Janie Boschma

The essence of being cool is knowing about things before other people do. It’s being able to say you’ve already seen that movie, been to that restaurant or heard that album before any one of your friends have.

The essence of cool is not reading the same book as a fifth grader – a fifth grader who probably read the entire book in one night while it took you more than a week to read anyway. I’m talking of course about the Harry Potter series. Although, taking into account they are good books, I just think college students deserve a tale more age appropriate.

Now that Hermione and Ron have snogged, Harry saved the world, and midterms are over, it’s time for some to start a new book series. Fans of Harry might find themselves enjoying a series similar in length and adventure but for a more mature audience. In fact, many older fans of Harry might even find that this other fantasy series might in fact be better than Harry’s adventures ever were.

I’m talking about Stephen King’s magnum opus masterpiece series, “The Dark Tower.”

“I’ve never worked harder on a project in my life, and I know none better,” is what King said about his series. The Dark Tower series is, at its core, a lot like other gigantic series such as like Harry Potter or The Lord of the Rings.

The book focuses on Roland, a gunslinger, and his never-ending quest for the Dark Tower. Set in “A world that has moved on,” it’s reminiscent of old westerns like “The Good The Bad and The Ugly” or “The Magnificent Seven” but with a science fiction macabre twist. The story transcends this world into a world all its own. A world were time is not constant, were pistols and magic doors must be used around every corner, in order to escape.

The series is almost an accumulation of all King’s past stories put together into one grand story. In “The Dark Tower” the reader will find characters and settings from Salem’s Lot, The Stand, and others. Highly personalized and suspenseful The Dark Tower series stands to be, considered by King himself and many others, his greatest work ever. And considering the series has been in the works since 1970, it gave King more than 30 years to perfect the story, which he finished in 2003. Harry Potter on the other hand, was rushed out year after year by Rowling due to the publishers pressure to make as much money as possible off the current hype, hurting the overall quality of the books.

But if it already ended in 2003. If one hasn’t read the series already, wouldn’t it be a waste of time to read considering its been around so long and, according to me, all of its initial cutting edge cool points are gone? Don’t worry, I would suggest getting into “The Dark Tower” because it is an amazing tale, and upon reading its controversial ending, it changes the way one looks at stories. And there are still some cool points left in the book.

Remember upon the release of “The Lord of The Rings” movies how it rejuvenated popularity in the books and became a phenomenon? While it is my guess that this will happen to “The Dark Tower” soon, because rumors are already being spread. In fact, it is all but confirmed that J.J. Abrams – writer of “Lost,” “Mission Impossible 3” and “Armageddon” – is going to be working with King to produce either a TV series or a Hollywood movie based off the novels. Whenever it is released a similar phenomenon will occur with the Dark Tower books, as happened with The Lord of The Rings books.

So if you want to be hip and increase your social status it would be rational to get into “The Dark Tower” before it gets too popular, so as to become as cool as possible. Because isn’t becoming cool what college is really all about? Oh no wait, actually that’s high school. Never mind then.

Hoostal is a junior political science major and a columnist for The Spectator. “Scottie Does Know” appears every Monday.