Books, Movies & Games

Hi..... After long time decided to update the blog again. Many thing lead to this long absence, getting a new job being one of them. Now the work is settled & have a bit of time free to write.

Two months back I bought something which had being eluding me for one reason or the other, the thing being 7 books of “The Dark Tower” series by Stephen King. The main 2 reasons were they were quite hard to find at one single location & money. I didn’t want to buy 2 books here & search for other 5 all over Colombo. Finally at Vijitha Yapa Bookshop I found all of them together & couldn’t resist buying them. I have read III & IV books of the series (The Waste Lands & Wizard and Glass )previously, when I was a member of the British Council.

The series include

The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger (1982)
The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three (1987)
The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands (1991)
The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass (1997)
The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla (2003)
The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah (2004)
The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower (2004)

Now I’m down to the last book (The Dark Tower ) of the series where Roland, Susanah & Oy are the survivor of their Ka-Tet & they just confronted the Minister of State of the Crimson King. It a fascinating story with vivid characters & fantastic situations. Although all of the books are quite good I like the first 5 of the series better. In 6th & 7th the Author himself becomes a character of the story & I think that it spoils the story somewhat. His real life accident becomes a major part in the books & I think that distract the whole plot of the story.

Anyway the whole series can be compared to the “Lord of The Rings” series by J.R.R. Tolkien. Which Stephen King describe as a inspiration for his story. Just like the Fellowship of the LOTR, in Dark Tower there is a collection on individuals who are on a quest. Although unlike LOTR, here Roland the Hero (or is he an Anti-Hero?) have two different groups called Ka-Tets to help on his quest at different time. In the beginning he has his childhood friends & afterwards here draws vastly different characters from different time planes of New York ( a white Heroin Junky- Eddie Dean, a Black activitist with two amputated legs – Odetta Susanah Holmes & a teenage boy – Jake Chambers ) & this last Ka-Tet include a animal special to Rolands world called Bumbler, who looks part dog, part raccoon & can speak or mimic .

In his quest for the Dark Tower, which controls the existence of all the parallel worlds, Roland is willing to sacrifice anything including his members of the Ka-Tet to achieve his goal. Although he doesn’t do it intentionally his or their actions lead to demise of many of members of the Ka-Tet. Story mainly moves between New York of different times, Roland’s world & Keystone world, where the Dark Tower resides. In other worlds Dark Tower takes shape of a Rose or some other thing. Books contain many sub stories of the history of people Roland meets along his way. And quite a few of these characters are from other novels of Stephen King!

I have around 200 pages to finish of the last book. Hopefully I may be able to finish it within this weekend. And I look forward to it too.