The Gunslinger
core novel 1982 The Dark Tower
Record
| First published | 1982 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 3.90 (681,305 ratings, collected 2026-09-14) |
| Page count | 224 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780937986509 |
| Internal chronology | 1 |
Synopsis
Roland Deschain, the last gunslinger of a decaying world that blends echoes of the Old West with fragments of a forgotten, more advanced civilization, pursues a mysterious adversary known as the man in black across the demon-haunted Mohaine Desert. Roland has hunted this figure for years, driven by a relentless sense of purpose, and the chase forms the opening leg of a much longer journey toward the Dark Tower, the object said to stand at the center of all worlds. Along the way memories surface of Roland's training as a young gunslinger in Gilead, filling in the world he has lost. He is eventually joined by Jake Chambers, a boy pulled inexplicably from a version of our own world, whose presence complicates Roland's single-minded pursuit. The novel mixes Western, fantasy and science-fiction elements as Roland presses on across desert and mountain toward his quarry.
Where it sits
- Universe: The Dark Tower
- Series: The Dark Tower core; position 1 of 8 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Stephen King
Notes
- From the series record (The Dark Tower): A dark fantasy/Western/horror/science-fiction blend, admitted as fantasy per critical/marketing consensus, the same transparency pattern applied to Dragonriders of Pern, The Book of the New Sun, and The Locked Tomb. The Wind Through the Keyhole (2012) is an interstitial 'Dark Tower IV.5' set between Wizard and Glass and Wolves of the Calla -- registered Core (not Expanded) since King himself numbers it as part of the 8-book main sequence, unlike ACOTAR's interstitial novella.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings, but they resolve to the exact same sequence for this book, so one combined line is shown instead of two identical ones.
- Reading order, within the series The Dark Tower: position 1 of 8: next The Drawing of the Three (1987)
Sources
- Wikipedia - The Dark Tower (series)
- StephenKing.com - The Dark Tower
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Tower:_The_Gunslinger
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