Of greater concern is the fact that the plot of this book has alredy been done by King--this book is the short version of the Dark Tower, a quality which make's the upcoming Black House's address of the Crimson King and the Breakers all the more amusing. There are a LOT of parallels between the two works--more than I could really list here--but suffice it to say that I was impressed as I read with how little this felt like an original work for King, but only a reinterpretation of something he already had swimming around.

That's not to say the book is bad--I am, after all, giving it five stars. The imagery is excellent and the story is interesting. The story does have a tendency to get bogged down in negative imagery, however--a crime that a novel this long should try to avoid. At points, I felt a little like I was reading Less Than Zero instead of a King/Straub book, a fact which was made all the more remarkable by the low attrition rate among major characters. All the same, be prepared for some heavy, bad atmosphere to hang around the book. This is a pretty good device, considering that one of the themes of the book is the desecration of the pristine or beautiful, but it is, perhaps, a little overused.

The only other major complaint I could see anybody voicing would be regarding the characters themselves. Jack Sawyer and Richard Sloat aren't really very believable. For a twelve year old boy, Sawyer's psychology seems a little out of whack, and Sloat's own psychological profile seems a little charicatured. All the same, I didn't find it to be too much of a problem, myself, and I thoroughly enjoyed the read. This isn't King's best ever, and I can only assume that it isn't Straub's either, since collaborative works tend to have that effect, but as a book on its own, it's still good enough to go in any collection, and should certainly be in any King enthusiast's library.