The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger - The Little Sisters of Eluria

I thought that I had called it. I really thought that I knew what the Little Sisters of Eluria were.

And I was wrong. Wonderfully, perfectly, deliciously wrong. This one caught me up, took me for a ride, and slammed me back down cackling like a madman. A must read!

Finally! The first story to fall into Roland’s wandering purgatory after the death of all his friends but RIGHT before the events of The Gunslinger... now in graphic novel format. :)

This is probably one of the finest of the short stories, or tales within tales. It shows us all different kinds of damnation and the power of choosing how you face it.

Oh, and you gotta love the little doctors. A nursing romance, indeed.

Anyone hungry? Everything serves the Beam.

As always, great art!

Ever since I read King's original short story, The Little Sisters of Eluria, almost 10 years ago I've regarded it as a lackluster addition to the Dark Tower family. Heck, the short stories within the DT novels themselves have more scope. In retrospect, Little Sisters is closer in tone to the series' first book, The Gunslinger, of which many fans consider to be an outlier (myself included).

This DT comic, however, does justice to an otherwise forgettable part of Roland's journey. The artwork and symbolic additions breathe life into the words in a way the short story just doesn't pull off.

This is the 7th book in the Dark Tower graphic novel series and was the creepiest and most disturbing book in the series to date. I actually found it intriguing and enjoyed it quite a bit.

Roland’s horse is dying and he decides to stop by a small town to get help. However the town is seemingly deserted. That’s when Roland is attacked by slow mutants and carried away by them. Roland is sure of his demise, but then the slow mutants are stopped by the Sisters of Eluria. The Sisters of Eluria take care of Roland and nurse him back to health; however there is something very sinister about these Sisters.

I thoroughly enjoyed this installment in the Dark Tower graphic novel series. The story is very focused, interesting, and more cohesive show more than previous trade paperbacks.

The Sisters of Eluria are truly creepy and pretty much an absolute nightmare. They alternate between appearing as beautiful compassionate women and hideous corpse-like monsters that feed on human flesh.

I loved watching Roland struggle against them and prevail (with unlikely help). I also enjoyed that there is a sweet little (and somewhat twisted) love story in here.

The illustration was beautifully detailed and full color; I really enjoyed it a lot. The book was easy to follow and read.

This is definitely an adult’s only graphic novel; it’s very violent, there is nudity, and sex in here as well as torture.

Overall one of the best installments in this graphic novel series yet. I will definitely continue reading this series. This graphic novel series is recommended to those who enjoy dark fantasy graphic novels. show less

I've never read the Dark Tower series, so it was with some trepidation that I tackled another Stephen King universe.

Suffice to say that by the end of it, I wanted to read the full series, which I've just added to my TBR pile.

It's quite noticeable that “Little Sisters” is nothing but an interlude in an overall broader canvas. Nevertheless I was hooked from the get-go of the story, despite the fact that's it has more action than I'd expect considering for much of the story Roland is bed-ridden and paralyzed by drugs.

One of the things that I always tend to look for in a story is how well an author is able to depict a strong sense of place. In a King story the settings are so well portrayed that they expand like real and fully show more coloured vistas in the mind's eye. Stephen Kind can describe the natural world in a way that neither a geologist nor a naturalist might describe it. It's all in the architecture of the world that King is able to envisage.

His descriptions have depth from which images arise in the reader's mind that are in fact quite poetic.

I intend to read all of the Dark Series before Ron Howard gets his teeth into it... I don't like spoiled surprises..." show less

This was a disappointing foray into a side story of the Dark Tower.

What I liked about it was its connection to King/Straub's novel, The Talisman. (Which is one of my favorite books.) If you've read it, you know that young Jack is trying to save his mom, (who is a Queen in another world), and she is very sick. When we first meet her, she is in a huge tent, fighting for her life. That huge tent is the main setting for this story. (A nice explanation of this comes in the foreword.)

This tale comes before the last entry in the graphic novel series, so we've gone backwards a bit in the timeline. I was okay with that but I'm not really okay with the change in how Roland looks and the artwork. While I loved the pencil drawings in the back, show more Roland looks like an entirely different person than in all the previous comics. I am having a hard time dealing with that. I think that the graphics in the previous novels are superior than the ones in this volume.

Overall, I liked the story and the setting, just not as much as the previous entries in this series. show less

I enjoy this story for what it is - a little addendum to the Dark Tower series. This adaptation is well done, and I really like the artwork. I like the fact that, this volume at least, seems to have moved away from the jagged, sketchy type art that the previous ones have had. Looking at Roland's face in this volume wasn't looking at a nest of skintone and shadow - I could actually see his features.

One thing that kind of bothered me was the doctors. If I recall correctly, and I may not be (it's been a while), but the doctors are supposed to be beetles, large ones. In this, they look more like crickets, or locusts.. Not that there's anything wrong with changing things up... but I guess that means that more changes will coming in later show more volumes. If they continue on that long.

I digress. Good story, good adaptation. Goodness me, look at the time!

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