Maybe everything you know about addiction is sterile. Maybe, like me, you grew up with addicts whose drug or vice of choice later killed them. Maybe you've read articles or books, or seen two-dimensional movies about "junkies".  Maybe you think Robert Palmer was correct in announcing he was "addicted to love", and you've written your own stories about how being in love is like being addicted to heroin.

We're all wrong sometimes.

After a terrifying prologue where Roland, the protagonist from The Gunslinger, has The Worst Day At The Beach Ever, Stephen King brings the story to 1980s New York, and begins one of the greatest fictional works on addiction that I've read. It's neither romanticized, nor condemned. It's just a story about crime and addiction. 

While the mob, and the police portions of the story are intriguing, and probably thoroughly researched (or else he just pilfered from the best crime movies and tv shows), there is no doubt that he Knows addiction. 

If you can read The Prisoner part of the book, and honestly believe you are "addicted to playing Candy Crush", please Never Talk To Me.

Can you love a person who saved you if you know that the act of saving you was necessary for them to save themselves?

Can you love a person who takes you away from everything you've ever known, even if everything you've ever  known was toxic?

Should you try and save a person you don't love merely because they once saved you?

This section shouldn't work. Stephen King has proven repeatedly that he doesn't understand how to write women or people of color. The idea of a white dude in the 1980s writing about a woman of color having Dissociative Identity Disorder in such a way that part of her is a rich, refined political activist, and the other is an angry delusional woman who speaks like a racist parody of a Black Woman is troubling. It will probably bother you right up to the point where her speech is explained. It may still bother you after that point. I don't know your life. But I was relieved and satisfied by the way the story explained it, in a manner that Stephen King books do not always relieve or satisfy me with their justifications.

This section, too, is a story of addiction and crime, but told in a very different fashion,from a very different perspective. I was surprised how much I enjoyed it.

Can you love someone you can never trust?

Can you love someone who seems to be two different people?

Is there love at first sight?

Can you love two people who hate each other?

What if they are in the same body?

If you need another person to feel whole, are you a person worth loving?

Did-a-chuck?

A friend of several of my friends has a tragic addiction story. After a particular trauma, they ended up in the hospital with a not so promising chance of survival. The family came for support. The friends who had tried to keep them clean came for support. The acquaintances who wished they'd been better at seeing the impending trauma came for support. It was a community effort of people supporting the victim and each other.

Then the person who supplied the instruments of trauma came for support, and a wise friend of the victim chased them out of the hospital before the family of the victim murdered him.

It takes a strong person to protect The Pusher, be it a drug dealer, a loanshark, a domestic abuser. The Pusher is the person who sets someone else on a path of ruin. Be it someone who knowingly destroys the life of someone who loves them, or a complete stranger who just enjoys hurting people. Often, the person who does this is given a tragic backstory to explain their behavior.  I appreciate that King does not waste time on The Pusher in this book. He is not to be pitied, or explained. He is a terrible part of life who has repeatedly hurt people Roland cares about. And he is dealt with.

Remember in middle or high school when you had to read a book that had been made into a movie? How you could get The Cliff Notes and watch the movie and fake your way through 80% of the class discussion? That shit won't fly here.

Creepy twin girls? Not in the book. Elevator full of blood? Not in the book. All Work And No Play Make Homer Go Something Something? Not in the book. Hedge maze? Nope. Jack Nicholson axing his way through the bathroom door? Not so much. 

If you've seen the movie, but not read the book, you may wonder at the wasps  in the above picture. Read the book. 

The Shining is not the Oh Shit Jack Nicholson Is A Scary Trucker Fucker Horror Story you might expect. In fact, the best parts of the book focus on a young couple doing their best to stay together when divorce seems like the healthiest option. It's about last chances, and staying together for a child. It's about how even when you conquer your biggest failings, they will always be a part of your life that you can't forget or forgive yourself for. It's about being human. And not in that Watch These Poor Humans Get Slaughtered way that you expect from horror.

