Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Dark Tower: Fall of Gilead HC

It's interesting seeing a story where the good guys lose. In a normal narrative, the faceless, generic guards who do most of the killing in this trade would be caught and stopped early on. But in this, where good falls as a foregone conclusion, they act with impunity and eliminate the best hopes of Gilead with little trouble.

Peter David tells a good yarn, but at times, this feels like he's checking off boxes. There are a lot of people who have to get killed off to make Roland's ka-tet go it alone, so there is a lot of killing, very quickly. When the story has a bit of time to breathe, like when the slow mutants kill Cuthbert's father, I really like this stuff. The idea of tides of villains wearing away at the noble gunslingers is quite moving. I start to care less when the aforementioned guards just wander around killing 3 or 4 heroes with little to no effort. Hell, the same crew kills most of the population of Gilead. I might have cared more if the guards had received a big death, but they're gunned down on the street by Roland's crew with little effort. I will say that I'm looking forward to Roland getting his hands on Marten and Goodman Farson.

Richard Isanove picks up for Jae Lee without missing a beat. Everyone looks spot-on. I loved the transformation Aileen has as she joins up with the ka-tet. It explains some of those pesky King inconsistencies from the novels too.

Fair

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