I have just completed Stephen King's The Dark Tower. This is not a review for The Dark Tower Boxed Set alone. It is for all seven volumes of The Dark Tower series, which should be read as one story.The Dark Tower, SK's magnum opus, is based on two fictional concepts: 1) Robert Browning's long poem "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" (provided in full in the Appendix of the seventh volume, THE DARK TOWER) and 2) Sergio Leone's series of movies starring Clint Eastwood as a gunslinging drifter.Is The Dark Tower worth reading? If you appreciate epic fantasy, yes. If you can tolerate occasional gaffs in writing style and convention, yes. If you despise horror, the supernatural, adventure, and action, and if you think such literature must be trashy pulp, no.THE GUNSLINGER introduces you to Browning and Leone's dual concept and to Jake. THE DRAWING OF THE THREE sets the mode: that of contemporary fantasy with portals to parallel worlds. And it introduces Roland's partners. THE WASTE LANDS is a good adventure in a parallel world. WIZARD AND GLASS for the most part digresses into Roland's past, but it is a superb story of romantic adventure. WOLVES OF CALLA stops along the way to the Dark Tower as Roland and his partners rescue villagers and display their gunslinging. SONG OF SUSANNAH is a story of unusual pregnancy, blending action and horror in a setting of modern America. THE DARK TOWER brings the long quest to a conclusion, with tragedy but also with ample good cheer. (Do read THE DARK TOWER'S Coda.)Though SK is one of contemporary humanity's more prolific, famous, and wealthy writers, do not confuse ability to sell with ability to write. I quail from the idea of every aspiring author trying to emulate him. For example he has a certain habit with concrete imagery. Stylists encourage concrete imagery, but SK gets carried away, at times making his prose feel phony and cheap. Mostly apparent in his descriptions of sex and violence, this habit pops up in other regards, as when he describes disease and excretion. In Writing Tools, Roy Peter Clark says, "Know when to back off and when to show off." With universally familiar phenomena like sex and excretion, we do not need detailed concrete images. Those are times to back off.Also, SK likes to show off his skill with offbeat jargon in dialog and character viewpoints. But this makes too many of his characters appear alike, and unconvincing.And SK can be a bit verbose. Especially in the later volumes of this series, he seems to follow Strunk & White's admonition "Delete unnecessary words" less than he follows the apocrypha "The thicker the book, the more impressive it is."Though I consider SK an occasional, worthy digression, I prefer standard prose, polished by authors (and editors) who pay close attention to Strunk & White's The Elements of Style. I award The Dark Tower five stars because I do not consider flawless prose a requirement and because The Dark Tower is a good story.Be it ever so, and I thankya.