Have You Read?: Stephen King completes his towering achievement

On June 19, 1999, Stephen King was taking a walk on the shoulder of Route 5 in Center Lovell, Maine, when he was struck by a van and almost killed. He suffered a collapsed right lung, multiple fractures of the right leg, scalp lacerations and a shattered hip.

The first thing my mother said to me when we saw it on the news was, "He better not die before he finishes 'The Dark Tower.' "

Of course, it would have been a tragedy if he hadn't survived the accident. Millions of readers across the globe would have been saddened by his passing, but I believe that, at the same time, they would have harbored some deep resentments at never knowing how the story ends.

"The Dark Tower" is King's magnum opus, a tale in seven parts that took him more than 30 years to complete. The first book, "The Gunslinger," originally was published in installments over the course of three years in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and was released in an extremely limited edition in 1982.

By that time, I had read every novel that King had published and a number of his short stories. When my local library finally got "Pet Sematary" in paperback, I noticed "The Dark Tower" was listed on the "also written" list of King's works. I asked what "The Dark Tower" was, and the librarian had no information. The Internet was a decade away from being the widely available wealth of information we know today. I had to wait another five years before it finally was republished in a trade-paperback edition.

It was worth the wait. Sixteen years passed between the first time I read "The Gunslinger" until I closed the cover of Book Seven of the series. I religiously re-read each book, sometimes having to wait six years between installments. When King was hit by that van, I know my mother wasn't the only person praying that the man would pull through and get back to work.

Arthurian legend, Sergio Leone spaghetti Westerns and Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" are just a few of the things that inspired "The Dark Tower." It is the tale of Roland of Gilead, the last gunslinger, as he treks across a dying landscape where "the world has moved on" in search of the Dark Tower, nexus of all worlds. Roland's world, at first look, appears to be a curious parallel of our own, sort of a futuristic American Old West after a nuclear war. Artifacts from our world exist there, such as German aircraft from World War I, and they sing "Hey Jude" at the saloons. Machines are running down, time is growing thin, and everything is falling apart, all because of what Roland believes is some sickness at the heart of the tower.

Whether Roland's quest is a noble one remains to be seen. It is unclear at first whether he wishes to repair the wrong within the tower and save his world, or if he only yearns to finally see the thing that he has so doggedly pursued his entire life. Roland is not your typical "hero." His path to the tower is strewn with lies, betrayal and murder.

Most of King's books are somehow connected to this series, from "Salem's Lot" to "The Stand" and beyond. If you are a die-hard King fan, you'll recognize many major and minor characters from past novels and short stories who make appearances in "The Dark Tower." King has even written himself into the tale, with surprising results.

You don't have to have read everything by him to understand the action, though. In fact, a those who never picked up a Stephen King book in their lives may find "The Dark Tower" more enjoyable than his typical horror fare. Don't forget that he also wrote the novellas that formed the basis of the films "The Shawshank Redemption" and "Stand by Me."

"The Dark Tower" is a drama, a Western, a love story, a futuristic science-fiction adventure, an epic fantasy tale, a horrifying peek into the unknown, etc. It defies genre classification. I've barely scratched the surface of the story in this review. There's just so much to say about it, so I will choose to end it here and let you find out for yourself.

- Lydia Chagolla is an avid reader who enjoys sharing her reviews with the community.