Well, I finished the last three books in the seven book series finally. I have to say that their appeal to me went down after book three as I got into books four, and especially five, six, and seven. I will say why just below, but in case you have not read them, my reasons could be seen as a SPOILER.

So don’t read any more if you don’t want that. 🙂

So, two major reasons:

1) First, and not as big an issue to me as the next reason, is that King started putting himself as a character into the books (metafiction). Again, not a huge deal, and it actually works in this particular story… But not a favorite technique of mine (unless the books are first person from the git-go).

2) Second, and more important to me, is that the series went from a combo western/epic fantasy book to much more of a horror genre, complete with vampires, a spider/man-child combo, etc. Of course horro is King’s speciality, so it is not surprising; but to me, I prefered it before when it was more western/fantasy.

Of course I continued to read, and was very interested in the outcome. King, as always, is a crafty story teller. So those two items aren’t the end of the world by any means, and I would still recommend the entire series, with caveats, for anyone that has time to read 3000 pages for entertainment and likes such stories. 🙂