<P> The Dark Tower is a series of eight novels written by American author Stephen King, which incorporate multiple genres including fantasy, science fantasy, horror and western . Below are The Dark Tower characters that come into play as the series progresses . </P> <P> Roland Deschain, son of Steven Deschain, was born in the Barony of Gilead, in In - World . Roland is the last surviving gunslinger, a man whose goal is finding and climbing to the top of the Dark Tower, purported to be the very center of existence, so that he may right the wrongs in his land . This quest is his obsession, monomania and geas to Roland: In the beginning the success of the quest is more important than the lives of his family and friends . He is a man who lacks imagination, and this is one of the stated reasons for his survival against all odds: he cannot imagine anything other than surviving to find the Tower . </P> <P> Edward Cantor "Eddie" Dean first appears in The Drawing of the Three, in which Roland encounters three doors that open into the New York City of our world in different times . Through these doors, Roland draws companions who will join him on his quest, as the Man In Black foretold . The first to be drawn is Eddie Dean, a drug addict and a first - time cocaine mule . Eddie lives with his older brother and fellow junkie Henry, whom Eddie reveres despite the corrupting influence Henry has had upon his life . Roland helps Eddie fight off a gang of mobsters for whom he was transporting the cocaine, but not before Eddie discovers that Henry has died from an overdose of heroin in the company of the aforementioned mobsters (after which the mobsters decide to chop off Henry's head). It is because of Eddie's heroin addiction that he is termed' The Prisoner', and that is what is written upon the door from which Roland draws him . </P>

The dark tower series is centred around a character who is known as a