FOREWORD Many of the people holding <strong>this</strong> book have followed the adventures of Roland and his band—his ka-tet—<strong>for</strong> years, some of them from the very beginning. Others—and I hope there are many, newcomers and Constant Readers alike—may ask, Can I read and enjoy <strong>this</strong> story if I haven’t read the other Dark Tower books? My answer is yes, if <strong>you</strong> keep a few things in mind. First, Mid-World lies next to our world, and there are many overlaps. In some places there are doorways between the two worlds, and sometimes there are thin places, porous places, where the two worlds actually mingle. Three of Roland’s ka-tet—Eddie, Susannah, and Jake—have been drawn separately from troubled lives in New York into Roland’s Mid-World quest. Their fourth traveling companion, a billy-bumbler named Oy, is a golden-eyed creature native to Mid-World. Mid-World is very old, and falling to ruin, filled with monsters and untrustworthy magic. Second, Roland Deschain of Gilead is a gunslinger—one of a small band that tries to keep order in an increasingly lawless world. If <strong>you</strong> think of the gunslingers of Gilead as a strange combination of knights errant and territorial marshals in the Old West, <strong>you</strong>’ll be close to the mark. Most of them, although not all, are descended from the line of the old White King, known as Arthur Eld (I told <strong>you</strong> there were overlaps). Third, Roland has lived his life under a terrible curse. He killed his mother, who was having an affair—mostly against her will, and certainly against her better judgment—with a fellow <strong>you</strong> will meet in these pages. Although it was by mistake, he holds himself accountable, and the unhappy Gabrielle Deschain’s death has haunted him since his <strong>you</strong>ng manhood. These events are fully narrated in the Dark Tower cycle, but <strong>for</strong> our purposes here, I think it’s all <strong>you</strong> have to know. For longtime readers, <strong>this</strong> book should be shelved between Wizard and Glass and Wolves of the Calla . . . which makes it, I suppose, Dark Tower 4.5. As <strong>for</strong> me, I was delighted to discover my old friends had a little more to say. It was a great gift to find them again, years after I thought their stories were told. —Stephen King September 14, 2011
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- Page 2 and 3: In The Wind Through the Keyhole, St
- Page 4 and 5: OTHER DARK TOWER-RELATED WORKS BY S
- Page 7 and 8: SCRIBNER A Division of Simon & Schu
- Page 9: CONTENTS Foreword Starkblast The Sk
- Page 13 and 14: Oy was beyond them, at the edge of
- Page 15 and 16: That volume, Magic Tales of the Eld
- Page 17 and 18: The town well was on the other side
- Page 19 and 20: “Come,” Roland said. “Eat.”
- Page 21 and 22: Not long after the death of my moth
- Page 23 and 24: At that moment, we were thrown forw
- Page 25 and 26: “They may still be a year or more
- Page 27 and 28: world we grew up in, young men, the
- Page 29 and 30: on, hide them, then come back to th
- Page 31 and 32: wheels farther north, were the rock
- Page 33 and 34: uried—buried in people’s minds
- Page 35 and 36: and it grabs the men . . . it grabs
- Page 37 and 38: “I guess you know all about these
- Page 39 and 40: THE WIND THROUGH THE KEYHOLE
- Page 41 and 42: “I don’t know what you mean.”
- Page 43 and 44: seemed to do it without knowing the
- Page 45 and 46: to think about reading the Widow Sm
- Page 47 and 48: the drink, and he promised me, but
- Page 49 and 50: I’ll count to a hundred and then
- Page 51 and 52: Tim barely noticed. “I have to go
- Page 53 and 54: nightgown, but now the neck and bos
- Page 55 and 56: This time Tim had taken Misty, and
- Page 57 and 58: Covenant Man had made any particula
- Page 59 and 60: The moon was down when Tim dismount
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If that wasn’t bad enough, there
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ight hand—the one not holding the
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They rose and scrambled back into t
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“Use the green navigation sensor,
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Daria didn’t reply, but Tim didn
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It was the end of the joke, and som
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tyger’s bib had been, turned into
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He skirted the town, for he didn’
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*Which sounds like S, in the Low Sp
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“She told him not to look at what
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They drew back, Pickens glaring at
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I walked him to the door, and spoke
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Ang twisted from the chin up. I don
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the pigeon-ink in which they had be
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1 “That night,” Roland said,
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AFTERWORD In the High Speech, Gabri