The second book in The Gunslinger series is less engaging. It is more ambitious than the previous, with King filling out his patchwork universe with connections to times, places and trends from Our World, that are ultimately not particularly poorly handled - but I don’t find King to be the best writer for wading into issues of addiction, racism, criminal psychology. He can write a good cereal-box thriller, and the characters are somewhat fun, but it mostly just feels overstretched.

I saw some reviews that said that the ending of the series really pulls it all together and ties it together nicely, so I guess I will keep going, but this book does not do a great job of pulling me forward.