After decades, I’ve decided to make my second pilgrimage to the Tower.
The Gunslinger is the first in King’s most ambitious series, where his sprawling, multiversal, interconnected worlds are tied together. Any Constant Reader worth their salt has made the trip to the Tower at least once. So as I stared down the final few weeks of my marathon training, I decided that I wanted my companion on the long, slow training runs to be Roland.
In the world of the Dark Tower, “the man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed.” In the real world, the woman in lycra plodded across Brisbane and the looming doubts about her first marathon followed.
In The Gunslinger, the first and shortest of the Dark Tower series, we learn just enough about Roland, the Tower, and how the world has Moved On to get hooked. We learn about how the Gunslinger came of age. We learn about the existence of magic and demons. We see him almost casually destroy a town without breaking a sweat. We meet Jake, the innocent child who is thrust into Roland’s path. We learn a little about the corporations that existed before the world Moved On. We see the effects of a world poisoned and mutated. We walk the desert, filled with devil weed. We seek the Tower. We palaver with the Man in Black.
It’s only in the last year that I’ve started listening to audiobooks while running. I started my running journey listening to music (a single, shuffled playlist that I managed to squeeze into my fitness watch’s memory). Over time, I moved on to new playlists curated by Spotify. Then podcasts. Now audiobooks. But I’ve found, for these many hours of running, I need audiobooks that are long too. And I need the story to be damned good. It’s not easy staying motivated to wake up early every Sunday morning, leave the comfort of home, and set off into the dark. But a good audiobook is a reward for my efforts.
The Gunslinger delivered exactly what I needed, when I needed it. And the voicework on this audiobook was top notch.
5 popkins out of 5.