The Drawing of the Three

The Drawing of the Three is the second book in Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series, and its action picks up directly after the conclusion of the first novel of the series, The Gunslinger. Inspired by Victorian-era poet Robert Browning’s epic poem “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came” (1855), the series describes the quest of the knight-like figure Roland Deschain and his companions to find the Dark Tower, believed to be the center of all creation. In his quest, Roland is often thwarted by the man in black, an antagonistic, mysterious figure. The Dark Tower series is set in a multiverse, a reality that contains many parallel worlds. Roland belongs to a world known as Mid-World, the only place from which one can directly enter the Dark Tower. Mid-World is a curious mixture of medieval and quasi-modern elements: Guns and ammunition exist, yet magic is real and machines are primitive. Roland speaks in a dialect that differs from modern English; even the meanings of words are different. Implicitly, Mid-World was once a prosperous and fertile land but is now in a postapocalyptic stage.