I read this, originally, when I was in high school, and had zero memory of how much of the story takes place before they even get to the hotel. I didn't remember any part of the book taking place outside the hotel, at all. And while the crux of the book is being isolated in a hotel in winter, there are quite a few scenes where you, the reader, are let loose from the hotel, assured that there still exists a world outside the frozen wasteland of The Overlook.

I devoured the beginning of this book, and began to be less and less invested as The Overlook overtook the narrative. I didn't want to watch the supernatural unravel the family, as they were doing such  good job unraveling on their own. But when the slow unraveling gave way to The Great Unraveling, I was back to devouring it.  

Stray observations:

--The first time I read this, I was on break from school, and my family was staying at a hotel in Maine. It added a nice extra creepy layer to the experience, even though we were far from the only people in the hotel, and my father doesn't know how to play roque.

--I also saw the movie for the first time in high school, but don't remember it too clearly. As it was part of a Nicholsonfest where we also watched One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest and The Witches Of Eastwick.

--The only time I rewatched the movie was in 2009, when I was heavily tripping. Going into the movie, I was afraid of having some horrible mental breakdown during the more horrific scenes, but I ended up spending the entirety of the movie mesmerized by how cool the carpets were in The Overlook Hotel. I didn't interact with the plot at all.

--I read just about all of the 679 pages of this book on the trip back and forth to work, or at night while cooking. That brings the total of pages read for this project  to 2,570. That's over Two Bibles, and this journey is way less likely to turn you into a preachy jerkface.

Serial 1: First Contact
Picard, Riker, Worf, Data, Crusher, Troi, Laforge, Ogawa, Doctor

We've spent a whole season away from TNG (except for pesky Worf, who can't stay away from Deep Space Nine), so it's fun to see them in action again. In what's easily the best TNG movie, the crew follows the Borg into Earth's past, where everyone's favorite assimilators (unless you're a Cyberman fan) attempt to keep Earth's first contact with Vulcans from taking place.


Episode 3: Scorpion
(Janeway, Chakotay, Tuvok, Kim, Kes, Torres, 7of9, Doctor, Paris, Neelix)

What could possibly frighten The Borg? Why, a mostly terrible new alien race from another dimension who The Borg just can't seem to assimilate. This new enemy is such a threat that The Borg and the crew of Voyager must team up to stop them.


Episode 4: The Gift
(7of9, Kes, Janeway, Doctor, Tuvok, Chakotay, Kim, Torres, Neelix)

The newest member of Voyager is A Borg! And it's up to the rest of the crew to teach her how to be more human. It's somewhat Data-ey, but with more  potential murder than holodeck detective work.


Episode 5: Trials & Tribbilations
Sisko, O'Brien, Bashir, Worf, Dax, Odo, Kirk, Chekov, Scott, Kira, Uhuru, Spock

This may be my favorite episode in the whole franchise. Filmed like a TOS episode, the crew of Deep Space Nine goes back in time to keep the Klingon villain from "The Trouble With Tribbles" from changing history.  There are a few scenes from the original TOS episode spliced in, and a lot of fun non-interactions between the two casts.


Episode 6: Affliction

Why do The Klingons look so different between The Original Series, the Next Generation/Deep Space Nine era, and Discovery? Well, the crew of The Enterprise is back to try and answer that question as best as possible.


Episode 7: A Year Of Hell 


Episode 8: Message In A Bottle


Episode 9: Begotten
(Odo, Kira, O'Brien, Keiko, Bashir, Quark, Sisko, Worf)

Quark finds a baby changeling, and gives custody of it to Odo, causing him to rethink his relationship with the doctor who raised him. Alsowhile, Kira is having O'Brien and Keiko's baby and it is awwwwwwwwwwwwkward for everyone.


Episode 10: One
(7of9, Doctor, Janeway, Paris, Torres, Kim, Chakotay)

When radiation from a nebula threatens the lives of everyone else on the ship, 7of9 becomes the crew's favorite member as she and The Doctor team up to save the ship.


Episode 11: Drone
(7of9, Doctor, Janeway, Torres, Kim, Paris, Chakotay, Tuvok, Neelix)

Borg, Borg, Borg! There's a whole new Borg on the ship, and 7of9 wants to raise him. You'd think this would be too similar to "Begotten" to put in this season, but you'd be wrong, the story goes in a completely different direction. Until it goes exactly the same way.


