Books
The Trouble with Harry
On the morning of Saturday July 21st 2007, I – like so many fellow readers – turned the last page and closed shut the final volume of a momentous seven part fantasy series. Like those fellow readers, this was a journey we had embarked upon so many years prior, and while those first fledgling steps into this magical land promised a thrilling battle of good and evil – as our protagonist battled through myths, mazes and monsters – little did we know then how epic in scope the final tale would tell. I still recall those first few words, so pregnant with possibility…
“The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.”
Ohhh, I’m sorry. Did I lead my Constant Readers astray?
Well, it’s all true and amazingly coincidental. On the same day that the seventh volume in the Harry Potter series dropped, I closed... Continue reading »
Welcome Back Potter
Editor’s Note – This was originally published back in June 2003 when the Half-Blood Prince dropped. I decided to dust it off and update it for a new generation. Plus, this was published on a different Blog so technially, this is the first time this post is printed at The Ed Zone.
Now that summer is upon us – and how could one miss it with all the 48 degree beach days we’ve enjoyed here in the Northeast of late – my television viewing habits have diminished slightly. Oh sure, I never miss my daily fix of Backyardigans or Scott Baio is 45… and Single (the latter strictly viewed for “the wife”) – but with the summer doldrums sending the 24 scribes straight to the hash bars in hopes of dreaming up some more hooka-induced hokum for Jack Bauer, I am left with only the evening news as my sole fix ... Continue reading »
Leaning Tower
“The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.”
That’s the first line of the first entry in Stephen King’s ambitious seven-part fantasy series – The Dark Tower. A simple, crisp statement which when first glimpsed by my adolescent eyes, so many years ago, carried such weight and promise.
There are seven novels in the series. To sum it all up, in a world that has ‘moved on’, a lone gunslinger tracks a powerful wizard across a dusty sandscape. The wizard is a central figure in a plot to take down the titular Dark Tower – a massive edifice that stands as a spindle for all the interconnected worlds and universes that exist. If the tower falls, then reality ends. That’s Book 1 – The Gunslinger.
The second book, The Drawing of the Three, finds an ailing Gunslinger pulling two people from ou... Continue reading »
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