The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger

I finally completed my set of gunslinger F&SF magazines. That means I got all five magazines that had the original Gunslinger text.  First thing I did. . . pull out my earliest copy of the Gunslinger and compare the book text to the magazine text.  Were there differences?  Yes.  Mostly nothing worth noting.  Some editing had been done to make the text sharper. 

The images are not all my collection, as blogger wants to print my images sideways. Go figure.  

I'm printing the introduction and close to each story.  Also the synopsis for a couple of the stories, just because it's neat to read how King explained his work.

The Gunslinger" (October 1978) 

The Gunslinger opens with this note:

"Stephen King, author of Carrie, Salem's Lot, The Shining and  "The Night of the Tiger" (F&SF, Feb. 1978), returns with a grim and gripping fantasy about the last gunslinger and his search for The Man In Black."

The Gunslinger closes with the note:

"Thus ends what is written in the first  Book of Roland, and his Quest for the Tower which stands at the root of Time."

"The Way Station" (April 1980) 

The Way Station opens with this note:

"Stephen King is the author of the best-selling novels Salem's Lo,The Stand and most recently, The Dead Zone.  The unusual and gripping story you are about to read is a sequel to "The Gunslinger" (October 1978) and the author has provided a short synopsis of the earlier story."

SYNOPSIS: The dark days have come; the last of the lights are guttering, flickering out --in the minds of men as well as in their dwellings.  The world has moved on.  Something has, perhaps, happened to the continuum itself.  Dark things haunt the dark; communities stand alone and isolated.  Some houses, shunned, have become dens of demons.

Against this dying, twilit land-scape, the gunslinger --last of his kind, and wearing the sandalwood-in-laid pistols of his father --pursues the man in black into the desert, leaving the last, tattered vestiges of life and civilization behind.  The town of Tull, now miles and days at his back, the man in black set him a snare; reanimated a corpse and set the town against him.  The gunslinger has left  them all dead, victims of the man in black's mordant prank and the deadly mindless speed of his own hands.

Following the ashes of days-old fires, the gunslinger pursues the man in black.

He may be gaining, and it may be that the man in black knows the secret of The Dark Tower, which stands at the root of time.  For it is not ultimately the man in black which the gunslinger seeks; it is the tower.

The dark days have come.

The world has moved on.

The Way Station concludes with this note:

"This ends the second section of The Dark Tower -- the story of Roland, the last gunslinger, and his search for the Tower that stands at the root of time. 

"The Oracle and the Mountains" (February 1981) 

The Oracle and the Mountains opens with this note:

"Two earlier stories about Roland and his search for The Dark Tower are "The Gunslinger," October 1978 and "The Way Station," April 1980. We promise a much shorter wait for the fourth story, "The Slow Mutants" which is already in hand.  Mr. King's latest novel is FIRESTARTER (Viking).

SYNOPSIS: This is the third tale of Roland, the last gunslinger, and his quest for the Dark Tower which stands at the root of  time.

Time is the problem; the dark days have come and the world has moved on.  Demons haunt the dark and monsters walk in empty places. The time of light and knowledge has passed, and only remnants -- and revenants -- remain.

Against this twilit landscape, the gunslinger pursues the man in black into the desert, leaving behind the town of Tull where  the man he pursues --if he is a man-- set him a snare.  The man in black reanimated the corpse of a weed-eater and set in motion a chain of events that ended with Roland gunning down every living soul in Tull.

Following the ashes  of the days-old fires, the gunslinger pursues the man in black. Three-quarters of the way across the desert he comes upon the husk of a way station that served the stage-lines years (or centuries, or milennia) ago.

Yet there is life here; not the man in black but a puzzling young boy named Jake, who had no understanding of how he came to be  there.  The gunslinger hypnotizes the boy and hears a puzzling, disquieting tale: Jake remembers a great city whose harbor is guarded by "a lady with a torch."  He remembers going to a private school and wearing a tie; he remembers  yellow vehicles and that pedestrians could hire.

And he remembers being killed.

Pushed from behind in front of an oncoming vehicle (called a "Cadillac"), Jake was run over.  Who pushed him?

It was the man in black, he says.

There is water enough at the way station for two pilgrims to continue onward, across the rest of the desert to the foothills. . . and the mountains beyond.  And in the cellar of the way station, Roland discovers a Speaking Demon in the wall which tells him: "Go slow, gunslinger.  Go slow past the Drawers.  While you travel with the boy, the man in black travels with your soul in his pocket."  

According tot he old ways, a Speaking Demon may only speak through the mouth of a corpse; reaching into the wall, Roland discovers a jawbone which he takes with him.

As Jake and the gunslinger continue toward the mountains, the camp fire remnants of the man in black glow fresher.  And as Jake sleeps, the gunslinger works laboriously over  the figures in his own past: Gabrielle, his mother. . . Marten, the sorcerer-physician who may have been the half brother of the man in black. . . Roland his father. . .Cort, his teacher. . .Cuthbert, his friend. . . and David, the falcon, "God's gunslinger."

He remembers the death of  a traitor, the cook Hax, by hanging. .  . and how he  and Cuthbert broke bread beneath the hanged man's feet as an offering to the rooks.  He remembers "the good man," in whose service Hax died, "The good man" who was ushered in this new dark age.  The good man, Marten.  His mother's lover . . . and the man in black?

As Jake and the gunslinger reach the first hilly upswells marking the far edge of the desert, the boy points upward and, far  above and miles beyond, the gunslinger sees the man in black, climbing up and up toward what the gunslinger feels may be another killing ground.

The man in black  has set him snares before on this terrible progress toward the Tower.  

Roland fears the boy Jake may be another -- and Roland has come to love him.

The Oracle and the Mountains closes with this note: "This ends the third section of the Dark Tower --the story of Roland,the last gunslinger,and his search for the Tower that stands at the root of  time."

"The Slow Mutants" (July 1981) 

The Slow Mutants opens with: This, the fourth and longest  tale in the series about the last gunslinger and his eerie and gripping pursuit of the man in black, follows"The Oracle and the Mountains," (February 1981).  Stephen King's recent books include DANSE MACABRE, non-fiction from Everest House, and CUJO, a new horror novel due in the fall from Viking.

The story is preceded by a lengthy synopsis.  

The Slow Mutants closes with this note: This ends the fourth section of The Dark Tower --the story of Roland the last gunslinger, and his search for the Tower that stands at the root of time.

"The Gunslinger and the Dark Man" (November 1981)

The Gunslinger And The Dark Man opens with: "Stephen King's tales about Roland, the last gunslinger, include: "The Gunslinger" (October 1978), "The Way Station" (April 1980), "The Oracle and the Mountains" (February1981), "The Slow Mutants" (July 1981) an, below, the fifth and last story in the first cycle.  The series will be published in a limited hard-cover edition by Donald M. Grant in the Spring of 1982."

The story is preceded by a very lengthy synopsis.  

The Gunslinger And The Dark Man closes with this note: "This ends the fifth and last section of the First Cycle of the Dark Tower -- the story of Roland, the last gunslinger and his search for the Tower that stands at the root of time."