Savior Gaming

 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.

Book two of seven (I don’t count Wind through the Keyhole amongst the original series) of Stephen King’s western fantasy epic picks up right up where the first book left off. Roland is left aged on the beach after his haunting talk with Walter, disoriented in the midst of a night tide. From the tide something comes forth Roland first believes is a rock, but moves closer, revealing a body crustacean like. The Lobstrousity is fast and deadly taking a few of Roland’s toes and two of the fingers off of his best hand. Fighting the tide he tries to blast the creature but his shells are getting wet so the first few shots are duds until he blows it’s ass away, left with nothing but a crap-load of useless bullets and blood poisoning from the creature. He crawls forward dying until he catches sight of a mystery wooden door on the beach. Written on it is the word Prisoner, for which he’d been told about by Walter and the demon that tried to rape Jake. This door leads him into the mind of the first he would have to draw forth in his quest for the Dark Tower: Eddie Dean, a heroin addict from New York City in 1987. Roland is able to help Eddie take down drug lord Enrico Balazarr and bring him into his world after getting some medicine to hold off the poison a bit. Eddie is forced to detox with Roland on there way to the second door, there relationship rocky at best. The second door belongs to The Lady of Shadows, young, educated, legless cival rights activist Odetta Holmes of New York 1964. They quickly understand the danger Odetta brings in the form of her second, violent, savage personality Detta Walker. Eddie begins to have feelings for Odetta and she for him. After a small resurgence in his health, Roland begins to decline again. His last hope lies behind the third door, The Pusher, Jack Mort. Mort is a sick bastard who’s dark deeds have affected the Roland’s group through the years. Mort hit Odetta in the head with a brick when she was a little girl, causing her initial split personality; he pushed Jake in front of the car that originally killed him to bring him to Roland’s world in the first place; he finally pushed Odetta in front of the subway train that severed her legs. Roland uses Mort’s body to steal ammo and medicine, before throwing him in front of the same train that took Odetta’s legs at the same time Detta sees this through the open door. Both of her selves forge into a perfect third, Susannah and the three were drawn and Roland lives.

It’s one of my favorite books and a great sequel. The new characters are truly developed and feel very much like real people. It’s well paced and very trippy. Definitely worth a read and will leave you hungry for the next book.