The Wind through the Keyhole: A Dark Tower Novel - Softcover

King, Stephen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1444731734 ISBN 13: 9781444731736

Publisher: Hodder Paperbacks, 2013

Synopsis

THE NUMBER ONE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER.
For readers new to The Dark Tower, THE WIND THROUGH THE KEYHOLE is a stand-alone novel, and a wonderful introduction to the series. It is a story within a story, which features both the younger and older gunslinger Roland on his quest to find the Dark Tower. Fans of the existing seven books in the series will also delight in discovering what happened to Roland and his ka tet between the time they leave the Emerald City and arrive at the outskirts of Calla Bryn Sturgis.

This Russian Doll of a novel, a story within a story, within a story, visits Mid-World's last gunslinger, Roland Deschain, and his ka-tet as a ferocious storm halts their progress along the Path of the Beam. (The novel can be placed between Dark Tower IV and Dark Tower V.) Roland tells a tale from his early days as a gunslinger, in the guilt ridden year following his mother's death.
Sent by his father to investigate evidence of a murderous shape shifter, a 'skin man,' Roland takes charge of Bill Streeter, a brave but terrified boy who is the sole surviving witness to the beast's most recent slaughter. Roland, himself only a teenager, calms the boy by reciting a story from the Magic Tales of the Eld that his mother used to read to him at bedtime, 'The Wind through the Keyhole'. 'A person's never too old for stories,' he says to Bill. 'Man and boy, girl and woman, we live for them.' And stories like these, they live for us.

The back cover of the UK hardcover edition features some 8,000 faces of those who entered the StephenKingFaces competition. These faces are indiscernible to the naked eye on the actual covers but they can be found and identified with the zoom mechanism on http://www.stephenkingfaces.com/

About this title

Review:

[A] phantasmagorical folk tale . . . King's ability to entertain and unsettle cannot be denied. The skill with which he delivers a shock or sense of gothic terror is simply unmatched (Independent on Sunday)

Perfectly balanced: another excellent example of King's sheer skill as a storyteller. (Daily Express)

A frantic-paced puzzle-box adventure that encompasses gunslinger Roland Deschain's early years, werewolves and powerful storytelling. (Shortlist)

King is one of the great popular artists of our time. (Independent)

Like John Steinbeck, he's an unfussy writer whose voice is rooted equally in the rhythms of everyday speech and the mythic made manifest in everyday life. Indeed, reading King, you often sense the presence of the dustbowl America of The Grapes of Wrath . . . a King novel has a sparse elegance that most novelists never achieve in a whole career. Put it down to the insistent, economical and wholly distinctive authorial voice. (SFX Magazine)

Classic King, fine characters, compellingly written in a gripping, well-honed plot (Daily Express on WOLVES OF THE CALLA)

Superbly energetic, it's King at his best. (Mail on Sunday on WIZARD AND GLASS)

Book Description:

For readers coming to the epic bestselling Dark Tower series for the first time - and for its legion of dedicated fans - a fabulous new book about Roland's first quest and a perfect introduction to the series.

About this edition

• Publisher: Hodder Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1444731734
• ISBN 13: 9781444731736
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384