Rainet

As we all know, The Dark Tower series 1-4 are being rereleased on the 23rd. With Part 1, The Gunslinger being revised and expanded by roughly 35 pages with changed material on almost every page.

I will unfortunately be buying this book. Because I am eager to read the new scenes and added pages, with hopefully some new added insights. I know alot of people feel the first one was a hard read. So this may very well be a blessing.

However, at the same time i also feel he should leave the novel alone. I know The Stand was revised, but i believe it was more just added material with some but not alot, words changed through out to reflect our modern time.

I'm all for added material for the most part, but when you completely restructue already written words on almost every single page as so with the Gunslinger, it may feel like a complete rehash and it may ruin the integrity of the novel.

Sort of like Lord Of The Rings Extended Edition, on dvd. Nothing is changed, but just added in new material. I don't mind that at all.

But this feels almost like The orignal Star Wars Trilogy SE where all is changed and altered picture wise.

I will be buying this, because i want to read new added insight, but i will be lying if i didn't say i have mixed feelings about it. Part of me says...cool.... more scenes!! and the other part says, but changed words on almost every page, leave it the way i remembered it!! It's an amazing novel in it's own right! I may even enjoy this more, but i still feel mixed regardless no matter how great and better this revised editon will be.

Any thoughts will be more than appreciated.

The Valeyard

I'm gonna wait until I read some reviews on the revisions. The first book is a very tough read (IMO) but I still enjoyed it. The Drawing of the Three is a much better book.


Andrew

silentbob007

I'll probably buy the revision ....

The Antipodean

I'm sticking with the original, It's a great book and I don't feel the need to see it changed.

Drop

Well i already have The Gunslinger revised edition, apparantly it came out on atleast the 20th. I should also mention that i never read any of the Dark Tower series before. Anyway i only read the introduction and forwerd so far. They're pretty informative too. SK said there's about 9,000 extra words and he updated the language so it fit better with the rest of the series, as it is supossed to be one story. He also said it's little scenes here and there added and mostly just there to forshadow. I'll give my final judgement when i finish the book. If it doesn't flow right I'll assume because it's what he has added. Eventually i'll read the original story though and make a comparison. That is all.

Mutley Hyde

Sorry, but I just @#$%ing hate this trend. It's shameless product marketing, plain and simple. Classics are a hard sell these days, so they have to spruce 'em up for people who won't buy "old books". The trend is flourishing in the cd industry these days, with all the "remastered" albums, which are really remixed fiascos, and also in movies, from Turner's colorized "classics" to Disney's self-censorship to Lucas's toying with Star Wars (Episode IV; A New Marketing Ploy for you young whippersnappers out there).

Books not only offer the stories contained therein, but also a snapshot of a particular writer's style and craftmanship at the time, and can even reveal other things about the times in which the writer wrote the book, such as social concerns, political trends, a basic worldview, at least as seen through the eyes of the writer.

Bah, anyway. Carry on.

Michael Corvin

ahem, soapbox... step off it. j/k

I will buy it, but I called all around town and every store had the release listed at June 20 AND July 2003. But they all said that it wasn't in stock if it did come out.

Mutley Hyde

Yeah, it's out. I was just up at Borders tonight and saw the abomination, in trade paperback.

I didn't see any of the new Harry Potters though.

benedict

<small></small>I agree entirely with the sentiment expressed above.

Didn't Robert Jordan also have people paying for a preview of his latest novel and suggesting that earlier works may be re-published with extra content? And I seem to recall that Feist's "Magician" was re-released in an expanded edition. Ironically, I have it in mind that Orwell's 1984 may also have been re-issued with one or two changes, albeit minor ones, during the 1980s or 1990s.

While I am more than happy to buy books that were published some time ago, if a better augmented version happens along then, maybe, I will take that in preference if I have the opportunity. But when it smacks of "double-dipping" or cynical marketing, as is often the case with CDs, I reserve my right to complain.

