Preceded by
The WastelandsBook 4 of
Stephen King's
Epic Fantasy series
The Dark Tower. The series' plot takes the backseat as readers are treated to an extended
Flash Back of a
tale of
love from Roland's
past.
Followed by
Wolves of the Calla
This book contains examples of:
- A Fête Worse than Death - Charyou tree!
- Artifact of Doom - Maerlyn's Balls.
- Back Story
- Bad Moon Rising
- Beauty Equals Goodness
- Being Watched
- Click Hello
- Coitus Uninterruptus: Jonas and Coral are having sex when they hear the oil patch getting blown up by Roland's team. They don't stop, because they "had reached the point where it was impossible to stop, even under threat of death or dismemberment."
- Comedy as a Weapon: Eddie VS Blaine. Also counts as a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
- Cross Over: The protagonists enter the universe of The Stand, post-Captain Trips.
- Crystal Ball - the Grapefruit. Later revealed to be an Artifact of Doom.
- A Date with Rosie Palms - Masturbation Equals Love.
- Dead Baby Comedy - A joke about a literal dead baby is vital to the plot
- Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Mejis for Mexico.
- Geodesic Cast
- The Gunslinger - Roland of course, but in this book we see other gunslingers, and failed gunslingers.
- The Gunfighter Wannabe
- Heartbroken Badass
- Immune to Bullets - Walter can't be hit with bullets from Roland's world. Jake however..
- Interspecies Romance - Rhea and her snake
- Karma Houdini - Rhea. She basically orchestrates a majority of the events in the book, including Susan's demise Then she causes Roland to to shoot his own mother by accident and manages to get away scott-free. At least for what we see, undoubtedly Roland caught up with her later to enact some much deserved justice. But for us, we see her escape quite easily.
- Kill 'Em All: Even the characters who survive in Roland's story are dead by the time he tells it, except for Rhea and Sheemie.
- Logic Bomb (An unusual twist: Faced with an insane but brilliant A.I. that has challenged them to a riddle contest, Eddie forces it to guess the punchlines of bad jokes until it short-circuits.)
- Why did the dead baby cross the road? Cause it was strapped to the chicken.
- The Man Behind the Curtain - a theme of the entire series, but this book explicitly discusses the concept.
- Mexican Standoff - What could be the most over-the-top straight version ever.
- Minion Shipping - Eldred and Coral
- My God, What Have I Done? - Speculated to be the cause of Susan's aunt's heart attack.
- My God, You Are Serious
- Nightmare Fuel - In-universe example; Susannah says that she used to have nightmares about the flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz.
- No Sense of Humor - Roland, at least relative to Eddie, who cracks too many dead baby jokes. Blaine The Mono is even worse, see Logic Bomb.
- Shout Out - A climax in what may or may not be Oz
- Sex as Rite-of-Passage
- The Sheriff
- Star-Crossed Lovers - Roland and Susan.
- Talking the Monster to Death - See Logic Bomb above.
- Their First Time - "If you love me, love me."
- Town with a Dark Secret
- Traumatic Haircut - Rhea hypnotizes Susan and orders her to cut off her hair after losing her virginity. However, when she tries it, Roland stops her.
- The Western- ("Is it a Western?" "All Roland's stories are Westerns.")
- Wicked Witch - Rhea. Played dead straight.
- Your Mom: Eddie to Blaine: "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Or, as we used to say back in the neighborhood, "You can rank me to the dogs and back, but I'll never lose the hard-on I use to fuck your mother."
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