The Gunslinger

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.