Wow! Just finished this one. I'm really into this series now. Loved the way they brought Jake back into Roland's world. And who here doesn't just love Oy? And did anyone else have that "WTF!" reaction when Randall Flagg showed up? He didn't call himself Flagg of course, but you could tell it was him.
Is Roland’s world really flat? He draws the position of the twelve Guardians around the edge of a circle representing the world and shows how the central point where lines joining the portals meet is the point where the Dark Tower is. But in order for this to work, particularly once they start following the Beam, the world has to be flat unless the twelve portals are also in the same place.
A writing/proof-reading error: after Eddie has created the door which will bring Jake back to them, he looks through the keyhole and then calls, “Hurry up Jake! For Christ’s sake, move it!” A page or two later we see the same moment from Jake’s perspective on the other side of the door, but Jake hears Eddie shout: “Hurry up Jake! For Christ’s sake, hurry up!”
The arrival of the Walkin’ Dude was a total shock – I really hadn’t seen that coming. The thought that Walter has predicted someone worse than him at the Tower itself isn’t a cheery one! However, I did find myself wondering whether anyone who hasn’t read “The Stand” would have wondered what on earth this character was all about.
But despite the appearance of ‘Richard Fannin’, for me the scariest ‘character’ in this episode was Blaine. Introducing him so near the end and leaving the story on a cliffhanger was a master stroke – is there anyone who’s read so far who wouldn’t buy the next book just to find out how the train ride progresses?
This was one of only two books where I sat up way later than I really wanted to, forcing my eyes to stay open so that I could get to the end! Then when I got there, I wished I hadn’t because it was such a cliff-hanging ending and there was no knowing when Stephen would get round to writing the next episode.
I loved that moment when the ageless stranger comes to pick up the Tick-Tock Man.
"What do you say; Shake the hand that shook the world?"
Too bad Tick-Tock was wasted, in more ways then one in the next book.
It's been a while since I've read this book, but does this, or any other Dark Tower feature a turtle? I have vague memories of there being one somewhere, and I ask because I've been reading IT over the past few days, and there one bit where a guy is talking to his wife, and just out of nowhere he kinda blanks out, and then says "The turtle couldn't help us." And we all know how mister King likes to tie everything together.........
The Turtle is one of the twelve Guardians of the portals and, IIRC, is opposite to the Bear from where our heroes start along the route to the Dark Tower.
It's been a while since I've read this, but I recall being bugged by it at the time. When the prime number riddle is explained, they forgot that one is not a prime number. I believe the rationale is that a prime number has exactly two whole number factors, one and itself. One has only one whole number factor (i.e. itself).