Book Review: The Dark Tower I – The Gunslinger

by Stephen King

“The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.”

That opening line. Simple, stark, and absolutely unforgettable. It sets the tone for The Gunslinger, the first volume of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, and it lingers with you long after you’ve closed the book. This isn’t your typical King novel. It’s not quite horror, not quite fantasy, not quite western—but somehow, it’s all of those at once.

I went into this book knowing it was the beginning of King’s so-called “magnum opus,” but I wasn’t quite prepared for how strange and meditative it would be. The Gunslinger doesn’t rush. It unspools like a dream—or maybe a fever. The landscape is desolate, the characters few, and the dialogue often cryptic. But underneath the dusty surface, there’s a powerful sense of destiny pulling everything forward.

Roland Deschain, our gunslinger, isn’t a hero in the traditional sense. He’s cold, driven, and obsessed—willing to sacrifice anything (and anyone) to catch the man in black and reach the Dark Tower. And yet, there’s something deeply compelling about him. He’s a relic of a dying world, a knight without a kingdom, haunted by memories that only come in fragments.

We meet a few other key characters—Jake, especially, stands out as a heartbreaking contrast to Roland’s stoicism—but the majority of this book is Roland, alone or nearly so, wandering a crumbling, half-magical wasteland. It’s bleak. But it’s also weirdly beautiful.

If you’re expecting a fast-paced plot, The Gunslinger might throw you off. The book is more about tone and atmosphere than action, more mystery than revelation. You’re given just enough to be intrigued, but never quite enough to feel comfortable.

For me, that was part of the magic. I didn’t always know what was going on, but I wanted to. I was drawn forward, like Roland himself, not because the path was clear—but because something about it mattered.

Reading The Gunslinger felt like stepping into a myth half-forgotten. It’s raw and unpolished (especially compared to later volumes), and yet there’s a haunting gravity to it. It’s the kind of book that makes more sense in hindsight, once you’ve journeyed further down the path of the beam.

If you’re new to The Dark Tower, this first book may feel like a strange introduction—and it is. But if you stick with it, if you lean into the weirdness and the loneliness and the quiet epicness of it all, you’ll find yourself drawn in by something rare and powerful.