The Waste Lands: The Dark Tower III by Stephen King

Roland of Gilead continues his quest across Mid-World. His mind divided, he must work with his ka-tet of Eddie Dean and Susanna Dean to restore his sanity. The cause: Jake, the boy Roland abandoned in the first book of the Dark Tower, is experiencing his own mental split. The only way to make both whole is to rescue Jake and pull him into Mid-World.

Once Jake is secure in Mid-World, the quest truly begins. The ka-tet travels to a city on the edge of the waste lands. On the way, they find Oy, a raccoon-like animal known as a billy-bumbler. Oy bonds with Jake, and ultimately becomes an integral part of the ka-tet. They reach the dessicated remains of a city, and struggle against the mutated remnants of a world long gone. In the end, they must confront Blaine the Mono, a sphinx-like supercomputer that is bent on destroying the city and committing suicide.

There were sections of this story that kept me reading way past my bedtime on work nights. King crafts amazingly good suspense in this tale, layering in enough character development to keep the overall story arc interesting. Fans of the show Lost would easily find themselves drawn into this labyrinthine story. King apologetically leaves this tale at a cliffhanger ending, making me happy I decided to start the series after he'd finished the final book. The original readers waited five years to find out the fate of the travellers.