The Wind Through the Keyhole
core novel 2012 The Dark Tower
Record
| First published | 2012 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 4.13 (96,926 ratings, collected 2026-09-14) |
| Page count | 322 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9781451658903 |
| Internal chronology | 4.5 |
Synopsis
Set within the timeline of Wizard and Glass, this volume frames two stories nested inside one another while Roland's ka-tet shelters from a devastating storm called a starkblast during their journey toward the Dark Tower. To pass the time, Roland tells his companions about a mission from his youth: as a young gunslinger he was sent to the town of Debaria to track down a shape-shifting killer known as a skin-man, using hypnosis to help a traumatized boy who witnessed an attack recall what he saw. While waiting for suspects during that investigation, the young Roland in turn tells the frightened boy a fairy tale from his own childhood, about a boy named Tim Ross who faces dangerous trials in a magical swamp to help his mother.
Where it sits
- Universe: The Dark Tower
- Series: The Dark Tower core; position 8 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 and are never conflated: a book's place in one says nothing about its place in the other.
- Publication order, within the series The Dark Tower: position 8 of 8: previous The Dark Tower (2004)
- Internal chronology, within The Dark Tower: position 5 of 8: previous Wizard and Glass (1997) · next Wolves of the Calla (2003)
Sources
- Wikipedia - The Dark Tower (series)
- StephenKing.com - The Dark Tower
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wind_Through_the_Keyhole
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