It is a story within a story, which features both the younger and older gunslinger Roland on his quest to find the Dark Tower. Fans of the existing seven books in the series will also delight in discovering what happened to Roland and his ka-tet between the time they leave the Emerald City and arrive at the outskirts of Calla Bryn Sturgis.

This Russian Doll of a novel, visits Mid-World's last gunslinger, Roland Deschain, and his ka-tet as a ferocious storm halts their progress along the Path of the Beam. Roland tells a tale from his early days as a gunslinger, in the guilt ridden year following his mother's death. Sent by his father to investigate evidence of a murderous shape shifter, a 'skin man,' Roland takes charge of Bill Streeter, a brave but terrified boy who is the sole surviving witness to the beast's most recent slaughter. Roland, himself only a teenager, calms the boy by reciting a story from the Book of Eld that his mother used to read to him at bedtime, 'The Wind through the Keyhole.' 'A person's never too old for stories,' he says to Bill. 'Man and boy, girl and woman, we live for them.' And stories like these, they live for us.
A gem of a novel, enchanting and enchanted . . . King is utterly at home in Mid-World, and the cadences and rhythms of the vernacular he has created provide a language fitting for the stories and legends he recounts. - Guardian

[A] phantasmagorical folk tale . . . King's ability to entertain and unsettle cannot be denied. The skill with which he delivers a shock or sense of gothic terror is simply unmatched - Independent on Sunday

Perfectly balanced: another excellent example of King's sheer skill as a storyteller. - Daily Express

Like John Steinbeck, he's an unfussy writer whose voice is rooted equally in the rhythms of everyday speech and the mythic made manifest in everyday life. Indeed, reading King, you often sense the presence of the dustbowl America of The Grapes of Wrath . . . a King novel has a sparse elegance that most novelists never achieve in a whole career. Put it down to the insistent, economical and wholly distinctive authorial voice. - SFX Magazine

A frantic-paced puzzle-box adventure that encompasses gunslinger Roland Deschain's early years, werewolves and powerful storytelling. - Shortlist

King is one of the great popular artists of our time. - Independent

Classic King, fine characters, compellingly written in a gripping, well-honed plot - Daily Express on WOLVES OF THE CALLA

Superbly energetic, it's King at his best. - Mail on Sunday on WIZARD AND GLASS
At the age of 19 Stephen decided he would like to write an epic similar to Tolkien. The 'spaghetti Westerns' of that time and a poem written by Robert Browning, 'Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came', became the inspiration for his magnum opus. The series written and published separately over a period of 22 years consists of seven books and the short story, 'The Little Sisters of Eluria' published in his short story collection, EVERYTHING'S EVENTUAL.