In The Gunslinger, King introduces Roland Deschain of Gilead, the Last Gunslinger. He is a haunting, solitary figure at first, on a mysterious quest through a desolate world that eerily mirrors our own. Pursuing the man in black, an evil being who can bring the dead back to life, Roland is a good man who seems to leave nothing but death in his wake.

Sent by his father to investigate evidence of a murderous shape shifter, a "skin man," Roland Deschain 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." (The novel can be placed between Dark Tower...

"Taking place mere hours following the dramatic events seen in The Gunslinger, The Drawing of the Three continues with Roland of Gilead on his solitary quest for the Dark Tower, leading him to a seemingly endless stretch of beach along the Western Sea--a terrain filled with unearthly monstrosities that mean certain death if he lets his guard down. But there are other mysteries along this desolate shoreline as well: three arcane doorways standing freely...