The Dark Tower

Thousands of pages and I and Roland have finally arrived only to find --- no, I'm not telling. I've actually added up the pages from the 7 books I read. It's 4656. Wow! And worth it. I've enjoyed this journey I've taken with Roland and his ka-tet. I started reading the books because of LOST, of course, and there certainly have been numerous themes that overlap between the two endeavors.

But a couple of things stood out to me as I embarked on this last 1000 pages of my quest. First and foremost, the Dark Tower protagonist and those involved with him understood their quest, much as I understood my quest was to read all these pages. That's a key thing that's been so lacking and often so frustrating in a hurts so good way on LOST. It's clear our 815ers and therefore us as viewers still don't have a clue what our goal is. Widmore may know; Ben may know; Jacob may know; Richard may know, but I wonder if we'll ever know even after that final episode airs.

Given this lack of goal on LOST I decided not to try to document all the overlaps in details between this book and the TV series. There were lots. I'm not sure if it's a case of homage or if it's a case that certain details signify certain things in the sci fi/fantasy genre, but trust me, the next time I encounter brain hemorraging, I'm going to assume teleportation or some form of time travel.

I don't really want to go on anymore, just suffice it to say that I'm glad I finally finished this series. I was very satisfied with the ending, and I think both the journey and the destination were worth the commitment.