The Waste Lands is the third volume of a longer tale inspired by and to some degree dependent upon Robert Browning's narrative poem 'Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came.' The first volume, The Gunslinger, tells how Roland, the last gunslinger in a world which has 'moved on,' pursues and finally catches the man in black, a sorcerer named Walter who falsely claimed the friendship of Roland's father in the days when the unity of Mid-World still held. Catching this half-human spell-caster is not Roland's ultimate goal but only another landmark along the road to the powerful and mysterious Dark Tower, which stands at the nexus of time.
