<p> Well, I guess it&#39;s technically not finishing it, since there&#39;s now an 8th book on the way, scheduled for next year. And I may well read that when it comes out–checked out of the library, of course–but the seven books I read were obviously the main story.</p> <p> I appreciate the first four books a fair amount. In part, I suppose, because they were the four that still felt…/lean/. The first two because I don&#39;t think he&#39;d yet gotten into the habit of writing long books. The third book starts to get a little piggy, but as I was still getting immersed in what&#39;s going on, I didn&#39;t find it as noticeable. By the time I hit <em>Wizard and Glass</em>, the text is perhaps a little more Stephen King-y (which is not necessarily a negative, in my view, but it&#39;s a marked contrast to the first two books)–though I think even <em>Wizard and Glass</em> may have been reined in by the fact that he was, in many ways, working in a genre that was not his own.</p>

<p> One of the writers on <a href="http://tor.com">tor.com</a> elected to take on Stephen King&#39;s <em>The Dark Tower</em> series. The significant difference is that where most of the posters on Tor are doing &#34;re-reads&#34;–guiding others through the books–this is a read-along, so you get to watch as someone else encounters the book for the first time.</p> <p> Of course, I could do that just fine by myself–I&#39;d never read it, though I remember Patrick talking about it when the first volume was finally widely-released in a trade paperback format in &#39;88–so I figured what the hell, I&#39;d follow along. Unlike my recent plunge into Patrick O&#39;Brian&#39;s Aubrey-Maturin books, though, I decided I would take advantage of my local library. I don&#39;t necessarily see these as being evergreen re-reads.</p>