The Waste Lands sees Roland and his newly-minted ka-tet leaving the Western Sea for the Dark Tower along the path of the beam. Our travelers begin in the forest and end the book on a suicidal monotrain. You’ve gotta love Stephen King!

The classic science fiction trope of multiple realities is masterfully developed here. We’ve already met Susannah, that amalgam of Odetta Holmes and Detta Walker—multiple personalities brought into union. We also know about multiple worlds like our world’s New York and Roland’s mid-world, running in parallel like discs mounted on the Dark Tower.

The Waste Lands brings these themes together in a paradox. By rescuing Jake in the previous book, the boy both exists and doesn’t exist in Roland’s world and mind. Jake, on the other hand, is both dead and alive in his world. The reunification of Jake recapitulates Susannah’s journey in the previous book. But what about worlds that should be kept separate?

The Waste Lands is everything readers love in a Stephen King book: familiar tropes handled with excellence, characters you grow to love, and bizarre horror thrown in for good measure.

King, Stephen. The Waste Lands. Narrated by Frank Muller. Audiobook ed., unabridged, Simon and Schuster Audio, 2016. The Dark Tower 3.