The Wastelands

The Wastelands is King's third entry in the Dark Tower series. It is here that King finally delves into the world he created whereas in the first two books we saw characters be introduced and storylines created that will be followed through for the rest of the series. We finally get to learn of the plight of Mid-World, the universe in which the Dark Tower series is set. Mid-World is a strange place that is literally being torn apart at the seams by time. The land is dying, the people are going insane, and computers begin developing humanity and use it to torture large populations of people into murdering each other. If this all seems, pardon the phrase, out of this world, then welcome to Stephen King's mind. This is just the third stop. The main appeal of this novel definitely is the world King has created. The Gunslinger's ka-tet have entered a familiarity with each other after the insanity that happened with the last novel. We know the ka-tet won't be broken up by personal problems but rather external forces this time. A main part of the novel is travel. Essentially, the novel is a road novel. We learn about the land around us and what is at stake at the Dark Tower. Depending on how much you like getting lost in another world (in my case, a whole lot), this novel will be either hit or miss. In terms of story, not much happens other than the characters getting from A to B, but in terms of fleshing out the world, you get a whole lot of landmarks and monuments to marvel at. While this novel doesn't rival Drawing of the Three in terms of intensity or set-pieces, it is still entertaining enough to make you want to return for the next book. It also doesn't help that the novel ends on a pretty huge cliffhanger.

Under the Dome

One of the longest of King's novels, Under the Dome will go by a whole lot faster than you would think. The plot of the novel is a classic story that wouldn't be out of place in a Twilight Zone episode: a mysterious forcefield appears around a small Maine town, cutting the people off from the rest of the world. The plot is simple, but King's approach to it is far from it. A master of characterization, King uses this claustrophobic setting to pit each character against each other. Alliances are made and broken, riots break out, and government cracks down. All of this is played inside a town that gradually begins to feel the effects of pollution that is unable to escape the mystical forcefield thus giving the novel an environmental message. King has a lot on his mind in his book. He criticizes politics, governments, authority, foreign policy, and everything in between as he weaves his narrative back and forth through a cast of fifty or so characters. Perhaps what is most on King's mind is the idea of man being the worst monster of all. While King's supernatural novels such as IT and The Shining are good, nothing is more terrifying than what man can do to each other. King delves deep into the distorted minds of the sociopathic and psychotic in this book and it is this understanding of such a mind that makes this novel such a terrifying read. Reading this book isn't going to make you afraid of things that go bump in the night. Instead, it's going to make you afraid of the people around you and that is a much more unsettling feeling than any monster underneath my bed.

Drawing of the Three

The second book in King's Dark Tower series, Drawing of the Three is a noticeable improvement on the first entry. King is more confident in his abilities as a writer, and his pacing is vastly improved. Starting off immediately (though that's tough to explain...read it and you'll understand) after the end of The Gunslinger, this novel finds our hero, Roland, trying to gather the remaining members of his ka-tet in order to continue onwards in his quest of reaching the Dark Tower. A ka-tet is a group of individuals gathered together by fate in order to perform an extraordinary task. Essentially, a ka-tet is the King version of the Fellowship of the Ring. The first thing you'll notice in this book (and the series as a whole) is that King is emulating the classic fantasy stories: we've got the fellowship setting out on a dangerous journey to save the world, an evil wizard, magic weapons, monsters, etc. But what sets these fantasy book apart from others is that bit of magic we like to call Stephen King. Make no mistake, these books are written by King. For instance: in this book, Roland must travel to our universe in order to gather together his ka-tet. These people consist of a heroin addict in over his head in a crime syndicate in New York City in the seventies and a crippled black women who has multiple personalities: one is a well-educated and well-spoken businesswoman, and the other one is an extremely vulgar, extremely angry woman who speaks in ebonics and constantly feels threatened by "white boys." This is just a taste of what to expect from a fantasy series penned by King. It's a shame that The Gunslinger is such a poor start to this series because Drawing of the Three is an extremely clever, extremely original piece of fantasy literature that more than makes up for its predecessor's missteps. I encourage all readers to push through the mediocre first novel because the reward is well worth the effort.

