Fault always lies in the same place, my fine babies: with him weak enough to lay blame. ~ Cort, the Gunslinger’s teacher
The Drawing of the Three is the second in the 8-volume The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. It is dark fantasy, set in Earth’s future. Physical and Metaphysical laws are greatly altered. There is some collective memory of the old world, and characters describe the present state as a world that has “moved on.” King says it was inspired by two works: “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came,” a poem by Robert Browning, and The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. It resembles Browning’s poem in some specific points and The Lord of the Rings very little, except as an epic fantasy.
In Volume I, the reader is introduced to the gunslinger, whom I assume is the principal character throughout the series. He is on a quest to the Dark Tower, though it is unclear why? At the end of volume I, the mysterious Man in Black tells the Gunslinger’s fortune using something like tarot cards. The Gunslinger is to encounter three enigmatic characters: the Prisoner, the two-faced woman, and Death. The Drawing of the Three is about those encounters.
In each instance, the Gunslinger steps through a portal into another world, or more precisely, another time, the world as it was before it moved on: 20th-century America. In this world/time, he exists within the body and shares consciousness with the three persons. Each faces a significant crisis of their own, and the Gunslinger intervenes while simultaneously forcing them into his struggle.
It was an exciting read. Each character is damaged. Two are pitiable. Two will form alliances with the Gunslinger. All three are essential to his quest for the Dark Tower. It is riveting right from the beginning. Back in his own world/time the Gunslinger has an ongoing life-and-death struggle with “lobstrosities”— lobster monstrosities, which are almost comical, other than the permanent physical maiming they cause to the hero of the tale.
As I mentioned in my review of Volume I, I didn’t want to commit to an 8-volume series, but I am entirely hooked and anxious to start Volume III.
My rating: 3 1/2 out of 5 stars
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