On my quest to read more King, I did.
Book Two of The Dark Tower, The Drawing Of The Three finds Roland, the titular gunslinger from the first novel, searching for the companions he needs for his journey to aforementioned Tower. He finds these companions by walking down a beach where he encounters doors. Doors that open to another world and the companions he must recruit.
Roland does this by walking through these mysterious doors and entering the minds of the people he needs. It's up to him to convince them, one way or another, to return to his world. This has limited success since people generally don't take kindly to another prescence popping into their heads. There is, shall we say, some resistance.
I wasn't a fan of the the first novel in this series so approached this one with a feeling of resignation. This was a better read because if King can do one thing, it's create likable characters. Eddie Dean, a heroin addict Roland encounters with the first door, is the typical nice guy in a King novel. Yeah, he's done some shit, but deep down, he's all right. He's a nice contrast to Roland, who still comes off as wooden. Yes, he's awesome with those guns of his, but there doesn't seem to be all that much to Roland outside of achieving his quest and being grim.
As well, the other companion Roland meets is also interesting, if not even more dangerous than Roland himself. She lights up the book, both good and bad, when she appears. She's a great character caught in a pretty thin story, though.
Roland's world in this novel is really nothing more than the beach with some killer lobsters. As a fantasy world goes, it just feels grey and unimaginitive. The world Roland goes to is our own world, set in different time periods. That's when the book comes to life, with Roland navigating our modern world (being fascinated by so much paper, for example) while also dealing with the people whose minds he has invaded.
The usual King problems exist in Drawing. Scenes of violence that go just that one step too far into cartoon, and some really deep hand-wavium to deal with some pretty complex issues. But when King reigns it in, he can write some wonderful action scenes that also display some deep character writing. By the end of the novel, I couldn't help but be more invested--perhaps not so much with Roland, but with his new companions. I still really could care less about anything Tower related, but the people heading there are interesting.
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