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The Waste Lands
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Read The Waste Lands
The Dark Tower: Book 3

The Waste Lands (1991) (edit title/settings)

by Stephen King (Author) (edit contributors)

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Description edit see section history

Part III of an epic saga. Roland and his companions, Eddie and Susannah Dean, find the Path of the Beam that will lead them to the Dark Tower. Along the way, Roland adds two new members to his ka-tet (a group united for a specific purpose). In the decaying city of Lud, they encounter new... read more

Summary edit see section history

The story begins five weeks after the end of The Drawing of the Three. Roland, Susannah, and Eddie have moved east from the shore of the Western Sea, and into the woods of Out-World. After an encounter with a gigantic cyborg bear named Shardik, they discover one of the six mystical Beams that... read more (warning: may contain spoilers)

The story begins five weeks after the end of The Drawing of the Three. Roland, Susannah, and Eddie have moved east from the shore of the Western Sea, and into the woods of Out-World. After an encounter with a gigantic cyborg bear named Shardik, they discover one of the six mystical Beams that hold the world together. The three gunslingers follow the Path of the Beam inland to Mid-World.

Roland now reveals to his ka-tet that his mind has become divided by the paradox of having let Jake Chambers die under the mountain after finding him at the Way Station in the desert, and yet also, after having subsequently prevented Jake's earlier death in New York City, having an alternate memory of traveling through the desert and mountains alone.

Meanwhile, in 1977 New York, Jake Chambers is experiencing the exact same crippling mental divide, which is causing alarm at his private school, and angering Jake's cocaine-addicted father.

Roland burns Walter's jawbone and the key to he and Jake's dilemma is revealed—but to Eddie Dean, not Roland. Eddie must carve a key that will open the door to New York in 1977.

Jake, in a schizophrenic panic, abruptly leaves school. After purchasing a children's book called Charlie the Choo-Choo at a used book shop, Jake finds a key in a littered vacant lot where grows a single red rose.

Jake is able to pass into Roland's world using the key to open a door in an abandoned haunted house on Dutch Hill in his place and time. This portal ends in a 'speaking ring' in Roland's world. During this crossing over, Susannah has sex with the demon of the speaking ring to keep it from attacking Eddie. Once the group is reunited, Jake's and Roland's mental anguish ends.

Following the path of the beam again, the ka-tet befriends an unusually intelligent billy-bumbler (which looks like a combination of badger, raccoon and dog with parrot-like speaking ability, long neck, curly tail, retractable claws and a high degree of animal intelligence) named Oy, who joins them on their quest.

In a small, almost deserted town called River Crossing, Roland is given a silver cross and a courtly tribute by the town's last, ancient citizens.

The ka-tet continue on the Path of the Beam to Lud. The ancient, high-tech city has been ravaged by decades of war, and one of the surviving fighters, Gasher, kidnaps Jake by taking advantage of the near-accident the team faced while crossing a decaying bridge that looks like the George Washington Bridge of NYC. Roland and Oy must then trace them through a man-made labyrinth in the city and then into the sewers in order to rescue the boy from Gasher and his leader, the Tick-Tock Man. Jake manages to shoot the Tick-Tock Man, leaving him for dead. The ka-tet is eventually reunited at the Cradle of Lud, a train station which houses a monorail that the travelers use to escape Lud before its final destruction brought about by the monorail's artificial intelligence known as Blaine the Mono. The "Ageless Stranger" (an enemy whom the Man in Black warned Roland that he must slay) arrives to recruit the badly-injured Tick-Tock Man as his servant.

Once aboard Blaine, a highly intelligent, computerized train which is insane due to system degradation, it announces its intention to derail itself with them aboard unless they can defeat it in a riddle contest. The novel ends with Blaine and Roland's ka-tet speeding through the Waste Lands, a radioactive land of mutated animals and ancient ruins created by something that is claimed to have been far worse than a nuclear war, on the way to Topeka -the end of the line.

