2012 is nearly upon us. It’s a new year of authors publishing books; it’s a new year of fans reading them. And of course, there are some great novels coming out in the New Year.
After highlighting the Best of 2011, we at Suvudu decided to look at what is coming in 2012—and post those titles we think will be the best bets of the year!
Today’s 2012 Best Bet is The Wind Through the Keyhole by Stephen King
The Dark Tower saga by Stephen King is one of the triumphs of modern literature. The seven-book story of last gunslinger Roland Deschain and his unwavering drive to reach the Dark Tower is a cult favorite, King weaving together horror, science fiction, and fantasy. I am firmly convinced the Dark Tower—and not his horror—will be what King is remembered for long after he shuffles off his mortal coil.
Many fans of the Dark Tower saga thought Roland’s story over. But as a long time Dark Tower fan, I knew the door to Roland’s world opens quite on its own to Stephen King. There was a chance he would return to his opus. That door opened last year. The Wind Through the Keyhole is a novel that fits into the middle of Roland’s story, filling in the narrative that takes place between Wizard & Glass and Wolves of the Calla.
Here is a bit more about The Wind Through the Keyhole:
We join Roland and his ka-tet as a ferocious storm halts their progress along the Path of the Beam. As they shelter from the screaming wind and snapping trees, Roland tells them not just one strange tale, but two – and in doing so sheds fascinating light on his own troubled past.
In his early days as a gunslinger, in the guilt ridden year following his mother’s death, Roland is sent by his father to a ranch to investigate a recent slaughter. Here Roland discovers a bloody churn of bootprints, clawed animal tracks and terrible carnage – evidence that the ’skin-man’, a shape shifter, is at work. There is only one surviving witness: a brave but terrified boy called Bill Streeter.
Roland, himself only a teenager, calms the boy by reciting a story from the Book of Eld that his mother used to read to him at bedtime, The Wind Through The Keyhole. ‘A person’s never too old for stories,’ he says to Bill. ‘Man and boy, girl and woman, we live for them.’
The Wind Through the Keyhole is a book Stephen King fans never thought would exist, an addition to a series that is beloved by millions of readers. It also has a Patrick Rothfuss-like story within a story within a story, a structure that I love. I have no doubt it will hit #1 on the New York Times list and early readers have loved the book.
It will be one of the best books in 2012. Of that I have no doubt.
Ka is a Wheel…
