Complete Stephen King Universe A Guide to the Worlds of Stephen King

Section One The Worlds of The Dark Tower and The Stand The Dark Tower series is the core of the Stephen King Universe, and the axis upon which our entire thesis for this book rotates. Though the majority of the author's work takes place in the parallel reality dimension that contains King's fictional towns Castle Rock, Derry, and others, the parallel reality of Roland the Gunslingerand by extension that of The Standis much more fundamental. Just as, in the series itself, The Dark Tower is the point of time, space, and reality where all dimensions meet, the spindle of creation, so are most of King's works then an outcropping of the Dark Tower series, which was conceived as early as 1970. Nearly all of King's heroes and all of his villains, scattered across the various parallel realities, are involved in a single cosmic conflict, with the Tower as the ultimate prize. Although Stephen King worked on the Dark Tower series for three decades, consciously and unconsciously weaving it in and out of his other writings, a great many of his readers are likely to have missed its prominence. Just as the Tower itself binds all realities together, this series of stories and concepts is the center of the Stephen King Universe, the many fictional worlds he has created. And it all started with a poem. King read Robert Browning's "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" (1855) for a class assignment in his sophomore year (1967/68) at the University of Maine at Orono. In March of 1970, the year he graduated, he began the first novel in the series, The Gunslinger. He continued to work on that novel over the course of the next twelve years, even while he was writing some of his best-loved works, including 'Salem's Lot (1975), The Shining (1977), and The Stand (1978). Did he realize, then, at the start of the process, that it would be all of a piece, all bits of a single story? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But it is. In the fourth volume, Wizard and Glass (1997), he at last came to that conclusion. In the afterword, he states: I have written enough novels and short stories to fill a solar system of the imagination, but Roland's story is my Jupitera planet that dwarfs all the others . . . I am coming to understand that Roland's world (or worlds) actually contains all the others of my making; there is a place in Mid-World for Randall Flagg, Ralph Roberts, the wandering boys from The Eyes of the Dragon, even Father Callahan, the damned priest from 'Salem's Lot. In the latter volumes, the truth of this collision of worlds becomes incarnate, as characters from 'Salem's Lot, Hearts in Atlantis, and others all enter into the saga as significant characters, all from different worlds, and as Stephen King himself is drawn into the series as a character, the author a part of his own magnum opus. It is all of a piece. Herein, we shall discuss the books in this series and those related to it, how they are interrelated and interconnected, and how they touch upon and are likewise touched upon by other of the author's works. The history of the Dark Tower series is this: In a place called Mid-Worldwhich might be the future of a world much like our own, or a separate reality entirelythe land is divided into Baronies, some ruled by an honorable rank of men called gunslingers, much like knights. One of the jewels of Mid-world is Gilead, whose lord is Steven Deschain, a gunslinger descended from the bloodline of Arthur Eld, who had united much of Mid-world in ancient times (King Arthur, of course). But during Steven's time, a new threat arises. JohnWiater, Stanley is the author of 'Complete Stephen King Universe A Guide to the Worlds of Stephen King', published 2006 under ISBN 9780312324902 and ISBN 0312324901.