Nigh Resolution

Bad medicine.

And so we move from complaining about one book to a whole series of them.

I guess I should make this proclamation first: I consider myself a mid-level geek. I like shit like Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings. I used to read a lot of comics and watch a lot of pro wrestling (the former I still have fond memories of, the latter a "what the fuck kind of drugs did I do in college, anyway?" level of astonishment). And I take a keen interest in the development of films regularly reported about on sites such as ainitcoolnews.com and chud.com. I say "mid-level" geek because I've never a) written a vitriolic, hate-filled letter to George Lucas, b) dressed up as a character from a comic book, except for in 5th grade when I was the Joker for Halloween*, and c) I have a job and a family, and everyone knows that hardcore geeks live in their parents' basement and avoid real work because they're working on a screenplay, novel, or both (usually a biographical film or book glorifying their mundane existence).

I'm not like that. I recognize my mundane existence, embrace it fully, and tuck it in my pocket where it's safe. If I ever start writing about how the pizza guy screwed up my order, or what I ate for lunch (oops!), please feel free to throw eggs at my house.

So while I'm not a geek (I'm not, I'm not, I'm not), I do feel I have a constitutional right to complain. Complain and flush toilet paper down the hopper withought recrimination. And that's just what I'm going to do (complain, not brazenly flush TP).

Honestly, The Dark Tower series contains so many things to nitpick about that I won't bother getting into too much detail, because it has so many things going right as well. Mix the best of fantasy with the best of spaghetti westerns, throw in some of the coolest characters whose adventures I've had the pleasure reading about, and I really can't fault King for the myriad plot holes and loose ends he fails to tie up. After all, it took the dude most of his life as a writer to finish what he himself will admit is his opus. It's very, very hard to return to something and get it right...again, and again.

But that's what King did. Over the course of the first four novels, he constantly upped the ante, hypnotizing readers who love fantasy (and probably a significant number of his fans who don't). The first four books in this series are simply amazing. They're like drugs, addictive. I first read The Gunslinger in 2000, craving a fantasy fix after finishing The Lord of the Rings trilogy for the upteenth time. I was not disappointed. I then voraciously read The Drawing of the Three, The Waste Lands, and Wizard and Glass. Finishing Wizard was bittersweet, because King had been hit by a van the previous year, and fans of The Dark Tower series were not very optimistic that he would live long enough to finish the series -- especially since it had taken him so long (roughly 25 years, as far as publication dates go) to write the first four books of what he had envisioned a seven-book series (Hey! Just like Harry Potter!).

Then, about a year and some change later, King announced that he was going to finish the damn thing. He was going to write, write, write and make sure his series didn't suffer the fate of other untold stories, such as Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, and my favorite novel, Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov.

I didn't know this, because, while I am a fan of King and the series, I didn't want to obsess over it, because I didn't believe it would finish anytime soon. So I pushed it to the back of my mind and, eventually, forgot all about it.

Then, in the spring of 2003, I remembered. I don't recall how, just that I was at work one morning, bored, surfing the Internet, and I experienced a quick thought of fondness regarding the gunslinger books. I did a Google search and happily discovered that Wolves of the Calla, book five in the series, was to be released that fall, followed by Song of Susannah in June of 2004, and The Dark Tower in the fall.

Holy shit! said I, immediately sucked back into that remarkable world. He's done it, King has finished the series, and I'll be around to read it all to the very last page!

To make a long story short, I read the three remaing books in the series and enjoyed them immensly; until, that is, the ending of book VII.

*spoilers*

One thing King has been critcized for during his career as a writer is that his books tend to have rather disappointing endings. He's a great writer in the sense that he has ideas up the yin-yang, and he writes as accessibly and as fun as any writer I've ever read. But he wraps things up in most of his books -- if I may distort the English language so -- a little half-assedly.

But for this series, there was no bloody way I or any of his fans was going to allow him to drop the ball.

Unfortunately, that's what he did.

After killing off or abandonning every character save Roland, the gunslinger, Roland finally reaches the Dark Tower which he has spent a lifetime in search of. And when he gets to the top of the tower and opens the last door, the novel ends with him at the beginning of the series' first book, The Gunslinger.

That's right, a fucking loop.

I'll probably read the series again (maybe a dozen more times), but I can't forgive King for shitting the bed so egregiously. Hell, the loop thing is the kind of boneheaded idea I would have come up with while writing a story when I was in elementary school. It screams "I don't know how to end this, so I'm not even gonna bother trying."

For his part, King acknowledges that the ending is poor, going so far as to warn readers to stop reading and put down the book before Roland opens that door at the top of the tower. He also admits in the book's afterword that he isn't very pleased with the ending, but that "that's the only ending there is", (or something similar).

Fuck, Stevie. Way to let me down again. Why are you so afraid to write a good, or at least half-decent ending to a great series? A series that I know means as much to you as it does to your fans.

But I should stop now, for I'm treading into super-obsessive geek realm. Tomorrow I'll wake up, eat breakfast and go to work, never once thinking about The Dark Tower. That's for the best, because it opens too many old wounds.

*In all honesty, when I was a kid I used to put steak knives between my fingers and run around the house, pretending I was Wolverine -- but I never let anyone see me.