Let’s be honest from the start. Guide to Gilead is for the hardcore fans of The Dark Tower comic and only for them. Those of you that enjoy the comic but don’t care who’s the son of someone or whether or not Roland’s father Steven has a nickname, this isn’t for you.

If you on the other hand, like me, want to know who’s who and what’s what in The Dark Tower world, Guide to Gilead is for you. Those of you that have read Dark Tower: End-World Almanac and The Gunslinger Guidebook will recognize Guide to Gilead in its style. The difference here is that this one is more focused on Gilead, its surroundings and its inhabitants.

In Guide to Gilead we get listings of the places that we have heard about in the comic and the books. Each has info like the place’s official name, population, notable inhabitants and other stuff that is of interest to the reader. The same goes for people connected to Gilead that we have read about. Most notable is Roland’s father Steven and here we learn his height, hair color, skills, weight and so on.

Besides this we also get to learn about the peopled who lived in Gilead and what they believed in. Some examples of this kind of info is that we’ll learn about Queen O’ Green Days (the goddess of spring), Nis (god of dreams) and others like them.

All this is accompanied by nice illustrations and I imagine that it will be a very good resource to check get back to from time to time as the series continue for references and deeper knowledge.

As I said, this is a who’s who and what’s what in The Dark Tower world with it’s focus on Gilead and if that is something you want, you should definitely go out and get yourself a copy, now!

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