I’m driving at that we know there were three big changes:
1) The era of the gunslingers and their King ended (leaving Roland as the last)
2) The era of technology like, and beyond, ours (monorails, skyscrapers, the GW Bridge, cyborg bears) came to an end (altho, like, life in Lud still seemed to be at a different stage…

What were the villains’s motivations in the earliër novels?

Agreed on all point. And can you believe I haven’t read “LSoE” yet? I’ve been saying that for too long, tho, so I just requested Everything’s Eventuäl from the library.

He was. But didn’t he make a “your mom” joke?

What order did Mid-World happen in? Was it…
1. Era of Arthur Eld
2. Flashbacks from Gunslinger and Wizard and Glass
3. Era of the Great Old Ones, who made the futuristic marvels, like Blaine and the portals that support the beams
4. The "present day" MidWorld stuff

Agreed. Unfortunately, when I think back, for some reason it’s the Dr. Doom/Darth Vader/Harry Potter references that stand out, and that really didn’t do it for me. The text made it seem like a really big deal, but I never understood why.

Or just another Minions movie?

In the original novel, the villains’s motivation was totally that they were evil. The Crimson King was tryïng to destroy all existence for no gain. He had, apparently, promised himself that he would survive this destruxion, but on some level he must know that promise is meaningless, and in any case, how would he be…

A little in Book IV as well. All that Wizard of Oz stuff (must as I love WoO) was what symptomatic of the stuff I disliked in the later books.

That seems like a legitimate condensation of the story. One of the bad dudes working for the CK was kidnapping those with mental abilities to break the beams somewhere in the mess of Books VI and VII. Instead of introducing another bad dude to do that, just use the bad guy you’ve got. And instead of using the silly…

He was reading it with the stress on “anyone” (as did I), but your reading with the stress on “or” is totally cromulent.

Eight official books? Wind Through The Keyhole was out of order, but it’s still official, right?

Damn, I thought I was the only one who did that. I love the many levels of it.
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Use “&amp;lt;spoiler>” to show how to show how to mark spoilers…

Huh, that was right around when I had it!

1997 was great! Tail end of sophomore year, beginning of junior year, with study abroad in Eireland in between!

Wait, Americanos cost more than Espressos?

Now you know how I feel when I see people writing “hiccoughs” as “hiccups”!

Definitely not. Only if the question is part of the quotation.

When? I had one very recently.

I love the new pretzel croissants. This past spring I pulled an all nighter, then when Il Signorino and La Signorina were awake, I took them down to the nearest Dunk’s; the former had a doughnut while the latter watched with interest, and I had a way-too-sweet iced beverage, a way-too-sweet doughnut, and an…