The Stephen King Classic He Nearly Scrapped for Being Too Tolkien

Stephen King did not expect anyone to care about his weird western fantasy obsession. Then he built a whole multiverse around it. Here is how The Dark Tower went from a college project he doubted to the spine of his entire story universe, a 2017 movie with Idris Elba, and a TV adaptation circling in development.

How it started: doubt, a poem, and a very long pause

King started writing The Dark Tower while he was at the University of Maine. He finished what would become the first book, then shelved the whole idea for 12 years. By his own account in a 1989 interview, he had two big hang-ups: he figured nobody would want to read it because it did not look or feel like his other novels, and he knew the story was nowhere near complete. Also, that first volume barely touched our world. It played more like a dusty fever dream of another reality than a grounded horror story.

The spark came from his favorite poem, Robert Browning's 'Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came.' Browning never defines the tower, which sent King down the rabbit hole: What is the Tower? What does it mean? He landed on a very King answer: everybody has a Dark Tower lodged in their heart, something they are driven to find.

He also has a simple rule for fantasy that explains how these books operate:

"Fine. Let it exist according to its own laws."

What The Dark Tower actually is

• Author: Stephen King
• Core series: 7 main novels published from 1982 to 2004 (4,316 pages across the main run)
• Plus: 1 more novel in the cycle ('The Wind Through the Keyhole'), 1 novella ('The Little Sisters of Eluria'), and 1 tie-in children's book ('Charlie the Choo-Choo')
• Genres in the mix: dark fantasy, science fantasy, horror, and Western
• The quest: gunslinger Roland Deschain hunts the Dark Tower, the nexus holding all realities together, in a decaying realm called Mid-World
• Key inspirations: Browning's poem, The Lord of the Rings, Arthurian legend, and spaghetti Westerns
• Themes: heavy good-vs-evil energy. King often notes it is easier to portray evil clearly than good, but he is unabashedly sappy about the ending he believes in: love beats hate

The connective tissue that surprised even King

As King kept writing, he realized this saga was not just a side project. It was the hub that everything else plugged into. His own words say it best:

"I am coming to understand that Roland's world (or worlds) actually contains all the others of my making..."

Translation: The Dark Tower is the multiversal junction for King's work. It links places he names Mid-World, All-World, and more, and it threads directly or indirectly into other novels. If you are tracking connections, you will find touchpoints with 'It,' 'The Stand,' 'Salem's Lot,' 'Insomnia,' 'Hearts in Atlantis,' 'The Shining,' and 'Cell.' Some ties are blatant, others are blink-and-you-miss-it, but they are there.

From page to screen (and maybe back again)

The books eventually became one of King's signature achievements, despite those early doubts. Hollywood took a swing in 2017 with 'The Dark Tower' movie, casting Idris Elba as Roland. You can watch it now on Netflix and Apple TV. A TV adaptation has been in the works too, which frankly is the format that makes the most sense for a story this sprawling.

So... is it just Tolkien with a cowboy hat?

There is clearly some DNA in common with Tolkien, and King is open about that influence. But The Dark Tower is its own strange machine: part myth, part western, part horror spiral, with a moral compass that insists good can still win. Think Tolkien-adjacent, not a copy.

Do you think The Dark Tower is a Tolkien ripoff? Drop your take in the comments.