I finished and more or less loved Stephen King's Dark Tower series a few years ago, but virtually none of the friends I've recommended it to have been able to get all the way through The Gunslinger. I had a similar problem myself, but my curiosity about Roland thankfully gave me the determination to continue on to The Drawing of the Three. I can see where my friends are coming from in finding The Gunslinger fragmented and frankly a bit bizarre. I've thought about trying to start people off with Drawing but figure the downside of missing some things that bear important fruit later would come back to haunt them later on. I'm curious if anyone else had a hard time getting into the series to start with and/or has any thoughts on how best to ease a newcomer into it.