Just Finished Rereading The Drawing of the Three by Stephen King

The Drawing of the Three, the second novel in Stephen King's fantasy/science fiction series The Dark Tower, came out in 1987...the series is loosely based on Robert Browning's 1852 narrative poem Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came.  I probably need to interject here that since this is the second volume of a series, then my following discussion of it will necessarily involve giving away some of what happens in the first book...in other words, spoiler alert! The protagonist, a nobleman-turned-gunslinger named Roland Deschain, is from an alternate universe, having grown into maturity on a world that has "moved on" and is in a state of decline and stagnation...although from time to time there is evidence of a previous, technologically advanced society.  Roland is seeking the Dark Tower, an edifice that holds all of reality together...but it has an unwelcome occupant, the Crimson King, whose nefarious ends threaten that reality.  Roland's chief adversary on his quest has been the sorcerer Walter or "The Man in Black", who at the close of the previous book The Gunslinger revealed to him that he will be drawing three people into his life.  In this second book, Roland awakes on the western beach and is attacked by a huge predatory crustacean he calls "lobstrosity"...this sets into motion a life-or-death struggle for him as he also tries to find a remedy for the infection the monster's bites have inflicted on him.  To this end he encounters a door standing by itself on the beach...by entering it he also enters into the mind of Eddie Dean, a heroin addict from New York in the 1980s.  As the story develops, so does the adventure with another figure, Odetta Susanna Holmes, representing the second character to be drawn, from a second door down the shore.  Like Eddie, she is also to be found in New York City...but unlike him her time is in the early 1960s...and she has a dual personality in Detta Walker.  Eddie and Odetta/Detta generate enough drama for Roland to have to deal with while trying to both find medicine for himself as well as keep his body on the door's other side from being eaten by the lobstrosities.  But there is yet a third door, and Walter's prophecy only states to Roland that the third to be drawn is "Death, but not for you".  And thus approaches the book's climactic scene...

The Drawing of the Three enhances the depth of the Dark Tower series by introducing these two pretty complicated characters as they interact with Roland and one another.  On the other hand, although the idea of doors as portals into other realities seemed really cool to me the way Stephen King presented them, I still found the whole idea of Roland's quest and the doors kind of preposterous.  But, after all, it's just a story and I thoroughly dug this book...as well as the series as a whole: what a ride!  Now, on to Book Three, titled The Waste Lands...