Stephen King - The Waste Lands (The Dark Tower, Book 3)

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Table of Contents

In 1978, Stephen King introduced the world to the last gunslinger, Roland of Gilead. Nothing has been the same since. More than twenty years later, the quest for the Dark Tower continues to take readers on a wildly epic ride. Through parallel worlds and across time, Roland must brave desolate wastelands and endless deserts, drifting into the unimaginable and the familiar. A classic tale of colossal scopecrossing over terrain from The Stand, The Eyes of the Dragon, Insomnia, The Talisman, Black House, Hearts in Atlantis,Salems Lot, and other familiar King hauntsthe adventure takes hold with the turn of each page.

And the tower awaits....

The Third Volume in the Epic Dark Tower Series...

The Waste Lands

Roland, the last gunslinger, moves ever closer to the Dark Tower of his dreams and nightmares as he travels through city and country in Mid-Worlda macabre world that is a twisted image of our own. With him are those he has drawn to this world: street-smart Eddie and courageous, wheelchair-bound Susannah.

Ahead of him are mind-bending revelations about who and what is driving him. Against him is arrayed a swelling legion of foesboth more and less than human....

Gripping... compelling.... King mesmerizes the reader.

Chicago Sun-Times

ALSO BY STEPHEN KING

NOVELS

Carrie
Salems Lot
The Shining
The Stand
The Dead Zone
Firestarter
Cujo

THE DARK TOWER I:
The Gunslinger
Christine
Pet Sematary
Cycle of the Werewolf
The Talisman
(with Peter Straub)
It
The Eyes of the Dragon
Misery
The Tommyknockers

THE DARK TOWER II:
The Drawing
of the Three

THE DARK TOWER III:
The Waste Lands
The Dark Half
Needful Things
Geralds Game
Dolores Claiborne
Insomnia
Rose Madder
Desperation
The Green Mile

THE DARK TOWER IV:
Wizard and Glass
Bag of Bones
The Girl Who Loved
Tom Gordon
Dreamcatcher
Black House
(with Peter Straub)
From a Buick 8

AS RICHARD BACHMAN
Rage
The Long Walk
Roadwork
The Running Man
Thinner
The Regulators

COLLECTIONS
Night Shift
Different Seasons
Skeleton Crew
Four Past Midnight
Nightmares and
Dreamscapes
Hearts in Atlantis
Everythings Eventual

NONFICTION
Danse Macabre
On Writing

SCREENPLAYS
Creepshow
Cats Eye
Silver Bullet
Maximum Overdrive
Pet Sematary
Golden Years
Sleepwalkers
The Stand
The Shining
Rose Red
Storm of the Century

This third volume of the tale
is gratefully dedicated to my son
OWEN PHILIP KING:
Khef, Ka, and Ka-tet.

INTRODUCTION

ON BEING NINETEEN (AND A FEW OTHER THINGS)

I

Hobbits were big when I was nineteen (a number of some import in the stories you are about to read).

There were probably half a dozen Merrys and Pippins slogging through the mud at Max Yasgurs farm during the Great Woodstock Music Festival, twice as many Frodos, and hippie Gandalfs without number. J.R.R. Tolkiens The Lord of the Rings was madly popular in those days, and while I never made it to Woodstock (say sorry), I suppose I was at least a halfling-hippie. Enough of one, at any rate, to have read the books and fallen in love with them. The Dark Tower books, like most long fantasy tales written by men and women of my generation (The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, by Stephen Donaldson, and The Sword of Shannara, by Terry Brooks, are just two of many), were born out of Tolkiens.

But although I read the books in 1966 and 1967, I held off writing. I responded (and with rather touching wholeheartedness) to the sweep of Tolkiens imaginationto the ambition of his storybut I wanted to write my own kind of story, and had I started then, I would have written his. That, as the late Tricky Dick Nixon was fond of saying, would have been wrong. Thanks to Mr. Tolkien, the twentieth century had all the elves and wizards it needed.

In 1967, I didnt have any idea what my kind of story might be, but that didnt matter; I felt positive Id know it when it passed me on the street. I was nineteen and arrogant. Certainly arrogant enough to feel I could wait a little while on my muse and my masterpiece (as I was sure it would be). At nineteen, it seems to me, one has a right to be arrogant; time has usually not begun its stealthy and rotten subtractions. It takes away your hair and your jump-shot, according to a popular country song, but in truth it takes away a lot more than that. I didnt know it in 1966 and 67, and if I had, I wouldnt have cared. I could imaginebarelybeing forty, but fifty? No. Sixty? Never! Sixty was out of the question. And at nineteen, thats just the way to be. Nineteen is the age where you say Look out, world, Im smokin TNT and Im drinkin dynamite, so if you know whats good for ya, get out of my wayhere comes Stevie.

Nineteens a selfish age and finds ones cares tightly circumscribed. I had a lot of reach, and I cared about that. I had a lot of ambition, and I cared about that. I had a typewriter that I carried from one shit-hole apartment to the next, always with a deck of smokes in my pocket and a smile on my face. The compromises of middle age were distant, the insults of old age over the horizon. Like the protagonist in that Bob Seger song they now use to sell the trucks, I felt endlessly powerful and endlessly optimistic; my pockets were empty, but my head was full of things I wanted to say and my heart was full of stories I wanted to tell. Sounds corny now; felt wonderful then. Felt very cool. More than anything else I wanted to get inside my readers defenses, wanted to rip them and ravish them and change them forever with nothing but story. And I felt I could do those things. I felt I had been made to do those things.

How conceited does that sound? A lot or a little? Either way, I dont apologize. I was nineteen. There was not so much as a strand of gray in my beard. I had three pairs of jeans, one pair of boots, the idea that the world was my oyster, and nothing that happened in the next twenty years proved me wrong. Then, around the age of thirty-nine, my troubles set in: drink, drugs, a road accident that changed the way I walked (among other things). Ive written about them at length and need not write about them here. Besides, its the same for you, right? The world eventually sends out a mean-ass Patrol Boy to slow your progress and show you whos boss. You reading this have undoubtedly met yours (or will); I met mine, and Im sure hell be back. Hes got my address. Hes a mean guy, a Bad Lieutenant, the sworn enemy of goofery, fuckery, pride, ambition, loud music, and all things nineteen.

But I still think thats a pretty fine age. Maybe the best age. You can rock and roll all night, but when the music dies out and the beer wears off, youre able to think. And dream big dreams. The mean Patrol Boy cuts you down to size eventually, and if you start out small, why, theres almost nothing left but the cuffs of your pants when hes done with you. Got another one! he shouts, and strides on with his citation book in his hand. So a little arrogance (or even a lot) isnt such a bad thing, although your mother undoubtedly told you different. Mine did.

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