Explore the Worlds of the Dark Tower
In honor of
this week’s release of “The Wind Through the Keyhole,” the eighth novel in
King’s ‘Dark Tower’ series, I thought it would be appropriate to provide some information
about a valuable resource in finding your way around the worlds associated with
the series. Robin Furth, King’s personal
research assistant for the ‘Dark Tower’ series, published an encyclopedia of
knowledge about the ‘Dark Tower’ series, entitled ‘Stephen King’s The Dark
Tower: The Complete Concordance.”
Furth provides
the reader with information that will help understand the characters, worlds,
plots, and even the language in the Dark Tower series. She identifies all of the characters in the
stories, and provides a genealogical tree for the main characters. She also provides maps of the three worlds in
the series. These worlds are identified
by King as the “In-World, Mid-World and End-World.” These maps will help the
reader to know exactly where the characters are at any point in a story, which
is very helpful when reading the books.
Furth also
describes other elements of the series that enhances the reader’s experience. She identifies the languages used including “High
Speech, Low Speech and Mid-World Argot.” Furth includes dialects from the “Mid-World”
used by certain characters. Not only does
Furth help readers understand the language, she also includes rhymes, prayers
and songs that originated in the “Mid-World.”
In addition to
the languages and maps, Furth’s reference book explains some of the mysterious
elements of the series. She provides a
history of Roland’s Ka-tet, an important concept that appears in several of King's novels. She also identifies political
and cultural references that are made in the series. Her book contains much
more information about the ‘Dark Tower’ series.
The first
edition of this resource book was published in 2006. Furth revised it in a 2010 edition. This reference source will be revised once
again to include the latest information from the continuing series that has
spanned for more than thirty years. The latest
revision of this book will be available in November 2012.
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