It happens that I purchased the first three Dark Tower books as a set and have them still unwrapped on my "to read" bookshelf. Now that I know that a remastered version is coming up of volume one I propose to wait until the reviews are out and then, if the concensus is positive, to take the unopened unread copy back and request an exchange! And if the bookshop won't take it I will write to the publishers and see what they have to say!

Rainet

What i find fascinating, and ultimately disappointing, is that this is Stephen King. It's not like he needs the money, and he does have extreme clout when it comes to marketing of his own books.

And from the numerous interviews i read of his, he seemed to be a real decent guy, someone who strikes me that greed isn't a factor.
Considering how rich he is, money just can't be an issue, so he must really feel a need or change to take place.

Like i said, i will buy, because i want to read the extra insight and scenes, but in the grand scheme of things, I truly disapprove of this.

I see i will have 2 hardcovers (3rd print of the Grant) and now this on my shelf, and i can't help but feel a bit cheapened and taken to have to own two versions of the same novel.
I hate writing this, because Stephen King is one of my favorite authors.

Josh-da-man

You know, I absolutely hated the revised "The Stand."

Okay, I'm reading through it, and whenever I would read references to things like AIDS or Ronald Reagan, it would just totally pull me out the story. (Because "The Stand" was originally published before Reagan became President, or AIDS had been discovered.)

I mean, fine, it's one thing to add old material back in there, but this almost felt like he was re-writing history.

mytzplyx

Usually, I'd agree with this, but in the case of the Gunslinger, I do not. Stephen King has always come across as being pretty straight up with his readers and the reason why he even wrote the final 3 books at the same time was because of the fans of the Dark Tower, which even he says, do not comprise the majority of his readers.

In truth, if you look at the Gunslinger, it IS very different from Drawing of the Three, Wastelands, and Wizard and Glass. I take it for what it is - his attempt to do a good story, written at a young age, justice.

Dr. Dean

You also have to realize that the Gunslinger was originally a serial released in a magazine...so like the combined Green Mile which was changed from a serial...perhaps this will smooth out the bumps.

Tyler_Durden

Do you guys think the original version will remain in print? Having never read the Dark Tower series but always trying to find the time to do so, I'd like to make sure I read the original versions when I eventually get to it.

bishop2knight

Look at it from the author's perspective. To him, it's a piece of art. If he wants to go back and make the first piece of the puzzle fit better with the rest, then I'm all for it. Just as long as that's the reason and as long as the new stuff fits this scheme.

jpcamb

I re-read the first book last year and will buy and read the new one. I'm not a fan of this in movies but for a book like this that came out so far in advance of the others and is so different I don't mind it so much. I think King is doing it as more of a way to appease fans of the series for the long wait between the earlier books and to put the series to bed once and for all.

I mean was anyone upset that he had a short story on Roland in a short story book? I love this series and if I can eek a bit more out of it from a revised version great. We are not talking gone with the wind or the bible here, just a great book in a great series hopefully made better by polishing the story up a bit.

Michael Corvin

Doesn't matter if it is or not. This is the internet man. I looked on half.com last night and they have plenty of copies from every release ranging from $.25 up to retail price. The internet is your friend.

JaxComet

I have the hardcover box set of the first three books. It's really nice and I'd highly recommend it if you can still find copies....


Here's the cover for book 5 (coming November 4th)

Josh-da-man

And "Wolves of Calla" will have artwork by Bernie Wrightson!

Woo Hoo!

Bcolon

As a previous poster pointed out, the Gunslinger was originally published as short stories in magazines over a number of years. King had no idea at the time that he would still be writing this story thirty years later. I have no problem with him editing the book at all. He wants to tie it in better with the rest of the series, which makes bperfect sense to me. Besides, it is his story. He has every right to make it the best that it can be. I also don't think he is doing it for the money, but that is just my opinion.

darkside

They are being released as ebooks as well. I'm going to finally make an attempt to read the Dark Tower books. I really have no problem with the first book being revised. The original version is still very easy to find for anyone that prefers it.

cracksky

It's interesting that when King first started the story of The Man in Black back in 1970 and subsequently released them in short story form from 1978 thru 1981 and in book form in 1982 he thought no one would be interested in it (especially after he'd become known as a horror writer).

