the only thing the later DT books are missing is Christine

that's the Dark Tower. Randall Flagg essentially pops into other SK books to recruit bad guys

*sigh* in the books, the characters are fans of The Shining (the movie), even though their author isn't

the proper term is 'weird Western'. the closest mainstream one recently was Logan, which the first DT book could be closer to

the 'new characters' are from his other books. it's a shared cinematic universe

which is weird, since the CHARACTERS in the Dark Tower are bigger fans of the Shining movie than their author

Damn straight. Roland, Eddie, Jake, Sussanh… I feel like I've known them my whole life. Flagg, too

he's kinda a John Constantine. he knows enough to deal with it

which is weird, because I assumed they were from Phantasm

Roland was 'not magical', except for the bit where he's a descendent of King Arthur, he has a Bag of Holding, he can hypnotize people, his guns are forged from Excalibur

Aaron Paul has been on Twitter hinting that he's Eddie

he's not 'a gunslinger'. he's Roland Deschain, The Last Gunslinger. the last in the line of Arthur Eld

i too am worried about the huge scale of a book series that's about saving the linchpin of the entire multiverse

who was that character in Lost who was just Larry Underwood?
anyway, the Island was a Dogan that was meant to monitor The Beam

the Terminator thing is exactly from the books… a minor character sees The Terminator and then compares it to Roland

the Dark Tower books have way fewer Magical Negros than the standard Stephen King books

there is a kid's Dark Tower book - Eyes of the Dragon

Hearts… in Atlantis
(which started with a stealth Dark Tower novela)

man I wish it had stuck with LOTR, instead of bringing in… other popular kids fantasy books

SK? his own characters state it plainly in the books