I'm with both of you Letti & Maerlyn, I love Waste Lands. Jake Chambers is possibly my all-time fav fictional character and this book was largely the reason why. I loved learning about his NY life and his attempt to return to Mid-World.
I'm with both of you Letti & Maerlyn, I love Waste Lands. Jake Chambers is possibly my all-time fav fictional character and this book was largely the reason why. I loved learning about his NY life and his attempt to return to Mid-World.
"It's his eyes, Roland thought. They were wide and terrible, the eyes of a dragon in human form" - Roland seeing the Crimson King for the first time.
"When the King comes and the Tower falls, sai, all such pretty things as yours will be broken. Then there will be darkness and nothing but the howl of Discordia and the cries of the can toi" - From Song of Susannah
Sorry, you're not gonna get All_Hail to say what his least favorite is; I think his life depends upon pretending to like every single book equally. If he dares stray from that notion, who knows what maight happen . . . *gasp!*
That being said, I am not life-dependant on anything, so I can easily say what my least favorite of the series is, and it sure as hell is NOT Wastelands. In fact, I think TT ight be the first person here I have ever read type that they hate this book. Very interesting. Hey, at least it's an original thought 'round these parts. Pretty refreshing, really, because I remember at least back in the .net days that the opinions were either "I love the last three books" or "I hate the last three books."
.
The only complaint I had about the book was that they never actually went into the wastelands. They just rode over them. You've got to admit that it would have been cool if Blaine had crashed halfway through and the ka-tet had to battle monsters and try to get out as fast as they can before they are irreparably damaged by the poison fumes of the territory.
"I serve only one masta: DAAKNESS" - Peter Boil, Swashbuckler
that's what I would have hated! action instead of talks??? not for the bear!
Ask not what bears can do for you, but what you can do for bears. (razz)
When one is in agreement with bears one is always correct. (mae)
bears are back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Song of Suzannah always felt like a bridging book to me. While all the others stand on their own to a greater or lesser extent, Book 6 is just a connector between Calla and the Tower. It didn't have its own climax, and it didn't have a true beginning (the way the Wolves of Calla did, that started like a independent book that the Ka-Tet wander into...) and things are moving too fast at the end. While this vexed me between Waste Lands and Wizard, (because of the darn wait between the books) it felt worse between Song and Tower. Maybe I was just getting seriously strung out in my Tower Addiction around then!
blaine can heeeeaaaaaaaaaar you.
How did I miss this post?
I don't think Dud-a-chum even posts on this board anymore but just in case he does and reads this someday ------------------------------------------------------------
---- -- ---- --------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------- and may you have nightmares that drive you slowly mad over the rest of your life.
Last edited by Wuducynn; 07-22-2008 at 08:05 AM. Reason: Being nice to Hannah
"It's his eyes, Roland thought. They were wide and terrible, the eyes of a dragon in human form" - Roland seeing the Crimson King for the first time.
"When the King comes and the Tower falls, sai, all such pretty things as yours will be broken. Then there will be darkness and nothing but the howl of Discordia and the cries of the can toi" - From Song of Susannah
Waste lands was great i love the scenery in it you could almost smell the decay of the city and the spooky feelings in The Cradle. you get a real sense of how Rolands world has moved on
Its been a while but isn't Waste lands were we are fist introduced to North Central Positronics ?
Yeah this is a great book. This was the first book where I really started to feel that Roland's world was a real place in it's own right, rather than the dream world we had in the previous books. Ok, the backflash sequences in The Gunslinger were the first to paint a real world, but the present day stuff was very dreamlike.
The only part I didnt enjoy of this book was.... ready for it? Aunt Talitha <gasp>. Thats right, that whole scene in that town bored the crap out of me.
That part didn't bore me, but I really didn't like Aunt Talitha as a character.
