I don’t really watch a lot of book trailers because most of them tend to be rather boring, utilizing cheesy special effects with often not very well done flash animations and stock music.
But I had to share this one, for two reasons:
1) Because the animation in this trailer is fantastic! It really gets across the theme and concept of the book without giving away much of the plot, which makes it very intriguing. I actually want to read this now.
And 2) The voice in the trailer was done by Toby Turner AKA Tobuscus on Youtube. I didn’t quite believe it at first because the voice in the trailer sounds so deep, but looking on Toby’s own Twitter account on the day the trailer came out, he did tweet that he did the voice.
Which just makes the book trailer even more awesome. Check it out below!
This morning I finally finished reading the first book of the Dark Tower series by Stephen King, the Gunslinger.
Now, before I get into the book, I need to clarify something. I often have a problem getting through books. It’s not that I don’t like to read, it’s not that I can’t get invested in the books, and it’s not that I have any kind of reading disability. I just have trouble remembering to pick it back up again. I could be loving a book and it will sit on my nightstand for days or even weeks at a time before I pick it up to continue again.
I suppose part of the problem is that I would just rather watch a movie or a few episode of a TV show before I go to bed.
Anyway, that said, it took me a good long while to even get invested in this book. It’s not that I didn’t like it, it was really good actually. It’s just the fact that there was so little that was clear about the characters and the setting that I felt like I didn’t know what anything looked like.
Like I said, it took me awhile to get through the book simply because I kept forgetting to pick it up, but I don’t really recall the gunslinger ever really being described. I imagined him as a tall, dark, and handsome man but so world-weary that one could barely tell he was actually good looking, and shrouded under a wide-brimmed hat and leather jacket.
I definitely know that I had no idea when or where this story was taking place until near the end of the book. I wasn’t sure it this world that Stephen King created was a mirror of earth, an alternate reality that was desolate and void of much life. Now that I’ve read the entire book I feel like I understand the setting better now.
The character of the gunslinger was extremely intriguing. He is a complex and dark character who at first seems simple. But the book slowly revealed how the gunslinger thinks and what happened in his past to shape who he is now.
I think I really started getting invested in the book when the small boy named Jake showed up. Jake was the first person that the gunslinger had come across that he didn’t view as a tool to be used and discarded. The gunslinger grew attached to the small boy. It gave him a sympathetic side that had previously been obscured in his hunt for the man in black.
The gunslinger’s obsession with chasing and killing the man in black definitely an interesting one. The gunslinger knew the man in black had magical gifts and was suspicious of everything, because he knew the man in black would set up traps for him. This paranoia was not unwarranted. Most of the time he was right.
Anyway, I really like the book and I am going to continue the series, but first I am going to reread the Harry Potter series in preparation for the release of the final movie in a couple months. This will be interesting, I haven’t read any of the books in a couple years. For shame, I know.
This morning I finally finished reading the first book of the Dark Tower series by Stephen King, the Gunslinger.
