There is also a follow up to it set on the same world something like four hundred years after.

Yeah

You know how Stephen King has a bunch of references to his other works that makes them all something like a shared universe? Even moreso with the Dark Tower series?

Sanderson does the same thing.

Errr bad example.

King combines universes like a drunk guy combines his car with your front porch, door, hallway, and umbrella stand.

Fair enough.

He wrote 45 books?

There were a bunch of things in the later half of the Dark Tower series that made me think that if this exact same thing was written by anyone not named Stephen King, they'd be laughed out of the room.

Sanderson?

I guess that's how many he has now.

For example about the stupid things that King did, there is the fact that the plot twist was robots, and not only that, it was robot cowboys that fought with literal fucking lightsabers and weapons that looked like the snitch from Harry Potter but acted like buzzsaws. Or the fact that they fought them off with three guns and a bunch of sharpened goddamn plates.

How much cocaine did he *do*

Or how about how he was IN the story as an actual character?

That's not even the worst one

Yes, exactly.

I remember loving the first 4-5 books of Dark Tower and the last just hit all my peeves and I coudn't finish.

Not only did he make himself a character in the story, he made the fact that he got hit by a van in real life a turning point for the fate of the universe.

So much so that one of the main characters had to sacrifice himself and throw himself in front of the van so it killed him instead of hitting King.

*Cringe*

I loved the way the series ended, but if I knew going in what kind of stupid bullshit I'd have to wade through to get there, I don't know if I would have finished it.

I skipped through the last 3 books to the end.

A satisfying end, but it was so bad.

What I would tell people that are going to read it for the first time is go through the first four books, though that's complicated by the fact that he wrote another book after finishing the series that fits somewhere in the middle. Anyway, I would say read the first four with no problems. Start the fifth one too, and read it until you get to the point where they find out what the wolves are, but don't say it.

Stop there and invent your own rest of the story.

What the heck 🤣

There's almost no way that it'll be worse than what Steve wrote.

Nah

Jump to the last 30 pages of the last book.

That too.

Knowing the characters, assume everyone else is dead and it gives a really heartwarming end to the story.

I mean, to be honest, you don't have to assume, because everyone not explicitly mentioned is dead.

Well I'm making sure the reader doesn't assume they're hanging out at a spa or something along the way.

With one exception, though for that character to not be dead would require some Stephen King level bullshit.

Yeah

Tbh I dont feel obligated to read any more Wax and Wayne

Or Elantris

Is that Sanderson?

Yeah. Wax and Wayne is post timejump Mistborn

Elantris is part of the universe but a different world

Cosmere and shit