Serial 2: In Purgatory's Shadow/By Inferno's Light
(Sisko,  Garak, Kira, Bashir, Dax, Odo, Worf, Gul Dukat, O'Brien, Nog, Rom, Martok, Jake)

The standoff with The Dominion gets a whole lot tougher when Gul Dukat leads The Cardassians into an alliance with The Dominion to take on Starfleet. There's a changeling spy on Deep Space Nine, AND Worf and Garak get trapped in a Jem'Hadar prison. This is the episode that cemented Garak as my favorite Cardassian, and soured me on Gul Dukat.


Episode 14: Call To Arms
(Sisko, Gul Dukat, Odo, Kira, Rom, Ziyal, Quark, Jake, Garak, Worf, Martok)

Sisko comes up with a plan to blow up the wormhole and stop the seemingly inevitable war with the Cardassians and The Dominion. Spoiler Alert: It's not enough to prevent the war. Unrelated Spoiler Alert: This would have( been one of my favorite episodes, but there is a gigantic Deus Ex Machina moment that undercut the crux of the episode's tension.


Episode 15: Sacrifice Of Angels
(Sisko, Gul Dukat, Odo, Kira, Rom, Ziyal, Weyoun, Quark, Jake, Garak, Worf, Martok)

The Dominion War is truly underway, and it's about to go horribly awry for both sides.


Episode 16: Waltz


Episode 17: Flesh


Episode 18: Hope And Fear

To watch all of The Star Trek franchise, it would take you nearly a month of no-sleep-marathoning. Nearly 550 hours at this point. Twenty-four days. AND THEY'RE STILL MAKING MORE. You don't have that kind of time.

I've attempted to put together a much more condensed series of Star Trek. Dividing it into ten episode seasons. For the most part, these are My Favorite Episodes. I've left out some that are historically important episodes, in favor of things that I found fun to watch. If you're a Trekkie or Trekker, or just consider yourself a fan, I may have left off your favorite episode. Sorry. But this is more a list for people like me, who had seen an episode here and there, were interested in seeing more, but don't want to invest in the whole 530+ hours. I'm doing it, so others don't have to.

With the ending of TNG, we are left with two atypical Star Trek series: Deep Space Nine, which takes place mostly on a space station near a wormhole, and Voyager, which is your typical federation starship, but lost on the opposite side of space from the federation, and made up of a crew that is half federation, and half Maquis terrorist. These are both brilliant conceptual twists on Star Trek. Sadly, Voyager never delivers on its potential. I'm not saying that it's terrible, I'm saying that the Maquis/federation angle is never fleshed out as well as the space station angle of Deep Space Nine.

This season focuses on the show Deep Space Nine, but focuses on episodes that mostly revolve around one of their ships, The Defiant, which is the first cloakable federation vessel. The Defiant gets much use as the federation gets embroiled in a constantly shifting war this season, which introduces new villainous aliens, and upgrades some old school aliens to new adversarial heights.

Episode 1: Jem'Hadar
(Sisko, Jake, Quark, Nog, Odo, Kira, Dax, O'Brien, Bashir)

A father/son bonding trip between Sisko and Jake (as well as Quark and his nephew Nog) goes horribly awry when they are kidnapped by the new Big Bad of Deep Space Nine. Forget the Cardassians, the Jem'Hadar are nonfuckwithable warriors from the other side of the wormhole, and they're about to change the whole feel of the series.


Episode 2: The Search
(Sisko, Odo, Quark, Kira,  Bashir, Dax, O'Brien, Garak)

So, it turns out the Jem'Hadar are just soldiers who work for The Founders, and they are the unfuckwithable adversaries for the season. Starfleet uses their newest ship, The Defiant, to try and track them down. But the Jem'Hadar have other plans. Oh, and Odo ends up finally meeting aliens just like him. 


