by Bev Vincent
THE STAND
When Roland and his ka-tet end up in Topeka, Kansas, after defeating Blaine the Mono, they find themselves in a different universe, one that has been overrun by a superflu known as Captain Trips. This is the name given to the virus in The Stand. They see graffiti that mentions “the Walkin’ Dude” and ultimately meet up with Randall Flagg, the villain of The Stand, who also turns out to be Marten Broadcloak, Roland’s nemesis. Mother Abigail, the leader of the “good” faction, is mentioned, as is her home in Nebraska.
THE TALISMAN
Ties between The Talisman and the Dark Tower series are tenuous. They arise mostly out of the much stronger connection to the series of the book’s sequel, where the Territories, the parallel universe where Jack Sawyer travels when he isn’t in America, are revealed to be a borderland near Mid-World. The Agincourt Hotel in California that contains the Talisman might be the Dark Tower’s representation in Jack’s reality. It is an axis of all universes.
King drew inspiration from The Talisman for the novella “The Little Sisters of Eluria.” He began by imagining the great pavilion where Jack first saw the Queen of the Territories and then saw it in ruins and filled with vampire nurses.
SKELETON CREW
King included this collection in the list of books connected to the Dark Tower without specifying which story or stories elevated it to this status. Several fit the bill. The title character in “Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut” is probably saving time by veering through a portal or a thinny into another reality where distances are shorter than in the real world. The creatures that end up on her bumper and under her tires as roadkill are reminiscent of those that emerge through the trunk of the strange car in From a Buick 8. Scientists build technological doorways that allow travel across vast distances in “The Jaunt,” reminiscent of the ones built by the Great Old Ones in the Dark Tower series.
It is also possible that the Arrowhead Project in “The Mist” ripped a hole between universes, allowing todash creatures to emerge into the world. They might also have inadvertently created a thinny. Mrs. Carmody’s sermons bear a remarkable similarity to the one delivered by Sylvia Pittston in The Gunslinger.
IT
Derry, Maine, is one of those places where the border between neighboring universes is very thin. As seen later in Insomnia, the Crimson King has business in this city. The tangible connections between this novel and the Dark Tower series, though, are slight. When Jake Chambers enters the Mansion on Dutch Hill while returning to Mid-World, he notices that the wallpaper features capering elves wearing green caps. The same is true of the house on Neibolt Street in Derry, which implies that both houses may be doorways to alternate realities.
The robot who fills Joe Collins’s propane tanks in the White Lands of Empathica is called Stuttering Bill, which is also the nickname of Bill Denbrough in It. Collins is revealed to be a shape-shifting clown who feeds on emotions, which puts him in the same category as Pennywise from It, although King has stated definitively on his message board that Dandelo is not Pennywise.
One other connection between It and the Dark Tower series is the Turtle. In Mid-World, the turtle Maturin is one of the Guardians of the Beams. In Derry, the group of kids—and, later, adults—who form a ka-tet to fight off Pennywise is supported by a Turtle, though this entity is somewhat different from a Guardian.
THE EYES OF THE DRAGON
The Eyes of the Dragon takes place in the Mid-World kingdom of Delain, which is mentioned several times in the Dark Tower series. The fact that the ruler of that realm is named Roland is not significant. However, the king’s chief adviser is a wizard named Flagg, which is another guise of Randall Flagg, aka the man in black, the Covenant Man and Marten Broadcloak. Before coming to Delain, Flagg was in Garlan, another kingdom that is mentioned in the series. Flagg is an agent of chaos, stirring up mischief and looking for something good to destroy for no reason other than the fact that he can. He always manages to escape before he is called to accounts for his misdeeds.
As recounted in The Drawing of the Three, in the final days of Gilead, Roland encountered a demon that pretended to be a man who called himself Flagg. In pursuit of this creature were two young men named Dennis and Thomas. Thomas was one of King Roland’s sons, and Dennis was the son of the butler to Thomas’s brother Peter. Roland saw Flagg change a man who had irritated him into a howling dog. Thomas and Dennis left Delain heading south in pursuit of Flagg at the end of The Eyes of the Dragon and apparently caught up with him at some point, but that story has never been told.
