I mean, I've watched hundreds of hours of Q&A with this guy, and NO ONE, including himself, ever brings up this series of books. And when you ask your Average Joe if they've ever heard of The Stand, The Shining, Carrie, Pet Sematary, etc., they have, but almost none of them have ever even heard of The Dark Tower. It's so weird.
Come quietly, or there will be...trouble.
I've always wondered this too - I have some friends who are King fans and one hadn't even heard of TDT, it does surprise me how unknown this is in comparison to his other work. To be fair, he's one of the most popular and successful writers of the last 100 years so a few of his books may slip through the cracks of pop culture.
There's also the fact that most of his popular books have had the film treatment a fair few times and have therefore gained a new audience in a different medium. Hopefully this movie will do the same.
My mother has read every King book, except for the tower series. She started The Gunslinger and couldn't finish it. That one is almost like a different author wrote it. It has a different voice, and takes getting used to. So there's that.
Some people don't like genre mashups, and some can't commit to a series. I would agree the number one reason is no movies have been made.
It just hasn't made a cultural impact the way Carrie, or The Shining have. It's too bad, but then I don't know how I would feel if it got popular enough for a toy line.
It was written when he was 19, I believe. This book is more Bachmann-like, to me.
Come quietly, or there will be...trouble.
This is a good question that i've never given much real thought to before but have always wondered about!
Any lazy gift givers here? Most of us would have a friend or relative that is a run of the mill Stephen King fan. I ask, as that's probably how i fell into TDT myself, and realised TDT isn't for everyone including your regular King fans. Forgetting it was my brother's birthday one year, i did the emergency shopping mall trip and walked past a book store that had the big promo for "THE LATEST BESTSELLING NUMBER 1 STEPHEN KING BOOK OUT NOW!", the book being W&G. Without a second thought or reading the blurb, i bought it for my bro assuming hey it's a new King book, he'll be stoked (and i'm done trying to shop for my brother so this was way too easy). A year or so later it was still untouched, eventually i asked him if it was any good and he said he hadn't read it as he hadn't read the first ones. I asked to borrow it and shock horror he told me i could keep it hahaha. It only took 5 minutes of reading to know my shameful laziness was exposed, it made no sense!! So then it sat on my bookshelf gathering dust for the next year or so until i came across The Drawing of the Three by accident. That book hooked me entirely, so then i hunted down 1 and 3 and i was set! So to cap off my autobiography, i think there's also a problem with King oversaturating the market and people doing something similar like what i did in just buying the latest King book for someone because it's easy and not realising these are part of a series. (or buying it for themselves just to go wtf is this?!)
You guys all have valid points. The Gunslinger does have a different voice (good way to put it), which is quite Bachman-ish. When i try and promote the series to friends i always loan them TDotT first... i tend to get a 'meh' from people that start with The Gunslinger (don't know why, as i loved it on the first read!).
Not being able/wanting to commit to a series makes sense too, but even more so a Stephen King series, and even more so a western fantasy series (for some reason trying to promote a King book and saying western is apparently really offputting to a lot of people). A lot of his books have a reputation of being overly bloated too, i've been looking at my copy of The Stand for months now considering a re-read but just can't quite commit to starting it. And books 4-7 are huge! If someone tried to sell me on reading books 1-7 of The Stand... GOD NO.
This could be why the movie spin is a more logical way to approach it.
I didn't realise King hadn't done in depth interviews about TDT, but after some searching - you appear to be right. If anyone knows of any, i'm really intrigued now! I found a good one with Peter David who does the graphic novels and talks about King a lot >>
http://www.graphicnovelreporter.com/authors/peter-david/news/interview-042109
Kudos for the interesting threads lately DOA, it's very untrollish of you though!!
I DID find this however https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TUju0r0k1U (oh my, not sure how relevant it is to the OP but it may explain why he wrote Detta the way he did! around the 6 min mark)
A one off Horror such as The Shining, It or Carrie can be accessable to your average joe reader, but a 7 book long fantasy series that is weird as hell just isn't.
A lot of people don't like the last 3 books either, so hearing that the end isn't worth it could put people off.
It's a lot easier to digest if if you start with Drawing of the Three and actually END with The Gunslinger. You already know by the end that Roland had previously betrayed Jake; this is a better place to reveal the details. Plus, the conversation with the Man in Black makes more sense at the end than in the beginning. IMHO.
Everything is 19
Now that is an interesting idea. I think it would make it feel like part of the nxt cycle though.
shareI started with the drawing of the three and fell in love! Took a long time to get into the gunslinger, even though it has the best opening lines ever.
shareI think that there have been some really strong points in this topic. The strangeness of the series, the commitment needed to invest in the series and the fact that going to a horror writer for an epic fantasy series seems a bit counter intuitive.
But I think something else to consider is just what proportion of Stephen King novels are actually iconic. The guy has written so much that at this point the majority of his books are read and quickly forgotten, save for perhaps when a big production studio wants to make big budget film or tv series out of one of his works. I mean, when you are competing with such iconic books as The Shinning, It, The Stand , Carrie, Cujo as well as big iconic movies like The Shawsank Redemption, or Stand by Me, then you are going to come up short