by Jay Wilburn

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.

I picked up The Wastelands, the third book in the Dark Tower series, during junior college in Cleveland, Georgia. It was a tiny town in northeast Georgia. Most students went home on the weekends and left the place deserted. I had no car. I had limited funds. I walked into the town proper where there were a couple fast food restaurants, the Babyland General Hospital where Cabbage Patch dolls were made, and a used bookstore.

Usually, I traded back in the books I had bought for the few pennies I could get in store credit for the next purchase. This copy of The Wastelands was one of the few I kept and it is the copy I still have on the shelf to reread now. When I started to prepare for #StephenKingRevisited, I had to rebuy the first two books in the series, but I owned this one still.

Much of what I thought I remembered from book two is actually from the early parts of this third book in The Dark Tower series I realize now after rereading that second book recently. I’m having trouble pulling up much of the narrative which I remember mostly in bits, pieces, and isolated scenes. I am left with a memory of an epic landscape split by dimensional rifts. I’m excited to get back into this one and to continue the epic journey through this amazing world toward the Dark Tower.

My next post will be After The Wastelands 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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