A Western-Fantasy mashup, The Gunslinger is an interesting beginning to what I hope will be a magnificent series. This story, which clocks in at just around 250 pages, is a compact action adventure that sets up a ton of mysteries that I imagine will be explored throughout The Dark Tower series. While King's prose is fantastic, I often found it layered in unnecessary complexity that pulled me out of the narrative. 

While the setting is interesting, much of The Gunslinger is told in a series of frame stories. For instance, the titular gunslinger Roland Deschain tells a story to a man he encounters on the road of a town he visits during which he talks to a woman who tells him a story of a strange moment in the town's recent past. While this device is often effective, King's choice to switch point of view when telling these stories (Roland doesn't say I he says he) was confusing and the flashbacks often felt less interesting than the main plot. On that note, the main plot is quite good. Particularly the ending of The Gunslinger is fantastic, hinting at some further adventures to come.