Characters/People edit see section history

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Quotes edit see section history

  • “There is a thing that nothing is, and yet it has a name. It'ssometimes tall and sometimes short, joins our talks, joins our sport, and plays atevery game”
    Riddle-De-Dum
  • “Roland let me die. That is the truth.I still love him.That is the truth”
    Jake
  • “BECAUSE THERE ARE DREAMS”
    Blaine the train
  • Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
  • ‘There is a thing that nothing is, and yet it has a name. It’s sometimes tall and sometimes short, joins our talks, joins our sport, and plays at every game.’
    Highlighted by 75 Kindle customers
  • The lessons which are remembered the longest, Roland knew, are always the ones that are self-taught.
    Highlighted by 52 Kindle customers
  • “What can run but never walks, Has a mouth but never talks, Has a bed but never sleeps, Has a head but never weeps?”
    Highlighted by 51 Kindle customers
  • “See the TURTLE of enormous girth! On his shell he holds the earth. His thought is slow but always kind; He holds us all within-his mind. On his back all vows are made; He sees the truth but mayn’t aid. He loves the land and loves the sea, And even loves a child like me.”
    Highlighted by 43 Kindle customers
  • “Right is what all this is about,” Roland said. “But if you look too long at the small rights, Jake-the ones that lie close at hand- it’s easy to lose sight of the big ones that stand farther off.
    Highlighted by 40 Kindle customers
  • “All is silent in the halls of the dead,” Eddie heard himself whisper in a falling, fainting voice. “All is forgotten in the stone halls of the dead. Behold the stairways which stand in darkness; behold the rooms of ruin. These are the halls of the dead where the spiders spin and the great circuits fall quiet, one by one.”
    Highlighted by 36 Kindle customers
  • How do you suppose it feels to know you are dead in one world and alive in another?”
    Highlighted by 29 Kindle customers
  • “Will you drink to the earth, and to the days which have passed upon it?” he asked. His voice was hoarse, trembling with emotion. “Will you drink to the fullness which was, and to friends who have passed on? Will you drink to good company, well met? Will these things set us on, Old Mother?”
    Highlighted by 24 Kindle customers
  • “There never were a backshooting gunslinger—that much I will say.99
    Highlighted by 21 Kindle customers
  • Old habits, it seemed, sometimes died hard. Beating heroin was child’s play compared to beating your childhood.
    Highlighted by 6 Kindle customers
Show all 13 quotes from this book

First Sentence edit see section history

It was her third time with live ammunition ... and her first time on the draw from the holster Roland had rigged for her.

Table of Contents edit see section history

Book One: Jake: Fear In A Handful of Dust
1. Bear and Bone
2. Key and Rose
3. Door and Demon

Book Two: Lud: A Heap of Broken Images
4. Town and KA-TET
5. Bridge and City
6. Riddle and Waste Land

Glossary edit see section history

  • Char: Death
  • Khef: Water, birth or life force.
  • Clearing at the end of the path: Euphemistic term for death.
  • Deucies: A negative term that implies the person being described is being cowardly or foolish.
  • Docker's Clutch: Roland's term for a gunholder.
  • Mother-root: An umbilical cord.
  • Pert: Means impertinent or impertinently. However, it can also mean smart, leaning toward "smart-ass".
  • Puling: Crying, moaning, and making a fuss.
  • Sigul: A sign, symbol or insignia which is secret and full of meaning. It often has religious, political, or magical significance.
  • Wine-bibber: A boozer.
  • Ka-Tet: A group that travels together bound by fate
Show all 11 glossary entries

Series & Lists edit see section history

This is book 3 of 8 in The Dark Tower. (standard series)

Preceded by The Drawing of the Three, and followed by Wizard and Glass.

This is book 1 of 1 in The Waste Lands - Japanese. (community list)
This is book 3 of 13 in The Dark Tower - Japanese. (community list)
This is book 3 of 24 in Dark Tower Universe. (universe)
This book is in Best fantasy books. (community list)

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

  1. Stephen King (Author)

Other Contributors:

  1. Ned Dameron (Cover Artist)
  2. Joachim Körber (Translator) - (German)
  3. Frank Muller (Reader)

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: English
Publisher: Donald M. Grant
Country: United States of America
Publication Date: August 1991
ISBN: 978-0937986172
Page Count: 612

Awards edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

  • Library of Congress: PS3561.I483 W37 1991
  • Dewey: 813.54

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Reading Level: Young Adults

Violence

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