The Wind Through the Keyhole

The Dark Tower

By: Stephen King

Narrated by: Stephen King

In his New York Times bestselling The Wind Through the Keyhole, Stephen King returns to the spectacular territory of the Dark Tower fantasy saga to tell a story about gunslinger Roland Deschain in his early days.

The Wind Through the Keyhole is a sparkling contribution to the series that can be placed between Dark Tower IV and Dark Tower V. This Russian doll of a novel, a story within a story within a story, visits Roland and his ka-tet as a ferocious, frigid storm halts their progress along the Path of the Beam. Roland tells a tale from his early days as a gunslinger, in the guilt-ridden year following his mother’s death. Sent by his father to investigate evidence of a murderous shape-shifter, Roland takes charge of Bill Streeter, a brave but terrified boy who is the sole surviving witness to the beast’s most recent slaughter. Roland, himself only a teenager, calms the boy by reciting a story from the Book of Eld that his mother used to read to him at bedtime, “The Wind through the Keyhole.” “A person’s never too old for stories,” he says to Bill. “Man and boy, girl and woman, we live for them.”

And stories like The Wind Through the Keyhole live for us with Stephen King’s fantastical magic that “creates the kind of fully imagined fictional landscapes a reader can inhabit for days at a stretch” (The Washington Post).

I just can't get past King's bad performance

Any additional comments?

Why did they allow King to read this book? Just... so... bad.

Started and finished on the same day

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

As I said in the title of this review, I finished this story in one day. I was filled with a nervous excitement at the prospect of a new Dark Tower book, I just couldn't see how King was going to fit a book in between Wizard and Glass and Wolves of the Calla. To my great relife he didn't try. While this book starts off after the ka tet has left the Green Palace, the story itself is a tale of Roland's youth mixed in with a really cool fairy tale, slightly reminiscent of King's first fairy tale effort, Eyes of the Dragon.

Any additional comments?

I was pleased and relieved that this wasn't any longer of a tale, nor did it try to place any new aspects of the Dark Tower series within it. Not that you need to hear it from me, but nice work Mr. King.

Brilliant

Such a brilliant story within a story within a story and the perfect way point in our adventure through Midworld. One of my all time favorites and one I think of often as I make up my own little stories.

King is a horrible narrator

Would you try another book from Stephen King and/or Stephen King?

Have done so plenty

Would you be willing to try another one of Stephen King’s performances?

Good lord no.

Any additional comments?

I purchased this shortly after it was released. I try to listen to it about once a year. I never make it 5 minutes. I honestly can't comment on the actual story

ZZZZZZZZ...ZZZZZZZ

Not the best in the series, but just ok.

I probably would have enjoyed the story more had it not been narrated by Stephen King.

Great novelist, dull and monotone voice.