Even when fans clamored for this unknown book in '82 he flatout refused to reprint the 10,000 copy original Grant Edition. Of course, that changed over the years and now we have dozens of versions. When I bought the original hardback in 1982 at a used book store (the book was and is mint) for $100. I was just happy to read it (very carefully!). I was little disappointed when everyone else could read it for few bucks but that's the nature of buying a collectible.

Now, over 30 years after the original conception King has completely changed his stance on the book being read by his fans. No one can argue it's about the money. Finishing the last three books was all about the fans and his near-death experience. He didn't want to leave such an unfinished series incomplete.

Getting back to the topic of this thread. I generally don't like revised books unless I'm a huge fan of it originally. With The Stand he wasn't just updating material for the 1990's he was restoring something like 400 pages that were cut by Doubleday in 1978. I would've preferred a simple reinsertion of these pages as opposed to the updating. Especially since now the book referrs to events from 1978 to 1990 including stuff from King's books during those years!

For The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger, I've read it dozens of times and love it. It'll be hard to read it revised but I must. I understand it more than The Stand because at the time he wrote those stories he had no idea where it was going or how it was going to end. Now that he's finished the series it makes since to bring it up to date with events he now knows are going to happen.

For all the bashing King gets as being a hack writer time will show The Dark Tower as one of the masterpieces of modern literature along with Lord of the Rings for which it is heavily influenced by but doesn't copy by any means.

Mutley Hyde

I didn't mean to imply that King was "in it for the money", but you have to admit the publishers are all more than happy when they can promote "new" product. My beef with the publishers is just that; but my beef with King would be that once art makes it into the public's hands, it's pretty much a done thing.

Before you jump in post a reply to the above, please read this; I've since gone back to the Gunslinger, reaquainted myself with the copyright dates and the fact that this was serialized, and listened to everybody's take on that. It does, in this case, seem to make sense that in transferring the serial to novel format just may grant the revision. The novel The Gunslinger, in this sense, is more an adaptation of the serial. I would have however personally rather seen King revise it back in the '80s, when the story was somewhat still fresh with him.

Anyway, y'all knock yerselves out, I'll stick with the original.

Michael Corvin

Well I started it yesterday and and only have about 30 pages left. The last time I read the original though was about 7 or 8 years ago so I really couldn't tell you the difference other than it is an easier read than I remember. In the forward he says:

When I looked back at the first volume, which you now hold in your hands, three obvious truths presented themselves. The first was that the Gunslinger had been written by a very young man, and had all the problems of a very young man's book. The second was that it contained a great many errors and false starts, particularly in light of the volumes that followed. The third was that the Gunslinger did not even sound like the later books -- it was, frankly, rather difficult to read.

on the dedicated fans that will no doubt bitch about the revision:
I sympathize, but must say I am less concerned with them than with readers who have never encountered Roland and his ka-tet.

more on revision:
Why? Because these seven volumes were never really seperate stories at all, but seperate sections of a single long novel called The Dark Tower, and the beginning was out of sync with the ending.

He also mentions that there were thousands of unnecessary adverbs that he doesn't regret cutting. Which is what I deduct was the reason for the difficult read.[/I]

Jay G.

People are reacting to this revision as if authors revising novels is a new thing.

Terry Pratchett rewrote his first novel, which he now calls a collaboration with his earlier self. Arther C Clarke rewrote his first novel and republished it under a different title. J.R.R. Tolkien rewrote parts of The Hobbit so that it fit in better with it's follow-up, The Lord of the Rings.

Revising can be a good thing. As DVD collectors, we often look foward to revised 'director's cuts' or restorations of films. Of course, not all revisions are good, as Star Wars and ET show. However, the act of revision itself is neither good nor evil, it is simply another tool available to an artist, one still available to them long after the art has been released to the public.