INSOMNIA
Stephen King described Insomnia as a Dark Tower novel while touring to promote the book in 1994, saying that it cast a light on what he had to do with the series. At the time, a few years after the publication of The Waste Lands, he was considering writing the last four books in the series back-to-back, though that plan didn’t come to fruition for the better part of a decade.
The book itself shows up in The Dark Tower. A copy is given to Roland when he visits the Tet Corporation’s headquarters at 2 Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza. The Calvins, a group of researchers scrutinizing King’s novels for clues, believe it is the keystone book relating to the Dark Tower series, containing veiled clues to help Roland save the Tower. Its red-and-white dust jacket symbolizes the fight between good (the White) and evil (the Crimson King).
Some of the clues are subtle. A character named Ed Deepneau falls under the power of the Crimson King, an evil being from another level of reality. In the Dark Tower series, Aaron Deepneau has a distant cousin named Ed who died the year Stephen King was born. The character’s name might have been a flag for Roland to pay attention to Aaron Deepneau when he meets him.
Insomnia contains the first-ever mention of the Crimson King. When Roland sees a reference to the Crimson King in Wizard and Glass, he claims to have no idea who that is. However, King inserted references to the Crimson King in the revised and edited version of The Gunslinger in 2003.
The book explains in detail the nature of the multiverse as it relates to levels of the Tower. On one hand, each level of the Tower is a different universe, one of a near-infinite multitude of realities. Levels that are higher up are more elevated in a developmental sense. The lowest levels are occupied by “short-timers” like protagonist Ralph Roberts. In another sense, each level of the Tower represents a year or a phase in a person’s life, which is how it reveals itself to Roland.
Clotho, one of the agents of Purpose, tells Ralph that there are elevators in the Tower that short-timers are not ordinarily allowed to use. Ralph says that he has seen a vision of the Tower, and it doesn’t have an elevator but rather “a narrow staircase festooned with cobwebs and doorways leading to God knows what.” Perhaps to God himself, he speculates.
The Crimson King sent his minions to Derry to kill Patrick Danville, a four-year-old boy who is a skilled crayon artist. The Crimson King understands that Patrick will play an important part in his downfall, so he wants to prevent that from happening. This is in keeping with some of the Crimson King’s efforts to kill Stephen King before he could finish writing Roland’s journey. If Patrick dies before his fate is fulfilled, the Dark Tower will fall.
Ralph becomes an instrument of ka, called into action by agents of Purpose (the White) in a battle against the Random (the Red) where he doesn’t understand what’s at stake. Ralph becomes part of a ka-tet that includes his friend Lois and a man named Dorrance Marsteller, who provides Ralph with things he needs before he needs them.
Atropos, an agent of Random, is one of the Crimson King’s servants. Events in Derry are of such import that everything at the levels of Higher Purpose and Higher Random in the Tower has come to a stop. Ralph acquires some of the touch, a power that Alain Johns and Jake Chambers both developed. When he first meets Patrick, he senses a pink aura that may tie him to the rose. Patrick is also attuned to the larger multiverse. One of his crayon drawings is a picture of the Dark Tower in a field of roses. At the top, he puts a Red King who g
lares down at Roland with hatred and fear. Patrick says that Roland is a king, too.
When Ralph saves Patrick’s life, Roland, who is still in the desert on the trail of the man in black, senses something. He rolls over in his bedroll and sleeps more easily.
In Insomnia, King implies that Patrick Danville will save two people. This isn’t exactly how things play out in the Dark Tower series; nor is it ever revealed how or when he ended up in the basement of Dandelo’s cabin on Odd Lane.
There are a number of other contradictions between Insomnia and what transpires in the series. The Crimson King who battles Ralph Roberts seems less daunting than the mad king who dominates End-World. One way of resolving this is to regard the book the same way the Calvins do—symbolic rather than literal. It contains subconscious messages from Stephen King to Roland. References to the Dark Tower are masked, and sometimes mean nothing at all.
