Stephen King’s best book, The Dark Tower, was hated by sore Cliffhanger fans

Part of the reason Stephen King fans are so excited about… The upcoming TV adaptation of The Dark Tower is that the book series it’s based on is a unique take on the master of horror. In his introductions and later to the novels, he would describe the series as something that was channeled through him in mysterious ways; It was often easy in a way that it did not feel in his other novels.

King’s more spiritual approach to the “Dark Tower” series led to some questionable story choices, such as his decision to base the fourth book around a 500-page flashback to Roland’s childhood. From a writing 101 perspective, this was a bad idea. But the way King talked about it, it didn’t seem like he had a choice. Kaa (the high Gilead word for “fate”) has decreed that the massive flashback must be there, and who is the king arguing with Kaa?

Apparently, Ka also decreed that the third book in the series, The Waste Lands, should conclude the most horrific riot of King’s career. The main characters end up trapped on a giant sentient train, which plans to derail itself unless the characters defeat it in the puzzle game. How did the characters manage to overcome the highly intelligent train? “The Waste Lands” doesn’t tell you. Readers had to wait until the beginning of the next book, “The Wizard and the Glass,” to find out if (and how) the main character survived.

In the 1990s, readers were angry. This was the first time King had left readers with such an unfinished note, and he made matters worse when he took six years to release the next novel. For the first time, his “I’ll move on to Part 2 when Ka says it’s time” approach no longer seemed charming to his regular readers.

Two years before King officially solved the problem, he began writing The Green Mile, a novel that was originally published in parts. King indicated in his attacker that thanks to the feedback he received from The Waste Lands, he would publish these parts in a prompt and timely manner. As he explained:

“We receive dozens of angry letters every week, demanding the next book in the Dark Tower cycle (patience, Roland followers; another year or so and your wait will be over, I promise). One of these letters contained a Polaroid of a chained bear, with a message cut from newspaper headlines and magazine covers: ‘Release the next Dark Tower book at once or the bear will die,’” the letter read. I put it in my office to tell him I remind myself of both the responsibility and how wonderful it is that people care a little about the creatures of one’s imagination.”

At the time, King stood by that abyss, and spoke of it in his author’s memoir in The Waste Lands as if it were beyond his control. “Although you are not bound to believe me,” he wrote, “I must insist that I was as surprised by the conclusion of this third volume as some readers may be.” “However, books that write themselves (as this one did, for the most part) must also be allowed to finish on their own.”

In his later author’s notes, he expressed some regret about this situation, especially after the fifth book, The Wolves of the Calla. In real life, he was king He was hit by a truck in 1999The near-death experience encouraged him to commit to writing The Dark Tower books five, six, and seven as quickly as possible, regardless of whether he was in the mood or not.

The flip side of King’s guilt is that he was also surprised by how long it took to finish the fourth book. The delay wasn’t as bad as what happened to “Game of Thrones” fans. He had to endure With “The Winds of Winter” supposedly coming, but it was a much larger publishing gap than King expected, one that King never repeated again in the series.

The clearest expression of King’s guilt over the decline of The Waste Lands came in the books themselves; The last two novels feature meta-narratives in which the characters talk to King himself and urge him to hurry up and actually finish the books. They discover that the Dark Tower story is being transmitted through King’s writings with a higher power, and they use a little hypnosis to force King to start writing it again. If that’s not an implicit apology to readers, I don’t know what is.

The good news is that while King may have other ideas about suspense, the upcoming TV show will have the opportunity to avoid suspense altogether. With the benefit of hindsight, showrunner Mike Flanagan may choose to resolve the Blaine the Train story in one action-packed season finale. Forget that it took six years to solve this story; Why doesn’t the story resolve without waiting at all?