I still don’t think we need another Dark Tower novel, but… holy wow. Beautiful.
EDIT: Courtesy Suvudu, we now have a synopsis!
For readers new to The Dark Tower, THE WIND THROUGH THE KEYHOLE is a stand-alone novel, and a wonderful introduction to the series. It is a story within a story, which features both the younger and older gunslinger Roland on his quest to find the Dark Tower. Fans of the existing seven books in the series will also delight in discovering what happened to Roland and his ka tet between the time they leave the Emerald City and arrive at the outskirts of Calla Bryn Sturgis.
This Russian Doll of a novel, a story within a story, within a story, visits Mid-World’s last gunslinger, Roland Deschain, and his ka-tet as a ferocious storm halts their progress along the Path of the Beam. (The novel can be placed between Dark Tower IV and Dark Tower V.) Roland tells a tale from his early days as a gunslinger, in the guilt ridden year following his mother’s death. Sent by his father to investigate evidence of a murderous shape shifter, a “skin man,” Roland takes charge of Bill Streeter, a brave but terrified boy who is the sole surviving witness to the beast’s most recent slaughter. Roland, himself only a teenager, calms the boy by reciting a story from the Book of Eld that his mother used to read to him at bedtime, “The Wind through the Keyhole.” “A person’s never too old for stories,” he says to Bill. “Man and boy, girl and woman, we live for them.” And stories like these, they live for us.
As Wizard & Glass (the best volume of the series) was also a story-within-a-story… I’m kinda even more intrigued now.
Grumble Grumble…Inconsistent Series Cover Art…Grumble Grumble…
Eh. Continuity’s been fucked for The Dark Tower for years. Plus, this technically isn’t part of the seven-book-series, but rather a separate book featuring the same characters in the same world taking place in between the main-line novels (no, it doesn’t make sense to me, either). I dunno why, but the change in style just doesn’t bother me this time.
Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t like this, not because it’s not a nice piece of art, but because it tells me essentially nothing about the novel. Is it just me?
Is that an official cover ? I can’t find it anywhere else, do you have a source of some kind ? :)
@Martini — It’s hosted on the Simon & Schuster website.
That can’t be the cover. I bet it is a placeholder while Jae Lee works on the art. Mark my words: I said it here first. :)
Oh no. While it might satisfy the craving for new DARK TOWER material (are the comic books still going on?), I don’t think It’s going to answer or even tie up loose threads any more so than the 7th book (probably the biggest F-U to fans wanting a real ending to the series). Stephen once said that he goes into writing a book without knowing the ending. Couldn’t be more true about this series. Very bad call.
It clearly says ‘Cover is NOT Final’ on the website –
http://catalog.simonandschuster.com/TitleDetails/TitleDetails.aspx?cid=1305&isbn=9781451658903&FilterBy=&FilterVal=&ob=0&pn=&ed=&showcart=&camefrom=&find=&a=
thanks the gods,such an ugly cover.
@Brandon — Except that The Dark Tower has one of Literature’s greatest endings.
@Malazan — Yeah, you’re right. That could mean major changes (like what happened between the early and final versions of The Black Prism by Brent Weeks) or minor tweaking (like what happened between the early and final versions of The Kingdom of Gods by NK Jemisin).
I haven’t read The Dark Tower (yet), but I love that cover. Perhaps my lack of associations is allowing that? I don’t know; honestly I like it about a billion times better than any of the other Dark Tower covers I’ve seen.
A new Dark Tower novel… First I had heard of it, so that’s pretty exciting. I agree that Wizard and Glass is the best book, or my favourite anyway. In fact, I liked all the flashbacks to Roland’s youth, so this sounds like a treat.
I like the cover, but then I’m a fan of atmospheric landscapes, so I would.
And I agree with Aidan about the ending. It’s the only way it COULD have ended.
@aidan and @Celyn.A: Sure, but that still dosen’t explain:
-Some of the more blatant (and rather unnesscary) continuity drift (I know it’s multiverse but you can at least have the random cameo’s and pop-ups mean SOMETHING).
-plotholes and anticlimaxes ON TOP of plotholes and anticlimaxes (Kudzu plot, for anybody who knows their tv tropes).
– what DOES get explained is done so in the weakest way possible.
-know here’s the kicker: stephen king WRITING HIMSELF into the story to serve as some sort odd mix-up between being a fictional mirror\parallel to himself and the problems he deals with in real-life (more on that later) and probably one of the most inexcusable deus-ex-machina’s ever in fantasy literature (it wouldn’t be the first one in this series either).
Know after all my ranting you probably think that I hate this series. No, I don’t. For what it is worth, it is still one of the most innovative fantasy series I’ve ever read. It just has the unfotunate implication of being victim to over-ambition on the author’s part. Supposedly back when book 1 was out, King said the he’d intended to write a 10-book series. And then his near-death accident happened in 1999, which probably influenced him (along with some other things) to dial the number down to seven and get the series finished early ( king might have been fearful of the fact that he might die before finishing the series in it’s original form), which might be the very best reasoning for all the problems I have with it. Any thoughts?
Darn, that know should have been a Now. Brain fart