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rustyponcho 's review for:
The Gunslinger
by Stephen King
adventurous
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This book was not for me. Also, sometimes one adjective is enough.
It starts of slow and is pretty dry and stays that way for the entirety of the book. King takes forever to reveal anything about any of the characters, why they're doing what they're doing, and what is going on in this world. He's constantly throwing out clues and tidbits, some of which he circles back to later and some are never mentioned again or lead nowhere.
Most of the character interactions in this book are pretty bizarre. All of the conversations are a weird call and response. Think premade pass phrases from spy movies like, you'll find a woman wearing a blue at at this location and say X to her then she'll respond with Y. Like that except all of the conversations are weird.
What bothered me most was the tone of "predestination" and I don't know if it was intentional or not. It feels like every character knows exactly what is going to happen and even with that knowledge they take actions that directly lead to that event, even if they don't want to or they die as a results. It felt like every single action by every single character in this book was predestined and they all knew that beforehand and didn't try to fight it in the slightest.
It's an interesting concept and setting but is so slow and riddled with so much unnecessary descriptive language that it takes forever to get through.
I went into this book with high hopes and was about a quarter of the way through when I realized I didn't like it at all. Kept convincing myself that the pace was going to pick up and some answers would be revealed and that never really happened. The end just leaves you with more questions and still does not answer why Roland is doing what he's doing other than he's sworn to it. This was my first Stephen King novel. I won't be coming back to this book or reading any further in the series. Also, all the other King books on my TBR were just bumped way down the list. I don't know if this is his normal writing style or not but if I start any of his other books and find out it is, I will DNF it immediately.
Interesting idea and I appreciated some of what he was trying to with the writing style but I didn't enjoy it in the slightest.
It starts of slow and is pretty dry and stays that way for the entirety of the book. King takes forever to reveal anything about any of the characters, why they're doing what they're doing, and what is going on in this world. He's constantly throwing out clues and tidbits, some of which he circles back to later and some are never mentioned again or lead nowhere.
Most of the character interactions in this book are pretty bizarre. All of the conversations are a weird call and response. Think premade pass phrases from spy movies like, you'll find a woman wearing a blue at at this location and say X to her then she'll respond with Y. Like that except all of the conversations are weird.
What bothered me most was the tone of "predestination" and I don't know if it was intentional or not. It feels like every character knows exactly what is going to happen and even with that knowledge they take actions that directly lead to that event, even if they don't want to or they die as a results. It felt like every single action by every single character in this book was predestined and they all knew that beforehand and didn't try to fight it in the slightest.
It's an interesting concept and setting but is so slow and riddled with so much unnecessary descriptive language that it takes forever to get through.
I went into this book with high hopes and was about a quarter of the way through when I realized I didn't like it at all. Kept convincing myself that the pace was going to pick up and some answers would be revealed and that never really happened. The end just leaves you with more questions and still does not answer why Roland is doing what he's doing other than he's sworn to it. This was my first Stephen King novel. I won't be coming back to this book or reading any further in the series. Also, all the other King books on my TBR were just bumped way down the list. I don't know if this is his normal writing style or not but if I start any of his other books and find out it is, I will DNF it immediately.
Interesting idea and I appreciated some of what he was trying to with the writing style but I didn't enjoy it in the slightest.