The Gunslinger by Stephen King

In THE GUNSLINGER, Stephen King introduces readers to one of his most enigmatic heroes, Roland of Gilead, the Last Gunslinger. He is a haunting figure, a loner, on a spellbinding journey into good and evil, in a desolate world which frighteningly echoes our own. In his first step towards the powerful and mysterious Dark Tower, Roland encounters an alluring woman named Alice, begins a friendship with Jake, a kid from New York, and faces an agonising choice between damnation and salvation as he pursues the Man in Black. Both grippingly realistic and eerily dreamlike, THE GUNSLINGER leaves readers eagerly awaiting the next chapter. And the Tower is closer...

The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed... very slowly.

I was really curious about this book. King's attempt for epic fantasy mixed with western? That sounds really interesting.
I have to say, though, that the last chapter saved the book. King said in the foreword that The Dark Tower should be considered one book split into seven volumes (currently nine). So I'm wondering why for Hood's roasted balls was this book released in this state. 240 pages is really not enough for a story like this. The Gunslinger and The Drawing of the Three should've been released as one book.

Whole book is about following the man in black across a desert and 1/3 of every chapter (except the last one) is dedicated to Roland's back story, which I thought to be boring and dragging.
The last chapter saved this series. Speech of the man in black and all the foreshadowing got me hooked and I'm curious about the Tower now. Story before their meeting wasn't very interesting, though. If King had thrown some of the scenes out and combined this book with the second I think the series would only profit from it. Or maybe this should've been part of some collection like the prequel The Little Sisters of Eluria.
He isn't able to make the story interesting only on 240 pages. The book suffers because it has to go through all five acts on a small space like that. I believe other authors might have handled it better but Stephen is used to writing 1000 pages long novels. I heard this book is the worst in the series, so I expect something better from the sequels.

An enthralling introduction to Roland and the world of the Dark Tower.

I'm very interested in where the story goes. The man in black's commentary on size is fascinating. I really like the raven Zoltan for some reason.

The Dark Tower will see me trying my hand at reading an entire series back-to-back, and I'm excited at the prospect.

A man with a gun chases a necromancer across the desert looking for revenge. The thing is, the necromancer is immortal. For me, that's the whole book. I did not find the plot to be interesting. I did not care for the scenario/people descriptions, which it's what the book really is about. I did not like the main character history.

The author's style is one of showing many things that could be interesting, but they're not. At one point, the gunslinger finds a city in the desert. He suspects it's a trap from the necromancer. It is. Then he continues. This event takes many pages in the book, and it felt utterly pointless, as all of the other events did. But again, it's not about the meaning, its about the scenario/people.