Dead (novel)
dead. (Original title: The Dark Tower III - The Waste Lands ) is the title of a novel by the writer Stephen King published in 1991 and forms the third volume of the eight-volume, dark fantasy saga, which is entitled The Dark Tower Cycle is known. The background to this novel cycle is presented in detail in the article there.
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At the beginning of dead. Roland, Eddie, a former junkie from New York and Susannah, a symbiosis of the two characters from the schizophrenic Odetta, leave the Western Sea and enter a large, old forest. Roland teaches Eddie and Susannah the basic rules of gunsmithing. Both learn quickly and they have to, because they are attacked by Shardik, an ancient, gigantic bear robot that was commissioned by the Old Folk to protect a portal of the beam. All told, there are twelve such portals in Roland's world, each guarded by a different animal. These portals are both the beginning and end of six beams, which are almost invisible, but still more powerful than many other things in the world, converge in their center and support the Dark Tower there. They finally defeat Shardik by shooting the antenna on his huge head and follow the path of the beam towards the dark tower. Roland killed the man in the third door in "Three" who was supposed to push young Jake in front of a car before he stopped him from doing it. This sets off a paradox in Roland's mind that seems worse than his near-fatal blood poisoning on the beach of the Western Sea. He'd caught Jake at the desert roadhouse and taken him with him. Now he's stopped Jack Mort, Jake's killer, from murdering the boy, which is why Jake never met Roland at the rest house. Nevertheless, Roland still has the memory of the boy. And the boy remembers Roland. He knows, for some reason, that he should be dead, but it isn't. He wanders aimlessly and indiscriminately through New York like an undead and finally finds the rose there. A mighty Sigul that stands behind a wooden fence on a vacant lot in the middle of New York. Jake realizes that this rose symbolizes the good, maybe even the good itself and realizes that he has to protect it. Because the rose is in danger.
After some searching (as well as a brief encounter with Eddie in his teenage years), Jake enters an old, haunted house that has always had the reputation of a haunted house. At the same time Roland's Ka-Tet enters a demon circle in the midworld. Susannah doesn't look after the demon that lives there like a lady, while Roland manages to open the door to Jake's world with the help of a key that Eddie has carved. The boy is chased and almost killed by a demon that appears to be the house itself, but Roland finally manages to pull Jake into his world with the help of the Khef (thought contact within a Ka-Tet).
Reunited in the middle world, the group travels further along the beam. Jake finds a Billy Bumbler, a canine-like animal that has rudimentary language skills. Together they reach a big city that reminds Eddie of his New York, but only in terms of size, because the city is completely destroyed and run down. Inside, two conflicting factions fight each other and the Ka-Tet is drawn into this war. Jake is kidnapped and later rescued and the Ka-Tet finally manages to leave the ruined city aboard Blaine - the Mono, an old, forgotten, but hell-fast monorail. But the psychopathic Blaine also wants to kill the Ka-Tet if the Ka-Tet fails to ask him a puzzle that he cannot solve. With this contest at supersonic speed ends dead with a cliffhanger .
Literature and web links
- Stephen King, tot., (Original title: The Dark Tower III - The Waste Lands) , Heyne, ISBN 3-453-09644-4
- Detailed table of contents in KingWiki