Eerie, dreamlike, set in a world that is weirdly related to our own, The Gunslinger introduces Roland Deschain of Gilead, of In-World that was, as he pursues his enigmatic antagonist to the mountains that separate the desert from the Western Sea in the first volume of the Dark Tower series. Roland, the last gunslinger, is a solitary figure, perhaps accursed, who with a strange single-mindedness traverses an exhausted, almost timeless landscape of good and evil. The people he encounters are left behind, or worse, left dead. At a way station, however, he meets Jake, a boy from a particular time (1977) and a particular place (New York City) and soon the two are joined, Khef, ka and ka-tet. The mountains lie before them. So does the man in black and, somewhere far beyond… The Dark Tower.

I picked this book out of a mouldering pile of paperbacks and magazines in a Taiwanese youth hostel back in November 1990 because I had nothing better to do. Then I read the rest of the Dark Tower series because there was literally no better way to spend my time.

Get Stephen King’s The Gunslinger: The Dark Tower I (iTunes) in audiobook form this month for $5.95. Similarly, the iBooks version is available for just $7.99.

If you’re not happy reading in Apple’s universe, then get Dark Tower: The Gunslinger on Amazon: paperback ($12.11) or Kindle edition ($7.99).

If you haven’t yet taken advantage of Audible’s free trial offer, you can get Dark Tower: The Gunslinger for free — cancel at any time and keep the book. Or, if you prefer, get Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs for free.