Episode 3: The Defiant


Episode 4: Improbable Cause/Die Is Cast
(Garak,Odo, Bashir, Sisko, O'Brien, Dax, Kira, Eddington)

It has been inferred since the beginning of Deep Space Nine, that Garak, a Cardassian tailor, is actually a high ranking spy. So when his shop is blown up under mysterious circumstances, Bashir and Odo delve into his past.


Episode 5: The Adversary
(Sisko, Dax, O'Brien, Eddington, Jake, Quark, Kira, Odo, Bashir)

Like Odo, The Founders are all changelings, so imagine the damage they could do if they infiltrated Starfleet and Deep Space Nine. Oh, shit, did that already happen?


Episode 6: Maneuvers
(Janeway, Chakotay, Torres, Kim, Seska, Tuvok, Neelix, Paris)

The closest Voyager comes to making the Maquis/federation conflict work is the character Seska, a Cardassian who was living as a Bajoran. She defects from Voyager before this episode and joins up with the Kazon, who are The Big Bads of the first three seasons of Voyager, but who pale in comparison to The Klingons, The Romulans, The Cardassians The Borg, The Jem'Hadar, The Founders, the spooky children of The Original Series, Tribbles, evil Kirk from the Mirror Universe, a stick of gum that gets caught in your sneaker treads. They're a lame adversary, and they're rarely a threat. Until they get combines with Seska. This also sets up a storyarc that will be in the 5 Bonus Episodes at the end of this post. But this is, by far, the best of the Seska episodes.


Episode 7: Way Of The Warrior
(Worf, Sisko, Odo, Kira, Dax, Garak, O'Brien, Gowran, Quark, Gul Dukat, Bashir)

The Klingons haven't been a big part of Deep Space Nine. Sure, Dax and some of her Klingon friends went on an adventure, and yea, the sisters of Duras were around for an early episode, but for the most part, they haven't been very present. But when Gowran decides The Klingon Empire should protect the wormhole from The Founders, he incites a war between The Klingons and The Cardassians, and it gets so intense that Deep Space Nine recruits Worf from Enterprise to join their crew.


Episode 8: Hippocratic Oath


Episode 9: Meld


Episode 10: Homefront
(Sisko, Odo, Jake, Nog)

What if The Founders reached Earth, which has been a paradise since the beginning of this series (apart from the whole Borg attack in Best Of Both Worlds a few seasons ago, and the whale problem from The Voyage Home)? Sisko, Odo, and Jake return to San Francisco (say that five times fast) to help prepare the planet, only to discover The Founders may already be there. This is a particularly good episode about fear mongering and the loss of freedom due to the fear of terrorism (and this was a pre 9/11 series). It's technically part one of a two-part arc, but the second half undoes the power of this episode, if it existed in a vacuum.


Serial 1: The Basics

​
Serial 2: Generations


Episode 15: To The Death
(Sisko, Worf, Dax, Bashir, Kira, Odo, Quark)

After Deep Space Nine is attacked by a faction of the Jem'Hadar, the crew of The Defiant run into another faction of Jem'Hadar who were also attacked. The two crews work together to take down the first faction. There are some great moments of culture examination in this episode between The Jem'Hadar, humans, Klingons, and The Founders. Deep Space Nine was truly the best Star Trek series when it comes to examining how every side in a war is actually The Bad Side.


Episode 16: Broken Link
(Odo, Sisko, Worf, Dax, Garak, O'Brien, Bashir, Kira, Quark, Gowran)

When Odo falls ill, the crew of Deep Space Nine must take a ship other than The Defiant to The Dominion in hopes that The Founders will help him get better. 


Episode 17: Apocalypse Rising
(Sisko, Odo, Worf, Kira, Bashir, O'Brien, Gul Dukat, Gowran, Quark, Dax, Jake)

At the beginning of the season, it seemed like The Jem'Hadar were the all powerful enemies, but it turned out that they just serve The Founders. Then the Klingons got involved. Then we went to Earth and it looked like maybe The Founders had taken over Starfleet. But what if they actually took over the Klingons? They are Everywhere. And Sisko, Odo, O'Brien, and Worf have to go undercover to unmask Gowran (who, apart from Worf, has the longest ongoing storyline this season). And Sisko makes A Fantastic Klingon. It's a joy to watch.

