Editorials
A (Mostly) Spoiler-Free Reader’s Guide to Stephen King and Richard Chizmar’s ‘Gwendy’s Final Task’
If you have even a passing knowledge of the interconnectivity of the Stephen King universe, you’ll likely know that something’s up with the paperback cover of Gwendy’s Final Task — the conclusion of a trilogy of novels co-written with Richard Chizmar.
The bowler hat, the field of roses, the monolithic structure looming in the background … it all looks pretty familiar, right? While the hat has become an unofficial symbol of the Gwendy series as a whole (appearing in some form on the hardcover and paperback editions of all three novels), the flowers and the castle-like building come straight from the pages of King’s magnum opus, The Dark Tower. This begs the question: How much of Sai King’s other work will you have to have read in order to enjoy/understand Gwendy’s Final Task? Fear not, Constant Reader, because we’re here to break it down for you.
Luckily, there’s no “right” way to prepare for Final Task; your homework depends more on what kind of reading experience you want to have. Are you mildly curious, hoping to just drop in for the raw plot mechanics without having to study too much? Not a problem. Or maybe you’re a more encyclopedic student, hoping that your hours spent poring over The Dark Tower: A Concordance will pay off with a wicker basket’s worth of Easter eggs. That works, too.
Either way, we’ve got several categories of recommended reading for both of the above types and everything in between. With Gwendy’s Final Task now available on paperback, read on and figure out where you land (and what you need to catch up on).
The Minimalist
Nothing
Believe it or not, you could go into Gwendy’s Final Task completely cold and still understand what’s going on. Although it’s the conclusion of King and Chizmar’s trilogy, they efficiently catch you up on not only what the now 64-year-old protagonist has been up to since the second book, Gwendy’s Magic Feather, but on everything that happened in the first two novellas. From her receiving the mysterious (yet possibly destructive) button box from an enigmatic man named Richard Farris as a little girl to her adult career as a writer and senator, it’s all here as a kind of literary equivalent to a “Previously On…”
What’s more is that the two authors tackle the recap with elegance, gradually doling out bits and pieces during her jaunt to outer space. Given Gwendy’s interstellar trip and a health issue that we won’t spoil here, it only makes sense that the series’ hero would be in a somewhat reflective state.
Make no mistake, this might not be the most rewarding way to read Gwendy’s Final Task; the climax of her journey will definitely be more emotionally resonant if you’ve spent more time with her than just reading a swift (yet expertly told) summary. And that’s to say nothing of the connections to King’s other books. But you’ll still be able to follow the plot with relative ease.
The Casual Fan
What’s In Your Bookbag? Gwendy’s Button Box, Gwendy’s Magic Feather
As we said above, reading the first two books isn’t completely necessary for understanding the basic narrative of Gwendy’s Final Task. But it will definitely make the novel more satisfying from a character standpoint.
The Expansionist
What’s In Your Bookbag? Gwendy’s Button Box, Gwendy’s Magic Feather, and all seven novels in the Dark Tower series
Alright, now we’re getting into the weeds (or, more appropriately, the Devil Grass). From the opening pages of Gwendy’s Button Box, it was clear that the series was going to have at least some minor ties to The Dark Tower, given that Richard Farris (a.k.a. “R.F.”) juuust might be one of the more prominent characters from King’s Western-fantasy epic.
But Gwendy’s Final Task has even more explicit connections to Mid-World and beyond, from its imagery to her real reason for going to space to a prominent phrase that just hits differently if you know its origins. The problem is, the Dark Tower novels aren’t exactly standalone, and if you’re hooked on The Gunslinger, you may as well finish the whole saga.
To be clear, you by no means have to read seven books outside the Gwendy’s series (and maybe The Wind Through The Keyhole if you’re feeling ambitious) to enjoy Final Task. But it will make the fairly breezy novel feel all the more epic.
The Maximalist
What’s In Your Bookbag? Gwendy’s Button Box, Gwendy’s Magic Feather, all seven novels in the Dark Tower series, The Stand, The Eyes of the Dragon, It, and Hearts In Atlantis
If you’ve read the Dark Tower series, you know that all things serve the beam. Or rather, all Stephen King works connect to the story of Roland Deschain and his ka-tet (more on that in a bit). That being said, some books have stronger connections to the Tower than others, and in Gwendy’s Final Task, a handful of Tower-adjacent books figure a little more deeply into the plot.
