May 3 - "The Little Sisters of Eluria"

Sundays with Uncle Stevie“The Little Sisters of Eluria”
by Stephen King
Everything’s Eventual (2002)

* * * * * (Excellent) Pulp

After an unfortunate encounter with a gang of green folk – slow mutants – Roland, the Gunslinger, is nursed back to health by the sinister Little Sisters of Eluria.

A missing chapter from the Dark Tower saga, this not-so-brief adventure takes place before Roland catches Walter, the man in black, of the first novel, The Gunslinger. King does an excellent job setting the scene as Roland first enters Eluria, the eeriness of it all creates such a sense of dread you can’t help but wonder – and hope for – the evil hiding in the silence and shadows. The time Roland spends in the care of the Little Sisters is also a delightfully tension-filled collection of pages. There’s a reason King is a master of suspense, his craft is exceptional. My only complaint with the story is that the language of the series, the narrator’s manner of speech (Do ya ken it?), seems absent. This could be due to the fact that King wrote this tale before finishing the final books, where the language of Roland’s time in Hambry and the Calla seemed to more deeply permeate the narrator’s voice.