ROSE MADDER
In Rose Madder, a woman buys a painting that provides access to another world. In the coda to Song of Susannah, the fictional version of Stephen King wonders if this world is Mid-World and whether she might meet Roland. Instead she meets a woman named Dorcas, who knows about the people who were hanged from the light poles in Lud and is conversant with ka. There is also a passing reference to a weedy vacant lot that calls to mind a similar lot in Manhattan containing a pink rose. The novel also shares the character of Cynthia Smith with Desperation, which has Dark Tower connections, and a framed picture of Susan Day from Insomnia.
DESPERATION
One connection between Desperation and the Dark Tower series is geography. The China Pit Mines in Desperation, Nevada, are located in the Desatoya Mountains, which is also the location of the dead town of Eluria from the novella “The Little Sisters of Eluria.”
The creature Tak who inhabits the bowels of the mine could be one of the creatures that dwell in the todash spaces between universes. He is freed when miners break through a wall, which is also how the skin-man is unleashed in The Wind Through the Keyhole. He speaks the same language of the unformed used by the Little Sisters.
The book also features powerful little figures called can-tah, translated as “little gods.” The turtle Jake finds in the bowling bag he picked up in the vacant lot has similar powers, although it is more aligned with good than evil. Tak is “can-tak,” or “big god.” He mentions the “can toi,” which is another name for the low men.
THE REGULATORS
Though The Regulators is not set in Desperation, Nevada, it features Tak, who originated from there. The book is connected to Desperation in a topsy-turvy manner, with characters bearing the same names having completely different relationships to one another. The book was published under King’s pen name, Richard Bachman. His alter ego’s fictitious wife is Claudia Inez Bachman, the author of Charlie the Choo-Choo in Keystone Earth, where she is known as Claudia y Inez Bachman to give her name nineteen letters. The Big Coffin Hunters in Mejis are also called “regulators,” and Ted Brautigan shows Bobby Garfield a (fictional) Western movie called The Regulators in “Low Men in Yellow Coats.”
BAG OF BONES
Bag of Bones is set in Derry and in western Maine, both thin places. Mike Noonan’s summer home, Sara Laughs, becomes Cara Laughs, Stephen King’s summer home at 19 Turtleback Lane, in Song of Susannah and The Dark Tower. The novel features a cameo appearance by Ralph Roberts from Insomnia, a book with very strong connections to the series. The number nineteen plays a part in the book, but this is probably just a coincidence since Bag of Bones was published before King’s accident. Mike’s journeys to the Fryeburg Fair are reminiscent of the todash journeys the ka-tet takes to New York.
HEARTS IN ATLANTIS
In several books, King introduces Dark Tower concepts before they become part of the series. In Insomnia, he debuted the Crimson King and elucidated the nature of the levels of the Tower. In “Low Men in Yellow Coats,” the opening section of Hearts in Atlantis, King introduces Breakers, people with psychic powers sought by the Crimson King.
The Dark Tower subsequently fills in Ted Brautigan’s backstory before he showed up at Bobby Garfield’s boardinghouse in Connecticut, trying to evade the mysterious and menacing low men. He has just escaped from Algul Siento with the help of Sheemie from Mejis. Ted has extraordinarily strong precognitive powers that make him attractive to the low men, who scour the country looking for people with such talents. According to Ted, he is the best of the Breakers.
The low men wear gaudy clothes and hats lined with wire to protect them against psychic assault. They communicate with astrological symbols—including a red eye—chalked on sidewalks. Their cars look normal, but they aren’t—they’re alive, too, like the cars in From a Buick 8 and “Mile 81.” They wear the Crimson King’s red eye on their lapels like badges. Ultimately they will be revealed to be disguised can toi, a cross between the taheen and humans.
One of the books Ted introduces to Bobby is Ring Around the Sun by Clifford D. Simak, which King once said was probably his inspiration for the concept of multiple universes. Ted knows that a gunslinger has reached the Borderlands of End-World. On one occasion, while in a trance, Ted says, “All things serve the Beam,” a phrase that appears often in the Dark Tower series. The low men talk about their boss, the Crimson King.
