THE DARK TOWER II: THE DRAWING OF THREE; By Stephen King; Plume; $12.95 (paper).
The Tower draws closer in the second of what may turn out to be seven volumes in a saga patterned after "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came."Roland, a gunslinger, is a knight of sorts in a half-world that is both in the future and in the past.
In this Stephen King novel, good and evil are constantly at battle, with Roland striving to find a world of love and light.
Here, he befriends a heroin addict through a warp-glitch whereby he can travel back in time through the eyes of a character.
The book is superb King.
Through vivid imagery the reader thirsts, cries and nearly dies with Roland as he and his friend go through withdrawal and meet the mysterious Detta, a woman-child whose mind was split by a terrible accident.
"The Drawing of the Three" will make readers wish the third volume were already here. It is a masterpiece of King brilliance.