The Dark Tower

Eight novels written by Stephen King between 1982 and 2012, following Roland Deschain - the last gunslinger - on his quest across a dying world toward the Dark Tower, the nexus of all realities. The series defies easy categorisation: it is a western, a horror novel, a post-apocalyptic epic, and a high fantasy quest, held together by King's mythology of ka - fate - and a cast that grows from a lone figure in the desert to a fully realised fellowship. Begun when King was nineteen and completed over four decades, it is widely regarded as his magnum opus. Inspired by Robert Browning's poem "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" and Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns, it eventually grew to connect with much of King's wider fiction, though the eight core novels stand entirely on their own.