Animation

Pictures

With this image, I wanted to focus on the barbed wire. I "straightened" the image to straighten the barbed wire and make it the focus of the picture. I then toyed with some of the adjustments such as definition and saturation in order to make it stand out. I also blurred the edges of the photo to draw focus to the center of the picture: the barbed wire.

With this piece, I wanted to make the woman appear very lonely. I did this by changing the bright sky to what essentially appears to be the night sky. I increased definition and lowered the saturation of the image in order to make the woman stand out from the background and also because it gives a nice outline of the bridge's sides that kind of act as a prison of sorts for the woman.

I wanted to make this photograph appear extremely aged, so I used the sepia effect quite a bit. I also saturated the colors a bit to make it appear faded and lowered the highlighting to blur the sun and decreased definition as a whole.

I wanted to make this man appear a bit more larger-than life. I achieved this by cropping out the rest of the white background, increasing the definition of his features, making the photo appear brighter, and using the vignette effect which draws focus to the center of the picture

With this picture, I wanted the focus to be on the man and how powerful he is. To do this, I cropped out the left side of the image and "straightened" the image which put the man in the upper right quadrant of the picture, making him extremely powerful. I also toyed with the tone and temperature of the sky in order to give it a painterly feel to it which suggests a sort of fantastical element to the photo.

I wanted this photo to look a bit aged, but not too much, so I made it black and white. I also wanted more focus on the girl and her face, so I increased definition and contrast in order for her to stand out of the shot more.

I wanted a cute, romantic feel to this picture. To do this, I blurred the edges of the photo and used the vignette effect because it kind of frames the picture in a heart form. I also increased the temperature a bit to warm up the look of the photo and make it nice and comfortable-feeling.

The Gunslinger

The first entry in the Dark Tower series  (what King himself has referred to as his magnum opus), The Gunslinger was written back when King was just a lowly college student and it shows. The story of a man racing across the desert to confront “The Man in Black” and learn the way to the Dark Tower is interesting, but there are several problems with King’s writing that, thankfully, he has improved on over the course of his career. Pacing problems abound in this novel, making a two-hundred page book feel much longer than it should be. King spends long passages describing the unchanging landscape of a desert and little is revealed of the man as the story progresses. The sparse dialogue that is in this story is stilted and unrealistic. These two large problems aside, though, The Gunslinger is a good book. The world-building here sets the stage for the massive universe of Mid-World in which this series takes place. The concept of a story that consists mostly of a man chasing after an unnamed villain is intriguing in itself and as long as you can get past the sophomoric execution, this book leads into a series of novels that are an absolute joy to read and are filled with great characters and set pieces that would put some action movie directors to shame. Stick it out with this book and you will be rewarded with the rest of the series. 

IT

It is widely considered to be one of King’s best works, and for good reason. At over a thousand pages, it’s definitely his most involving story. A simple story about good and evil, It jumps back and forth in time between a group of adults and their children selves as they try to defeat an ancient evil that has been murdering the children of their home town for thousands of years. Considering this book can be used alternatively as a door stop, this story can appear to be a bit of a grind due to its simplicity, but King somehow manages to avoid this problem by dedicating a majority of the pages to character development. These characters are perhaps King’s most believable, human characters. They love, they hate, they struggle through problems we have all had. And this is just the adults; their childhood selves are just as beautifully written and King’s passages on the growing pains of puberty as well as the profound beauty of a child’s look on the world are painfully accurate and poignant. It’s as if King never grew up. We truly care for these characters and King knows this. It also contains the most scares per page in a King book. Some of the scenes between the entity called It (which appears in a variety of grotesque forms including a maniacal clown, an ancient mummy, and a giant spider) and the children will deeply unnerve any veteran of horror literature. It’s clear King is having fun trying to unsettle his readers and he is at the top of his game when he’s having fun. If you have the time this tome requires, I highly suggest starting your King journey with this book. It contains all of the classic aspects of King: small-town life, good vs evil, and well-developed characters. This is classic King at his most mature and most unsettling and the experience is well worth the time requirements.