The low men drag Ted back to his duties as a Breaker—though readers still don’t know what this means. In the closing section of Hearts in Atlantis, “Heavenly Shades of Night Are Falling,” Bobby gets a message from Ted. The envelope contains rose petals, and Bobby senses the multiverse all spinning on the axis of the Tower. He understands that Ted has once again escaped from the low men.
Another connection between Hearts in Atlantis and the Dark Tower series is a man named Raymond Fiegler, another name for Randall Flagg. Fiegler was the leader of a fringe group that Bobby’s childhood girlfriend, Carol Gerber, joined. Fiegler had the power of becoming dim or not being seen.
THE PLANT
There are a few tenuous ties between this unfinished novel and the Dark Tower series. Carlos Detweiller prays to the god Abbalah, which is another name for the Crimson King. He also utters words from the language of the unformed and mentions opopanax, the name of the feather used to call meetings in Calla Bryn Sturgis and a word that haunts Jack Sawyer in Black House.
BLACK HOUSE
Black House represents the first time that Stephen King allowed another writer to contribute to the Dark Tower mythos: Peter Straub. Though The Talisman has tenuous ties to the series, there is no question that Black House is a Dark Tower novel.
It was Straub’s suggestion that he and King use elements from the Dark Tower. He was curious about what Breakers were and who the Crimson King was, and writing this book with King was one way to find those things out. Via the character Parkus, the nature of Breakers is spelled out. For the past two hundred years (a period those at the upper levels call the Age of Poisoned Thought and roughly the same amount of time the Wolves have been raiding the Callas), the Crimson King (aka Ram Abbalah) has been gathering people with psychic powers from the Earth and the Territories. He is using them to speed up the destruction of the Beams. One of the six Beams collapsed on its own thousands of years ago, part of the ordinary course of decay. Since starting their work, the Breakers have destroyed two Beams and weakened two others. Only one (Gan’s Beam) still has its original strength.
Parkus calls the gunslingers an ancient war guild of Gilead and says that it is their job to protect the Beams. As a ka-tet, they are capable of countering the Breakers, but they are mostly gone now. He knows of one gunslinger who has created at least three more of his kind. This last group of gunslingers is the final hope for the Tower to stand until the end of its natural days. If the Crimson King can break the Beams before Roland and his ka-tet reach the Tower, he will never have to confront them, which is why he has stepped up his search for Breakers.
Only a small percentage of the children he captures are sufficiently talented to become Breaker
s. Those who don’t qualify are sent as slave labor to power the Big Combination, An-tak, the Forge of the King, his energy source located in End-World, from which he powers evil in many different universes. An End-World demon called Mr. Munshun possesses Charles Burnside, an aging serial killer, using him to kidnap children. Any the Crimson King can’t use, Mr. Munshun is allowed to eat.
Jack Sawyer, now a police officer in Wisconsin, has forgotten his adventure retrieving the Talisman. After seeing it in a newspaper article, he is haunted by the word “opopanax,” the name of the feather used to call meetings in Calla Bryn Sturgis. He is responsible for finding the latest kidnap victim, Tyler Marshall, who has the potential to be as powerful a Breaker as Ted Brautigan, who Munshun calls the Chief Breaker. If Jack can’t save Tyler, he has to kill him before Munshun can take him through the Black House, a portal to Mid-World, where he will be swept off to End-World on a monorail much like Blaine and Patricia, both of which are now gone. One more Breaker like Tyler might be all the Crimson King needs to bring down the Tower. His mother collapses after he is taken, rambling about the Crimson King. She also dreams of the Dark Tower in a field of roses.
Jack meets Sophie, the Queen of the Territories, in a tent that once belonged to the Little Sisters of Eluria. It may be the last such tent of a dozen or more that once existed in the Territories, On-World and Mid-World. Sophie tells Jack that even the Little Sisters serve the Beam, though Jack has no idea what that means.