I have no faith in human perfectability. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active - not more happy - nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. - Edgar Allan Poe
Bunch together a group of people deliberately chosen for strong religious feelings, and you have a practical guarantee of dark morbidities expressed in crime, perversion, and insanity. - H.P. Lovecraft
i agree with you, TT, but it seems that we are in the minority here. i've never understood the love that this book gets. i dislike all of the whining roland and jake do because of their messed up timelines. roland seems like such a sissy at the beginning. in DT1 he was so cool. he was a gunslinger. walked into town, slayed it cause they turned on him. dropped the kid cause he got in the way. in DT2, he had to deal with an addict, 2 crazy women, and a demented pucher, and yet he still finds time to slay some BA mobsters sans 2 fingers. he's awesome. DT3 "i'll never leave you again" nonsense. BAH. where is the roland of DT1 and 2? he's abrely the same. than we get to lud. i actually like lud, the environment and the peopel are cool. but i couldn't care less for roland's chase of jake through the city. it doesn't feel DT1. i like Blaine, kinda. he's ok. no real issues with him. terrible cliffhanger ending. none of the other ones really do that (except SoS, i'll get to that in a sec). next up, WaG. true, it shows that he cares for someone not so unlike DT3, but this roland is still closer to DT1's roland. the massacre at eyebolt canyon? the bar scene with the BCH? yeah, he loves susan and there's mushy mushy lovey dovey stuff, but he's not whimpering like he does in DT3. roland should never whimper. WotC. good book. good battle. some would say that there's a cliffhanger, but i don't think so. everything after the battle was either tieing up of the plot, or a lead in to the next (whereas DT3's cliffhanger was a cliffhanger. the climax never seemed to really happen. blaine was apart of the climax, and it cut off. coulda been pulled off better) SoS. bridge book. doesn't really offer anything important to Dt imho. it could easily have been absorbed in DT7. my second least fav cause i don't really consider it it's own book, but i still see it above DT3. cliffhanger was irittating, book didn't go anywhere and ended before it could. DT7. perfecto. so much happened, ending was terriffic. some will say, judging by my past criticisms of whimpering "what about roland crying over jakes grave?". these tears are understandable. at this point, they have been together and done so much. they are friends, brothers, compatriots. can not one soldiar mourn for his fallen mates? but in DT3, what had they done? in DT1 they talked and jake fell. they didn't really do anything. and jake didn't return until DT3, any tears there are unwarranted.
don't get me wrong, i love all the books, but DT3 feels tainted. to use a good metaphore for it, i feel that DT3 is the flaw in the diamond that is the DT series.
So it goes.
"There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all. "
- Oscar Wilde
That's why many of us are so crazy about this book. Because as you have written: "they didn't really do anything..." but they spent so much time together they palavered a lot they were getting closer and closer to each other.
Roland would have understood.
they may have gotton close, but i serious;ly doubt, from what i remmeber of DT1, that they could have gooton close enough for roland to cry over jake. he dropped him without a second thought! i'm sorry, but i can't see the source of the tears in DT3 judging by roland's actions in the previous 2 books.
So it goes.
"There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all. "
- Oscar Wilde
absolutely! being (probably, though I never measured them action-wise, because I couldn't care less) the least "action-packed", it seems, to me at least, the most "packed" with regard to everything else - like characters, or main concepts, or the fabrics of the world - and, of course, just the pure enjoyment I got from every page. (Nikolett: I bet you also loved the "tedious and monotonous" ride on Blaine - because it was superb!)
Ask not what bears can do for you, but what you can do for bears. (razz)
When one is in agreement with bears one is always correct. (mae)
bears are back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I might misunderstand you so please feel free to correct me but when he dropped Jake there was no ka-tet at all. Roland met Eddie and Susannah in DotT and they became a true ka-tet in this very book. And one of the biggest action was when Roland was working to save Jake from the Tick-Tock Man.
I don't say that Roland became a big-hearted unselfish life-guard in this book but he did show love an respect to the others.
Roland would have understood.
but the love and respect for eddie and susannah are waranted. eddie and roland had their whole thing with balazar. eddie dragged roladn up the beach. respect adn love are understandable. love and respect for susannah came of the trials and tribulations of detta and odetta. i can see him loving and respecting those two, but i can't see it for jake.
So it goes.
"There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all. "
- Oscar Wilde
Warranted? Why would it be? From such a man as Roland love is almost a miracle. He was a killing machine without a soul for hunderds of years.
Anyway I don't think that love is ever warranted. I mean it isn't such an easy thing.. to open your heart to someone.
For my part I do remember parts when Roland had really nice thoughts with touchable feelings about Jake in this book. So it's not just an opinion.
I will try to find them because I guess I know where I should look for them.
The way I see it Roland always loved and respected Jake. From the very beginning.
Roland would have understood.