New from the Midnight Myth
All things serve the beam…
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The Wheel of Ka: A podcast about The Dark Tower (and more)
Welcome to the Wheel of Ka, the Dark Tower podcast mini-series from the Midnight Myth.
What started as Derek Jones and Steve Gudelunas exploring Stephen King’s seven (or eight) book series The Dark Tower quickly became a podcast about Stephen King’s entire oeuvre. Read along with The Wheel of Ka to discover insights about King’s beloved characters - and how all his stories serve the Dark Tower.
What is it about King’s dystopian-spaghetti-western-multi-verse-fantasy epic that captures the imagination of so many dedicated fans— say thank ya! say true!? We’ll go book by book, discussing the narrative virtues and language styles of each verse in the epic. From the meta-textual to the metaphysical, we’ll examine each book in the series as a unique piece of fiction and as another artifact of the perplexing, winding adventure of Roland Deschain of Gilead and his Ka-Tet’s quest for the Tower. Watch the Midnight Myth Podcast feed for new episodes: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite listening app.
The Books
We invite and encourage our listeners to read along with us on the path of the beam, if it please ya.
Episode 1: The Gunslinger
“The man in black fled across the desert. The Gunslinger followed…” Episode One of the Wheel of Ka is now available in the Midnight Myth feed on your favorite podcast app, and here.
Episode 2: The Drawing of the Three
Derek and Steve breakdown the obstacles in the path of our unlikely three heroes and how each obstacle reflects the dual nature within their souls. Can their souls be mended so that each of the three can form a questing group worthy of gaining the nexus of reality known as the Tower? And what of Mort, the Pusher, and death? Listen to this month’s episode, and say true. Available now in the Midnight Myth feed of your podcatcher of choice, and here.
Episodes 3-4: The Drawing of the Three
The podcasting ka-tet is back at it again, set your watch and warrant on it. This time, Derek and Steve are tackling the third book of Stephen King’s the Dark Tower: The Waste Lands. The scope of this book meant that your pod-slingers took a look at the events of the first half of the third book— Book One: Jake, Fear In a Handful of Dust. Tune your satellite dishes, rotating atop your heads, to awesome, as Derek and Steve look at Jake, Susanna, Eddie, and Roland. The influence of the Medieval romantic epic of King Arthur, Watership Down, and good old fashion horror bubble to the surface in the fantasy western. This is an installment of the Wheel of Ka you won’t want to miss, say true!
Episodes 5-6: Wizard & Glass
King finally lets the readers into the murky history of Gilead’s last Gunslinger, Roland, and we learn of his youth and the love that would come to define the romantic nature of his heart, Susan Delgado. Derek and Steve unpack the themes, from Roland and Susan’s parallel to Paris and Helen from the Greek myth of the Trojan war, to the the traumatic and unfair predicament of Susan’s forced and sordid arrangement with Mayor Thorin. Let us not forget the three coffin hunters and their conspiracy to undo the Affiliation, or the mysterious witch, Rhea, and her pink glowing piece of glass.
Episode 7: The Wind through the Keyhole
Nearly a decade after Stephen King concluded the Dark Tower, he went back to Roland and his Ka-Tet and wrote The Wind Through the Keyhole. Chronologically, the book takes place in between Dark Tower books 4 and 5, where Roland finds himself and his band of travelers taking shelter amid the dangerous freezing storm called the Starkblast. Stephen King plays with meta narrative as the story of The Wind Through the Keyhole is Roland telling a story about young Roland telling a story. From shape shifting murderers to tigers in a cage, Derek and Steve break down this interesting narrative as they travel closer and closer to the nexus of the universe, the Dark Tower, say thank ya. Listen.
Episodes 8-9: Wolves of the Calla
Once in a generation, the Wolves come on top of grey horses in green hoods and cloaks, stealing one of every twin born in the Calla. The twins return “runt” with their minds hollowed and their bodies growing to unnatural size. Who, if not our heroes, can stand to save the poor children and lead the good and true Calla folk from their peril? Let’s all go a little todash, and find space between our world and Roland’s as his Ka-Tet makes a stand on their dangerous quest for the Tower.
“Ka was like a wheel, its one purpose to turn, and in the end it always came back to the place where it had started.”
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