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Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" is receiving a bit of press recently due to the upcoming movie.

I'd always believed I'd read this book, but it bears no resemblance to the one I remember having read about 30 years ago! So now I'm questioning what it was that I actually did read, or whether I'm just imagining it!

From memory... - It was called "The Dark Tower" (I think) - It was part of a series, and I think each book was to be written by a different author (one of whom I believed was Stephen King, but apparently not. I only read one.) - One character was a giant spider-like creature. - Another's name was something like "Annie Storm" (I definitely remember the pun being used... "A port in Annie Storm")

That's all I have. Google yields nothing, and this is driving me crazy! Any ideas?

Gallifreyan
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user1436
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  • The giant spider is from one King book (I don't want to mention it because spoilers) and Annie is from Misery, but her last name isn't Storm. You may be combining them. And I'm not coming up with King being part of any multi-author anthology. – Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum May 04 '17 at 09:45

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"The Black Tower" by Richard A. Lupoff, the first book of the Dungeon series.

One character is called "User Annie" or later "Annabelle". Another is a spider-like creature named "Shriek".

Edit: Some supporting quotes as requested. These are from later books in the series I'm afraid. I admit this doesn't prove the first character is called "User Annie" in earlier books. But, she is.

Book Five : The Hidden City. p7. "The dungeon was playing havoc on Annabelle's acrophobia."

Book Five : The Hidden City. pp14, 15. "He and Shriek had also arrived in a ruined city." [...] "That my dear spider woman, is an equally unpleasant concept [...]"

lessthanideal
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    Can you please expand on this to explain more how this matches, perhaps with some quotes? – Mithical May 04 '17 at 21:08
  • Thank you, @lessthanideal! "The Black Tower" is the book I'm thinking of! And although I remember nothing else about it (and what I thought I remembered was a little off) the cover illustration is familiar and I now recall it boasted Philip Jose Farmer's involvement - which is probably why I would have bought it in the first place. :-) Thanks again! – Bumpy May 05 '17 at 00:31
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    @Bumpy Please see the instructions here for how to merge your two accounts. Once you've done this, you'll regain full access to the account used to ask the question, and will be able to accept this answer. – Rand al'Thor May 05 '17 at 00:50
  • @Mithrandir If I can find my copy, I might. But really, you think there might be another book out there with a similar title and similarly named characters?

    That'd be really odd, but if someone comes up with a different matching answer, I'll buy the book just from curiosity :)

     – lessthanideal May 08 '17 at 10:03
  • It's just that the more details you put in the answer, the more likely it is to be helpful to future visitors, including people who are Googling and would like to see some backup. – Mithical May 08 '17 at 10:05
  • Fair enough. I'm sure about the book though. If I got some quotes (I'm not in the same building as my copy right now) it would be along the lines of "Who are you" "I'm user Annie" "And gosh what is this spider-like creature??" "You may call me Shriek" I don't see how that would help people much. I mean, they might buy "The Black Tower" and read it and be disappointed then come here and say "lessthanideal is a crazy liar he made it up, I wasted my £3". I don't think they will do that but it's possible. The worst that can happen, is they accidentally ... – lessthanideal May 08 '17 at 10:13
  • ... buy a Phillip Jose Farmer endorsed book they didn't want. That doesn't seem like a bad thing to me. (Although the last book in the series was a bit of a let down, imho.) – lessthanideal May 08 '17 at 10:13
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    Added some quotes as requested! – lessthanideal May 10 '17 at 21:33