Ok friends, full disclosure if you have read my other reviews and have previously read the Dark Tower books, I’m giving only general synopsis’s of each book. Every book gets more and more immaculately detailed as they go on; I can’t deliver justice to them the way reading and enjoying them yourself can. That being said, let us continue the odyssey of Roland and his Ka-tet (group brought together by fate for a purpose) on there way to the Dark Tower.
So again this picks up almost immediately after where the previous installment left off, a few weeks later if I’m not mistaken. Roland has recovered and is training Eddie and Susannah how to be Gunslingers; both are promising. They’ve formed a bond together; Eddie and Susannah are husband and wife; Eddie is clean of heroin and has rediscovered his passion of whittling. While training with Susannah in the woods, Roland hears a noise. Miles away an angry guardian of the Beam awakens, a seventy foot cyborg bear named Mir driven mad by time and maggots eating away at it’s brain. It tears through the forest, knocking trees down like bowling pins, barreling down towards Eddie. Roland and Susannah rush to the rescue. Eddie starts hauling ass up the tallest tree he can find, scared for his life. Roland puts Susannah on his shoulders and tells her its up to her to kill it, to blast it in the tiny radar dish between its ears. She manages it and Mir dies. Roland inspects the beast, revealing a label reading SHARDIK of the LAMERK CORPORATION. Roland explain the tower some more and reveals a secret to his friends; his mind is dividing after the paradox he created by saving Jake from ever dying in the previous installment. Meanwhile, in Jake’s New York, he is suffering from the same fate as Roland. He knows everything that happened in the first book but he knows it didn’t happen but should have. Ka pulls him foreward, bringing him to a book store owned by a man named Tower where he finds a certain two books that will help save his life later and a rose that means everything in a vacant lot. On the Ka-Tet’s side, Eddie is whittling a shape that is meant to be the key to Jake’s door. Jake is led to an old haunted house by a younger version of Eddie; the house transforms into a horrible demon intent on murdering Jake. On the other side they struggle to draw a door in the dirt, fighting a coming rain storm while Detta comes forth to fuck another demon that’s haunting the area. Jake is brought to there side and him and Roland have a touching reunion. Further ahead they come across a billy bumbler (a creature between a roccon and a small dog that can make human like words) that takes a liking to Jake they name Oy. they come to a small seemingly abandoned town across the river from the shell of a once great city called Lud. The town is inhabited by decrepit old people that treat Roland and his friends as honored guests once they see he is the last Gunslinger. The people tell them of the horrors of Lud, the horrible music and the war that broke out between two factions: the Grays and the Pubes. Crossing what’s left of the bridge, Jake gets kidnapped by a diseased freak named Gasher who threatens to blow them all up with a grenade. They have no choice but to let him go. The group splits: Roland and Oy goes after Gasher and Jake, while Eddie and Susannah heads towards the monorail train. Jake is taken through a dark underground maze under the city where the Tick-Tock Man resides with his thugs. Eddie and Susannah have to solve a mathematical puzzle to access the train called Blaine. Jake, Oy, and Roland wipe out the Tick-Tock Man’s gang and haul ass to the others; The Ageless Stranger of Walter’s prophecy revives the Tick-Tock Man for his service in exchange for safety which won’t be possible in Lud much longer after, while pulling away from the station, Blaine unleashes a massive storage of nerve gas on the city and massacres it’s denizens out of boredom. Blaine is really a network of highly intelligent supercomputers under the city that connect to the Dark Tower and with the decay of the beams holding it up, Blaine began to malfunction and go mad. He ultimately decides to kill himself with our heroes on board, wheras they make a deal for there lives via riddle contest, and book three ends…
I adore the hell out of this particular installment. Great character development and a dark theme of madness spiced throughout. Also I have to say Blaine is my favorite villain in all of Literature so far, he’s insane, sarcastic, creepy, and just plain evil as hell. Definitely tune in next time to see what’s next….and hell yeah read this book.
Blaine the Train is such a pain! Great review of one of my favorite books of the series! Things definitely pick up in and after this book for the Ka-tet.
Thankee Kindly, sir; long days and pleasant nights