In September, I suggested a reading order for the extended universe of Stephen King's The Dark Tower, a series I loved, but hadn't read any of since Volume 7: The Dark Tower came out in 2004. I realized that I missed the characters from the series, and wondered if the reading order I suggested would really hold someone's interest all the way through. I scoured some local bookstores, and then the internet for the hardcovers of the books, and prepared for my quest to read a Super Long series of books. ​

Part 4 involved reading one of my least favorite Stephen King books, The Eyes Of The Dragon, which, sadly, I did not gain an appreciation for as I've aged. I hoped that The Gunslinger, the book that starts the official Dark Tower series, was as appealing to me as it was when I first read it. Short answer: No, BUT I enjoyed parts of it even more than I remembered. So, The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.

 I haven't seen the movie. I don't know that I ever want to see the movie But I will probably see the movie. 

Stephen King movies are not known for their excellence. Even so, the reviews for The Gunslinger movie were pretty terrible. The movie that's been inside my head since I first read it was so good that I don't want to have to reconcile it.

I don't think the first section of the book,  "The Gunslinger", has aged particularly well in either my memory or in the world of pop culture. The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed. is still a great opening line. And the scenes that focus on Roland and his journey through the desert still resonate.  The man with the raven scenes are great, but the focus of the first section, the flashback to Roland's time in Tull is a little grueling to read.

Like in The Stand, King's use of Christianity is clumsy and hard to read. I think, if King and I ever had a conversation, we'd agree on how we see Christianity, but I hate reading about it from his perspective. And that made the climax of the Tull flashback very difficult to read, as well as the final section, "The Gunslinger And The Man In Black".

But "The Way Station", "The Oracle And The Mountains", and "The Slow Mutants" is Stephen King at his best.  A Westernish fantasy tale (not scifi, this is straight post-apocalyptic fantasy) about coming of age in a dystopian society. Roland in a timeless barony that resembles The American West myths, and a boy he meets named Jake, who was in the process of coming of age in 1980's New York. The story of their fast forming bond, and their sharing of their upbringings and how they came to meet is worth rereading several times. Unlike the religious sections, King is able to express much of his character's intentions and personality through dialogue and plot developments.  The words in the three middle sections of the book seem as scarce as paper in Roland's world. There are no unnecessary adjectives, and the moral decisions don't involve religion just common human decency vs. the desire to achieve long-term goals.

Stray observations:

-- As I mention in the original post about reading this chronology, try and track down a printing of this book from before 2003. King decided to revamp The Gunslinger in 2003, and those his tweaks seem small, they do change your perspective on Roland. He appears to be trying to make Roland more heroic by giving him a more moral reason for his actions in Tull. Fuck that noise. You should know right from the get-go that Roland is willing to do anything to get to The Dark Tower. That he is mostly a hero is an accident of fate. From the outset of this series he was ruthless in his devotion to the quest, and King shouldn't have changed that anymore than George Lucas should have had edited New Hope so that Greedo shot first, or suggested that The Force wasn't a religious thing, but a scientific force that depended on midifuckenchlorians. Sometimes someone becomes heroic by doing shitty things for what they imagine is a noble purpose. I think the story is much more powerful when it doesn't give Roland a way to feel justified.

-- Forget a movie, the Roland/Jake/Man In Black portion of this book should have been a mini-series or part of a long-form television series. It's such a cool way to explore Roland's humanity, and the ability to crossover between worlds that is essential to the upcoming The Drawing Of The Three.

-- You really should read the first section, "The Gunslinger" for continuity purposes, and for the good parts. But feel free to skip "The Gunslinger And Man In Black" entirely, it's mostly just King being unnecessarily grandiose about the world he's building, and foreshadowing the events of The Drawing Of The Three. But it's not necessary, you're going to read the book, do you care that a character in the previous book tells you the major arc of the next book? 

--251 pages is Chump Change once you've flown through The Stand and suffered through The Eyes Of The Dragon, right? We're 1,891 pages closer to The Dark Tower than we were when we started.