The Wind Through the Keyhole: A Dark Tower Novel by Stephen KingMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
The Wind Through the Keyhole is an excellent book, but it feels more like a side story (And it is) rather than another book in the Dark Tower series. That's because fan favorites like Eddie, Jake, and Susannah are barely even in it at all. Instead, we're given two short stories in one, "The Skin Man," and the title story itself, "The Wind Through the Keyhole," which is the better of the two. In this way, I feel this book might have been better as one of the graphic novels of the Dark Tower stories rather than a so-called new novel in the series. It's a bit of a tease, really. If you're reading the series for the first time, you can actually skip this book as it in no way affects the outcome of the later titles or even really offers much insight into the world of the series itself. This book stands alone. That said, Stephen King will always be a master storyteller, and if you just want to read a good book and not have to deal with the 7 other titles, then go on ahead. You won't be missing much, and the stuff you will be missing you could always just check on Wikipedia. Overall, it's a great book, but an unworthy entry in the series, not because it's bad, mind you, but because it doesn't advance the overarching story. Buy it with that in mind if you're a big fan of TDT.
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The story revolves around the gunslinger, Roland Deschain, and his fell questers taking refuge from a violent storm that brings deathly cold temperatures and mass destruction. Roland tells his group stories from his early days as a gunslinger from Gilead and how he joined up with another young man to investigate a shape-shifter, called "the Skin-man," who started a killing spree in and around a mining town. But the story does stop there. You, dear constant reader, get treated with tales of murder, crazy magicians, dragons, swamp people, and vengeance.
ReplyDeleteReally more like a side story (http://www.leselink.de/buecher/fantasy/wind.html), but still a lot of nostalgic feelings while reading it. I loved the skin-man story, as it tells as more about Roland.
ReplyDeleteThe Skin Man story was good (Especially that transformation toward the end), but it's still just decent in the overall arching story. A great book, but not a great Dark Tower book.
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