 7. The fourth one, Wizard and Glass I didn't really like that much, I just wasn't that interested in Roland's past.

I liked wizard and glass. I just think for me I was not expecting a full backstory and wanted the main sorry plot to move on. It was still very good, and I enjoyed it more the second time I read it.

I want more stories about Cuthbert. I think he's my favorite character in the series.

I really need to get around to the graphic novels at some point, esp the one about the battle of Jericho.

Of course while they have his blessing, they aren't written by King.

3,2,4,1,5,6,7
I loved the fist four books in this series but after that the quality seemed to change. They weren't bad, but they just didn't feel the same as those first four books did to me.

The comics are pretty good. Robin Furth is involved in those, and if anyone knows King's stories, it's her. It's why he hired her to help him remember all the details of the books in between those long periods. I'm currently reading the Drawing of the Three series, which starts with Eddie and goes into more depth into his childhood. Maybe not written by King, but certainly guided and/or approved.

It's hard for me to rate them in order. It's my all time favorite set of books (including the related books) and one of my comfort reads I revisit every couple of years. If I have to, I guess I'd go with 2, 3, 1, 4, 5, 6, 7

Melissa wrote: The last 2 were truly awful. I feel like after Stephen King was hit by that car he was worried he might not live to finish the series and just rushed through them.

I don't think King ever cared if he finished. I think he wrote the last three books with two thoughts in mind. First, that he nearly died twice during this duration (the accident and pneumonia), and this had such an affect on him that he couldn't NOT inject his experience in the books (as well as reflect on his past stories and who he was back then), and two, a cranky "f*** you" to the fans who kept hounding him (much like they do GRRM and Patrick Rothfuss, and did with Jordan). The insensitivity of the fans for being all selfish "finish the story before you die!" rather than "please focus on getting better."

So I think books 5-7 were, in part, the books the fans deserved, not so much the books he necessarily wanted to write.

Rob wrote: "4321576 for me.

Personally I LOVE Wizard and Glass. I was surprised to see people didn't. But thinking about it though, after how 3 ends, you get a resolution on the cliff hanger, but then little..."

Wizard In The Glass...Hands down.

I had to revisit Wizard and Glass because at first I didn't like it and stopped about 1/3 of the way through. I then got all the books up to this point in audio, and for W&G in particular, this did the trick for me. King's books are very easy for me to get immersed in, especially in audio format. Frank Muller and, later, George Guidall were so very good for this series.

I just love this story so much.

I've even read The Wind Through the Keyhole (book 4.5), and it is more like W&G and liked it quite a bit. I love that even though the story is "done," there's still so much more that can be told, especially with regard to Roland's youth.

Coming back to the comics, I think this is part of that purpose too--go into more depth in the story. What I've read so far is very good.

I have a hard time counting Wind Through the Keyhole as a Dark Tower book. It's more like one of the numerous other related books.

Sure you actually get a bit of Roland and his Ka-tet, but the vast majority of the book is the twice nested story that reads more like a fairy tail than anything else.

That isn't to say I didn't like the book, but considering it was labeled as a Dark Tower book, I found it a bit lacking.

Count me as another Wizard and Glass fan! And I actually really liked the Wind Through the Keyhole, too, but it might have been because I read it for the first time right after Wizard and Glass, and it had a similar flash-back vibe to me.

4 1 2 3 5 7 6

I finished this series last summer and cried most of the way through the last book. My husband was worried for me, I'm pretty certain. Even if #7 wasn't the best book in the series, with every character of the ka-tet it was tough to say goodbye.

I actually have the giant anthology of the first set of comics on my nightstand to start into one of these nights...

Wizard and Glass was my stand out favorite. I loved the past stuff and, like Rob, Cuthbert ended up being my favorite character.

It's hard for me to really rank the books because I enjoyed them all for different reasons. The last 3 get a lot of hate but I still found them entertaining and engrossing. And I thought the end of the series was fitting, even if I wanted more closure for selfish reasons