Dark Tower

I've been bogged down in the last Dark Tower book for over a month. It's not that it was bad, it's just that it was looooooonnnnnng. There are seven books in the series, which I re-read them from the beginning to get up to speed. Each of the books is roughly twice the size of the proceeding book, and the whole series is roughly one million pages. Maybe two million. I think.

At the end of the last book, Stephen King talks about how it isn't the ending that matters, but the journey. But, you know, I wanted a vacation, not the death march of Bataan.

I mean, King is always readable to me. I pretty much enjoyed the whole series. But....why did it have to be so damn long?

The metafiction aspect bothered me a little --each time King entered the story, it pulled me out of the fictional dream. But it was O.K.

I was warned that the last book sucked. I found it to be pretty good -- the ending seemed just right on to me, actually, though I can see how it may dismay people who have slogged through 1000000000000000000000000000 pages.

I read lots of mysteries -- out of sequence, I don't care. Just as long as each book is a self-contained story. I decided a few years back that I would keep to fantasy or science fiction trilogies, at worse, and wait until the author is finished. Then got suckered in by George R.R. Martins "Songs of Fire and Ice" series, which has gone four books. We waited five years for the fourth book, and another two or three for the fifth book. The Dance With Dragons is coming out on Sept. 30, 2008. Finally. At least it's on the schedule. (Best fantasy series since Lord of the Rings, in my opinion.)

Still, it's enough to send me back to reading mysteries again.