Gotta Love Phil Hale.
Ok, HUUUGE king fan here. The dark tower series is one I've been putting off of for a while and I haven't finished the entire series yet, but so far pretty damn good. The awesome thing about this series, I have to say is not only the content of the books, but the continuation in comic form, and the heavy input of illustrator art (including Phil hale) for the covers.
Roland Deschain, the main character, and the gunslinger as we know is traveling towards the 'dark tower' which I've read as a physical place and a metaphorical concept in the story. One of the awesome aspects of this story is that it's genre is wide, from Horror (obviously for king) to scifi, and fantasy which I think covers most of the topics in this class.
The first book in this series came out in 1982 and the 8th book which recently came out in '09. I've only cracked the cover of the first novel, "The gunslinger" which introduces the main character without giving to much information about his past or his motives for his movement towards the dark tower. After reading the hobbit, and some articles about this novel online, the connections between this and tolken's work. specifically with the 'High language' that some of the characters speak in the book. It's a lot like the lord of the rings series in a sense that there is this epic journey, but with the span of harry potter, with twice the amount of time spent on each novel.
I can't wait to finish the series (in like 4 years with the pace I'm at) but it will be an interesting 4 years at least.
