The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower #1): 4 Stars

Author: Stephen King
Length: 327 pgs.

((I picked this book up for less than $2 on Goodwill books.))

I'll be honest, I never really understood the big deal about Stephen King. I've only read one of his books (Joyland) which was more coming of age with a bit of a ghost story than horror. Of course I saw The Shining like everyone else but I never read the actual book so that doesn't count. And I never was interested in reading this book or starting this series - every review I saw said that this book is boring, moves slow, etc. And it didn't seem like the typical King "horror" I keep hearing about-and it isn't. But it is a worthwhile book.

Then one day I started watching the movie The Dark Tower with my husband. We didn't finish it because I have four kids and can't last past 11 p.m. (it takes me like 2-3 days to finish a movie usually) but what I saw made me really interested in the story. So when I was browsing Goodwill online for some books and saw this listed for a super low price I figured what the hell. I'll try it.

So, the first part of the book - about 1/3 of it - moves pretty slow. I can see how people might call it "boring" if you don't hang in there for the rest of the story. What kept me going was the prose. This being only my second Stephen King book, it's a lot more intricately written than Joyland, which is told from the POV of a male teenager. Our main character here, Roland the gunslinger, has a deeper way of viewing and recounting things, and I found myself re-reading certain lines because there would be different layers to a single sentence. I guess that's King's talent which I can certainly appreciate more now having read this book.

We're introduced to Roland, who is moving through a seemingly endless desert trying to find The Man In Black, but we're not sure WHY or WHO the Man in Black is. And as I said, at first it's kind of slow. But I can pinpoint the exact chilling moment when it picked up the pace for me, and from then on it was pretty quick moving. We see glimpses of Roland's past: his parents, his childhood, his road to becoming a gunslinger. We don't quite understand his pursuit yet, but at least we become more invested in learning about it.

Last night when I sat down to read a bit more, I was on page 175. A few hours later I had finished the 327 page book. I never read 100+ pages in one sitting - I just don't have time for it. But from where I began reading last night, things only got more exciting and fast paced, and when I realized I only had 20 pages left I knew I would finish it.

The conversation with The Man In Black - the last chapter of the book - was the most exciting part for me. Inter-dimensional travel, multiple worlds, countless universes on top of one another but completely out of reach-all those things pique my interest like nothing else, because the possibilities are endless. So naturally when we finally learn who The Man In Black is and what The Dark Tower actually stands for, it is truly fascinating.

Four stars for the last 2/3 of the book and the climax, and for making me a Stephen King fan!

Warcross: 4 stars

Author: Marie Lu
Length: 353 pgs.

Wow this book was fun to read!

The action starts immediately, with author Marie Lu introducing us to the world that Warcross exists in via the life of the main character Emika Chen. Emika is a hacker who makes a paltry living by working as a bounty hunter. She’s notified by police when someone is wanted for betting on a virtual reality game called Warcross. Real betting on this game is illegal and Chen spends her time tracking down the people who are wanted for this reason. In the beginning pages, she’s on the search for one such fugitive, and we immediately see the differences between her world and ours.

”A smattering of students and tourists sit at the tables. When I point my phone’s camera at them, I can see their names hovering over their heads, meaning none of them have set themselves on Private.”

Warcross is a way of life in this world – most people play it, or use the virtual reality world as a means of relaxation and escape from real life. It was created by 21-year-old billionaire Hideo Tanaka, and culminates in a yearly Warcross Championship. Emika, after being cheated out of collecting a reward on a bounty, skulks home to watch the opening ceremony with her roommate. During the ceremony, she decides to use her hacker talent in a way that accidentally ends up placing her on the radar of every single person who is watching the ceremony- including Hideo Tanaka himself.

Emika’s immediately whisked off to Tokyo at the behest of Tanaka, who informs her that someone’s messing with his Warcross code and sabotage is suspected. He’s got other hackers on the case, but Emika agrees to help locate the person-or persons-responsible. As a cover, she’s enlisted as a rookie pick for the Warcross Championship and finds herself thrown into a completely different life, one filled with media attention, a lavish apartment and clothes, new Warcross teammates who may or may not be the guilty party she’s searching for, and danger.

Can she survive in the championship long enough to get the job done? Can she trust her teammates? Who’s trying to sabotage Warcross-and why?

In the midst of all this mystery and drama, we get to witness the tampered reality that Chen exists in. With the help of special new contact lenses released by Tanaka, everyone basically walks around in a virtual reality version of the real world. It’s delicious and half the fun of the book to see brought to life the vibrant world Lu’s created.

Another interesting aspect is the introduction of the Dark World. It’s the virtual reality version of the dark web, and Emika finds herself there a few times in the book with very interesting outcomes.

Now, about Hideo himself. When he and Emika first met and I started seeing the indications of a potential love match, I found myself rolling my eyes. I thought it would be an unnecessary addition of a cliché storyline, I just hoped it wouldn’t get overly cheesy. By the middle of the book, though, I was rooting for them to get together. The chemistry was palpable and I wanted more than Lu was giving me!

”I’m very aware of our proximity to each other, as if I could feel the ghost of his presence against my skin."

This is my first book by Marie Lu, and I wasn’t sure if I could trust her not to take this sweet little romance away from me. I won’t reveal the answer to that here!

I spent a few nights staying up late reading this book. The action of the Warcross championship combined with the bounty hunter storyline and the semi-relationship that was developing between Emiko and Hideo kept me chomping at the bit for more.

Fair warning that this book ends with a cliffhanger. In a series we never get what we want in the first book so it is what it is. I was saddened and a bit disbelieving at the events that unravel within the last few pages, but it was definitely a fun read overall and I loved it. Better yet, I can add Lu to the list of writers whose other books I need to read!