The plan is to reread all of Stephen King’s works in the order that they were published. Richard Chizmar of Cemetery Dance had the vision. I’m doing it because I am a writer and I want to improve my fiction. And I love Stephen King’s stories. I think there is something to be learned through this process.

You can also go back to the beginning and read Before Carrie or any of my other posts up through this one and beyond by checking out this link to the Master List of all my #StephenKingRevisited posts.

There is a lot for The Dark Tower book, and the supposed final word on the series by the same name, to live up to. The action, the payoffs, the stakes, and the everything has to deliver on decades worth of build-up. This is why some authors struggle to finish their epics. Stephen King has a reputation for struggling with endings from time to time. This is the heaviest pressure I can image for him on that front. He’s given himself over 1000 pages to do it. He’s given the book four subtitles.

The characters have big problems to solve in multiple universes and time periods. They either need to get moving again or they need to find a “magic” door to take them straight there.

Roland has sort of become King’s Conan character. King can visit him at any stage along his long and winding journey as a gunslinger from before he met the katet we followed and even pick up with that group somewhere between volumes to share more stories within stories. I believe that is what happened with The Wind Through the Keyhole coming up later in King’s catalog of novels.

I should have finished this epic journey as a reader much earlier than I did, but maybe it was Ka that I read it now as the person I am in this time. I’m glad to have the opportunity now.

My next post in this series will be After The Dark Tower which will be linked on the Master List of all my Stephen King Revisited posts.

Jay Wilburn

Jay Wilburn has a Masters Degree in Education that goes mostly unused since he quit teaching to write about zombies. Jay writes horror because he tends to find the light by facing down the darkness. His is doing well following a life saving kidney transplant. Jay is the author of Maidens of Zombie Kingdom a young adult fantasy trilogy, Lake Scatter Wood Tales adventure books for elementary and middle school readers, Vampire Christ a trilogy of political and religious satire, and The Dead Song Legend. He cowrote The Enemy Held Near, Yard Full of Bones, and The Hidden Truth with Armand Rosamilia. You can also find Jay's work in Best Horror of the Year volume 5. He is a staff writer with Dark Moon Digest, LitReactor, and the Still Water Bay series with Crystal Lake Publishing.

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