The Gunslinger by Steven King

So I have just finished reading The Gunslinger by Steven King. It is the first book in The Dark Tower series.

And boy was it as slog.

Most books I find that after I get through the first forty to fifty pages it starts to get good and I breeze through the rest. I didn’t get into in the story till the last 1/4 of the book. 

I spent a lot of time thinking about this recently¹. When reading the preamble by the author he says he wrote it when he was very young. And I think I can relate. You can see his preoccupation with using big fancy words at the beginning. I would have to have several extra arms to be able to count on my fingers the amount of time I was stopped by ‘What does that word mean?’

I am by no means poor in my vocabulary but even I double take with word choices. One of my colleges at work said how much he enjoyed but had read it in one or two nights when he was younger. And you know I think I get that. When you speed through a novel you will miss a lot of the mistakes it to get more of the story. Make no mistake the story and world of The Dark Tower that Mr King ² creates entertains and is evocative. It is just the beginning that is a bit of a slog.

The only reason that bring I it up is because it was such a shock compared to ‘The Collapsing Empire’ by John Scalzi. It strikes home that writing in plain english is the best way to get your story across. When you jam your story full of pointlessly complex vocabulary you end up confusing the reader and halting the story effects.

I will also note that ‘The Collapsing Empire’ is my favourite book of 2017 so far.

1. I was ill and had not much else to do. Booo the Lurgy.
2. Stephen is to informal, like someone you go to the pub with. So I shall call him Mr King.