First off, if you are not a fan of Stephen King, or are not more than casually familiar with his works, don’t read this. In short, you won’t get it. If you still plan on reading some of his books, read at your own risk. There will be story spoilers. This will be a long piece, and will be done in installments. I have read his works almost obsessively for nearly my entire life, and this is my attempt to create a map of sorts of his universe. It may work, it may fall flat on its face. At any rate, it’s something that’s been dancing around in my head for years, and it’s time. Hopefully some will make the trip with me…

Physics is not a subject you fall into, for a myriad of reasons. For one thing, the greater portion of the field is thoeretical. The very concept of anything from string thoery to alternative universes requires the ability to fundamentally stretch your mind. I liken it to religion in some ways, as it almost requires a certain ammount of faith.

There is a stereotype that goes along with people who would show an interest in physics, that of a nerd. And I’m perfectly content with that, as I am card carrying nerd myself. I lived other dimensions growing up… those of Star Wars and Star Trek. I was the kid who looked to the sky and wondered. I devoured fantasy and science fiction… still do to this day. I absolutely love the Final Fantasy franchise. So for me, the interest in physics was natural. I have never seen boundaries on reality.

But my interest intensified because of one man…Stephen King. That’s right, the same one who’s been scaring us for generations. You see, I’ve been reading his books since, well, shortly after I learded to read. My first was Carrie, and I was eight years old. Even at that age, his writing entranced me. This was where I learned that you can get yourself lost in a story. That you can actually be inside someone else’s head, see the world through someone else’s eyes. Growing up on science fiction, I of course believed there were other worlds… but from Stephen King, I learned that you can create them!

It wasn’t long before I had burned through ‘Salem’s Lot, The Shining, and the stories of “Night Shift“. So many worlds! So many characters, people dreamed into existance! He awoke a voraciousness in me for reading, and gave me a curse as well. For with the knowledge of the amazing came the realization that all is not.

Then at the age of 10, I read The Stand. One of the Greatest, if not the Greateat, piece of fiction of our times. An epic tale of good versus evil. And, for the first time, Stephen King’s worlds began to intertwine. It was a series of small events, for the most part. Little things that only someone who had read the books over and over would even catch, and only someone who really KNEW the stories would chalk up as anything more than coincidence. Stu was moved to a place called Stovington, which is where Jack Torrance taught in The Shining. Hemmingford home was where Mother Abigail was found, and was also the place where Larry and Kitty grew up in “The Last Rung on the Ladder’. Small details, but enough that I suspected, even at that age, that there was something bigger here, hat we had only seen the very tip of the iceberg.

In his next book, The Dead Zone, it became obvious that the name drops were no accident, as Stovington, Jerusalem’s Lot, and the ever present Castle Rock made appearances. Castle Rock became a recurring theme by surfacing once more in Cujo, and the Blue Ribbon Laundry, where Carrie’s mother worked, returned in Roadwork as Burt’s place of employment.

By now, I had gotten to the point where I would read his books looking for the crossover tidbits. The world of Stephen King was growing,expanding with each story and Novel. Seeds had been planted all over this world; seeds whuch would emerge as time went by. The Overlook Hotel in The Shining would eventually pop up in Misery (Andrew tells Annie that he’s writing a magazine piece on the hotel), and the Stand was littered with future references.

And then came The Dark Tower. Anyone familiar with King’s work knows that the Tower is the Glue that binds his world, the centerpiece, if you will.

In part II, we take an in depth look at the tower itself, and start to outline and understand the threads that bind it together.

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