Stephen King owned me.

And by “owned”, I mean held my attention obsessively for a few weeks as I read, back to back, the books of the [tag]Dark Tower[/tag] series.

I loved the first four. I liked the last three, although I felt their flaws increasingly as the series progressed.

The ending… the ending in the epilogue rather floored me. It wasn’t original, and may have even been clichéd, but it was… fitting, I think. Or fitting enough.

I felt that King had gone through all the trouble of changing Roland through his friendships, only to make the series selfish again at the end with Susannah’s departure and Oy’s death. I was disappointed. I know it was mentioned throughout the series that Roland was somewhat outside the circle, but by the end I’d felt they were more cohesive as a group.

I guess part of it was that Eddie’s death felt natural in the plot (and surprising), Jake’s was expected, and Susannah’s departure was hackneyed.

I’ll admit, though, that I did cry when Eddie died. I mean, Eddie was a cool guy. All witty and stuff. I think he had the best (and funniest) rapport with Roland.

The self-insertion of King into the novels was really just silly. The concept of self-insertion doesn’t bother me much, but the angst over “Who put the rose there? Could it have been… King?” was just a bit of masturbatory silliness. I appreciate King’s point about the author not always being in control of a story, though.

WO tells me that King’s character (especially during the first meeting) was supposed to be completely unsympathetic because he wasn’t doing his job and was falling into alcohol. I have sympathy for people with addictions like alcoholism. I also have some (albeit less) sympathy for people that just don’t get things done. I thought he was a good character.

Overall, I thought the series was very, very good. I’m eagerly awaiting the graphic novel that’s to be #8 in the series. I have no idea what an eighth book would contain, but we’ll see.

I haven’t read anything else by [tag]Stephen King[/tag] (I don’t think), although I’ve seen a few of his movies/shows ([tag]The Langoliers[/tag], [tag]Dead Zone[/tag], [tag]The Green Mile[/tag], etc.).

That reminds me… I need to return Ryan’s books to him…