"Hear me," as Roland of Gilead might say. "Hear me very well."

For I have just this minute finished reading the entirety of Stephen King's Dark Tower series. And I stand in utter awe, rocked to my core and shaken to my foundations by King's monumental accomplishment. A seven-volume series that is, in King's own words, his "magnum opus," these books touch upon many of the elements of his other work, tying them together (albeit loosely), and even continuing the chronicles of at least one character not seen in many years.

Essentially, the series follows Roland, the last Gunslinger, on his determined journey to reach the perhaps-mythical Dark Tower at the center of creation. Think of Sergio Leone-era Clint Eastwood as an Old West Jedi Knight, wandering through a sort of post-apocalyptic wasteland, and you'll have just the slightest beginnings of a notion of where King is going with it all.

King's reputation stems, obviously, from his horror work, but these are not horror novels. They are many things at once, not least of which is a sort of dark fantasy with elements of science fiction, adventure, and a liberal splash of The Lord of the Rings.

And just as the movie versions of Lord of the Rings, in retrospect, had to be made by Peter Jackson, these books had to be written by Stephen King: In each case it took a "horror guy" to bring all the full-blooded color and vivid, shocking imagery to the table, enriching the underlying, and more prosaic, basic fantasy elements. In another writer's hands, a story like Roland's might be somewhat diverting, perhaps fun, and possibly interesting. But gripping and, in places, utterly jaw-dropping? Filled with widescreen scenes of shattering awe and small moments of personal, utterly human hope and despair? Probably not.

It must have been painful for King to write these books, in a very literal sense. He took years off between volumes, returning to them as if reluctant to discover what happened next, but even more reluctant to leave those revelations undiscovered and untold. His introduction to the series explains in great detail just how hard he found it, each time, to get back to work on The Dark Tower, as well as the overwhelming, imperative sense that he simply had to -- as if someone's life depended on it. Probably his own.

And the final two volumes in the series, in particular, illustrate beyond any doubt just how incredibly personal this story is to him, and how much it was and is bound up in his very existence as a writer and as a man.

So -- painful for him to write, yes, beyond all doubt. And what is more, the books are, perhaps in a different way, extremely painful to read. Painful, however, in the way that makes the reader want to keep reading, desperate to discover what happens next to the characters, and terrified of just what that might mean.

Because it's all about the characters, here.

I have never considered myself a "Stephen King fan," though I have always maintained a healthy respect for his obvious skills and broad popularity. The Dark Tower novels, however, should firmly establish his mastery of prose, of story construction, and above all else of character.

Roland's ka-tet (his fellowship, if you like) of Eddie, Jake, Susannah, and Oy: These are not characters at all but people, full-drawn (you'll pardon the expression), fully conceived and realized. They pull the reader inexorably into the story. You live and, yes, in some cases, die with these and the other characters you encounter as you follow Roland on the Path of the Beam, en route to the Tower.

Reading these books, and coming to know these people along the way, is a time-consuming process. The journey is long, the obstacles along the way difficult, sometimes horrific, and, quite often, seemingly insurmountable.

But time, of course, is a face upon the water. And it was, in retrospect, well worth the effort.

While it will not become my favorite story or series -- -- it is, in many ways, too dark, too brutal, too stark for my tender heart to embrace it that fully -- I can state in all honesty that no story before it affected me so emotionally. I will not shy away from saying that the story left me in abject tears on at least three occasions, a fact that I reflect upon now with as much astonishment as I felt the first time it happened.

King is not my favorite writer, not at all; but his writing here is so powerful, his characters so vivid, the emotions that course through these pages so true, that the events that befall the ka-tet strike the heart with an awesome and terrible force.

During the course of the reading, by chance I came across the opinions of a few others who previously had read it. Most of them expressed some form of disappointment, particularly at the very ending. I wasn't surprised, as few stories, and especially few stories this long, this involving, end to the satisfaction of all, or even of most.

Perhaps one has to have read comic book stories to truly get the gist of what happens here. As a reader of Marvel's comics since childhood, the ending fit with everything I knew about grand, heroic fantasy. I could even tell you the comic book and the issue number in which a character's fate parallels Roland's so strongly.

It has its problems, yes. Climaxes take hundreds of pages to reach and don't always seem worth the effort expelled to get there. There are enough deus in the ol' machina to start a new pantheon. Metafiction runs rampant.

Be still. The climaxes, and the moments on either side of each of them, are what they are; what they clearly, very clearly, had to be. And what in the hands of another writer, a more deceitful writer, might seem sheer egotism, here seems merely honest. In fact, I might argue that, if anything, King is too shy with his metafiction, too self-consciously limiting in its use. He could have done more with it, had he allowed himself to.

I cry your pardon, but put your petty criticisms aside, for your father's sake. It ended precisely as I had begun to suspect it would, as I had, in some ways, hoped it would. And the final sentence was exactly what I expected it would be. Exactly.

I say this not by way of congratulating myself for figuring something about a story out in advance, though Gan knows that happens seldom enough. I say it by way of congratulating sai King for getting it right, or at least right in my eyes. And that's enough, at least, for me.

The Gunslinger, the ka-tet, and the long journey are behind me now. I commend it to others, with the lone admonition that it is not for the cynic. No, not for him at all. You must approach this story, this quest, with an open heart and innocent eyes.

Sai King stood true and said true. To the very end, he said true.

And I say thankya.