The Wind Through The Keyhole: A Dark Tower Novel

4.18 out of 5 (19 ratings)

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Format:: Hardback
Pages:: 352
Publisher:: Hodder & Stoughton General Division
Publication Date:: 24 April 2012
Category:: Horror and Ghost Stories
ISBN:: 9781444731705

Description

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/

Reader Reviews

Showing 1-4 out of 19 reviews. Previous | Next

What a joy to read another story set in the mid-world of the Dark Tower!Stephen King re-visits Roland's ka-tet as they journey towards the Calla (between Wizard & Glass, and Wolves of the Calla), and are forced to seek shelter from a violent and rare storm. While they wait for it to pass, Roland tells a story of his younger years, and within that true tale, a bed-time story his mother used to tell, a story which taught him how to recognize the coming of the storm they are now waiting out...

5.00 out of 5

puttocklibrary
Ok, I absolutely loved the Dark Tower series. I thought as each book came out they got better and better. For this book however, I did not have high hopes. Where could SK go from that super high point the series ended on? I should never have doubted! This book was wonderful - I read it as close to straight through as I can these days and I loved the story in a story in a story approach! If you have not read any of the other books in the Dark Tower series, fear not, you will still enjoy The Wind Through the Keyhole. (Make sure you read the forward to get "up to speed".)

5.00 out of 5

janejetson223
As usual, King delivers. "The Wind through the Keyhole" is kinda like the movie "Inception" in that it's a story within a story within a story. What makes it all the more fun is that Roland himself tells the interior story in first person.According to King, this book takes place between "Wizard and Glass" and "Wolves of the Calla." If you've not read any of The Dark Tower series, you could get by with this book fine enough. But I'd strongly encourage you to read the whole of the series--with this in its proper spot--as it's fantastic.This story sees Roland and his ka-tet stranded in a massive icy windstorm--a "starkblast." To pass the time, Roland tells Eddie, Jake, and Susannah about his younger days when he and a companion were sent off on their first mission--to rid a nearby town of a skin-man. During this tale, young Roland tells the story of "The Wind through the Keyhole" to another character.I read many authors, but I cannot think of one who's got such a distinctive voice as King, especially when he's writing Dark Tower stories. The imagination is off the charts, the characters full, and the pacing perfect.The only potential problem with reading "The Wind through the Keyhole" is that it'll make you want to go back and read the whole of the series again--quite a massive undertaking. But I'll probably fall under its spell again soon. You kin?

5.00 out of 5

Jarratt
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is a story within a story within a story. The gunslinger and his ka-tet are holed up in a sturdy building waiting for a storm to pass, and the gunslinger tells a story of when he was young and had to find a shapeshifter who was killing people. Young Roland tells a story to a young man, of a boy who ventures into a dark forest to save his mother's eyesight.

5.00 out of 5

irisdovie