Daniel (@dungeondive) closes out this stretch of The Ran(King) of King with 1991’s The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands. With the ka-tet finally assembled, they journey from a science-fiction wilderness (the giant robot bear Shardik) through a frontier town and a haunted house into a corrupted “Tomorrowland,” learning the lore of the twelve portals, the Guardians, and the Beams — King’s distinctive approach of revealing his world as the quest unfolds, not before it.
This, he argues, is where the saga’s central theme crystallises: the importance of fiction, and how the real world, King’s “Keystone” world, and Roland’s world bleed into one another (Shardik via Richard Adams; the city of Lud nodding to Hope Mirrlees). He delights in tracing the books and artists King references — a habit that sends him to Adams’ Shardik, Thornton Wilder’s The Bridge of San Luis Rey, and the work of fantasy illustrators Ned Dameron and Michael Whelan. His favourite parts are Jake’s existential return in New York, the cosmic Rose, and the arrival of Oy the billy-bumbler, capped by the infamous Blaine the Mono cliffhanger.
Once his series favourite, it has slipped on rereads — landing below IT, the first Dark Tower book not at the summit.
Where does The Waste Lands sit for you among the Dark Tower books — and do you, like Daniel, chase down every author a favourite writer name-drops?