So much for empty promises!
The story of the Dark Tower is finished and for a time I thought Stephen King would only revisit the world of his gunslinger via other books*, most notably the third installment in the collaboration with Peter Straub that started with The Talisman.
But apparently his mind has returned to Mid-World. There were hints when a poll appeared if the next Stephen King novel should be a sequel to the Shinning or a novel set in Mid-World.
Well… it is not just set in Mid-World:
In 2012 Old long tall and ugly will return in the novel The Wind through the Keyhole – official announcement here.
The novel will be set between Dark Tower IV and V since in the fifth part there is an obvious timegap signalling the second big story-segment – also narratively the tone shifts since V, V and VII were written in one massive etappe contrary to the previous books that were finished and released without the sequels being planned out.
Many fans hate that about the last three books, but the reason was clearly that after King’s almost fatal accident he did not want to die and leave the story untold so he went to finish his life-work after escaping death so very closely.
That being said I am of course thrilled to return to the Ka-tet of Roland and find out what they did. King writes himself:
It won’t tell you much that’s new about Roland and his friends, but there’s a lot none of us knew about Mid-World, both past and present. The novel is shorter than DT 2-7, but quite a bit longer than the first volume—call this one DT-4.5. It’s not going to change anybody’s life, but God, I had fun.
I hope we will have fun too!
wow! STOKED!
[…] Stephen King has hinted at a sequel to Shining for a long time now, but before that he decided to return to the world of Roland Deschain. It seems as if this project is now due and the premise reads crazy as […]