Although you will have gotten plenty of R.F. in The Dark Tower, he plays an even more central role in The Stand and The Eyes Of The Dragon. Also, the main plot of the former ties into a real-world event featured in Final Task, not to mention that it reveals where R.F. may have gotten the specific alias that he uses in the Gwendy trilogy. As for It, let’s just say its main setting features prominently in Final Task. And Hearts In Atlantis should familiarize with terms that might pop up like “breakers.” Granted, you’ll hear that word many times over in the Dark Tower books, but this is about building upon what you already know. With the maximalist approach, you’re essentially ensuring that you’ll understand every last King reference in Final Task.
We could tell you to also read Insomnia (where you get more of Tower lore and the location from It) and the Dark Tower-paralleling The Talisman and Black House. And what about ‘Salem’s Lot? Which brings us to…
The Completist
What’s In Your Bookbag? Everything Stephen King has ever written.
Stephen King had begun tying his books together in various ways long before 2004. But that’s the year that saw the release of The Dark Tower VI: Song Of Susannah, a novel that, through the introduction of a surprising new character, literally connects everything the man has ever written.
So for the completist out there, the ultimate reading experience for the end of the Gwendy trilogy (or anything written by King) means reading everything that came before it. A daunting task, for sure. But hey, a lot of you have probably done it already.
Gwendy’s Final Task is now available on paperback today via Gallery Books. Order a copy here.
Steven Spielberg has always been conversant in the cinematic language of the horror genre, despite relatively few credits in the genre. His contributions as a writer and producer on things like Poltergeist are legendary, and films like Duel and Jaws certainly wield the horror genre in remarkable, often chilling ways. He may not be a horror filmmaker, but he knows when he needs to scare us, and he has the tools to make that happen.
I didn’t go into Disclosure Day, Spielberg’s alien epic, expecting outright horror, and indeed the film leans much more into thrilling than frightening. This is not a horror film, but for a few minutes in the middle, much to my surprise, it became one.
Spielberg has filmed more than his fair share of scary scenes over the years, but with Disclosure Day, he directed a new contender for the scariest scene of his entire career.
SPOILERS AHEAD for Disclosure Day!
Josh O’Connor in DISCLOSURE DAY, directed by Steven Spielberg.
Among the various alien secrets laced throughout Disclosure Day are a trio of palm-sized rods, the color of pencil graphite. These rods, originating from another planet, can be used for a number of things, but for the purposes of this scene, the most important is “diving,” gripping the rod in one bare hand and using its power to “dive” into the mind of another person.
The person holding the rod in this scene is Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth), head of shadowy cybersecurity firm Wordex, who is hellbent on keeping human knowledge of extraterrestrials secret from the general public. Scanlon’s trying to find whistleblower Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor), who’s got all of those alien secrets tucked in a backpack while he’s on the run, and while Daniel’s more experienced mind is protected from diving, his girlfriend Jane’s (Eve Hewson) is not. So, monitored by medical personnel at Wordex headquarters (diving is dangerous), Scanlon pushes his way into Jane’s mind to find the location of Daniel’s safe house.
A telepathic invasion is scary enough on its own, but Spielberg doesn’t stop there. When Scanlon dives into Eve’s mind, he appears to her to be sitting across the kitchen table, like he’s in the room. Her bright blue eyes turn Scanlon’s dark brown, and she loses much of her control over her own body, not to mention her mind. Moments before, Daniel finally shared with her the secrets in his backpack, so Jane is shocked, conflicted, deeply vulnerable when Scanlon slips inside her head. This is not just telepathy. This is possession.
Spielberg underscores this not just through the visual language of the scene, as Jane breaks out in a sweat and struggles to sit upright as Scanlon invades her mind, but through Jane’s background. As she revealed to Daniel earlier in the film, Jane is a former novitiate nun who left her convent when she began to question her calling. She still believes firmly in God and, more importantly, believes that perhaps proof of alien life should be kept secret from the public because, in her eyes, it would upset the entire balance of faith in the world. God is a defining factor for humankind, Jane argues, and showing humanity proof of creatures from the stars would undercut that in dangerous ways.
This context, combined with the crucifix necklace Jane’s holding in her hand at the time of the dive, makes this scene the closest thing Spielberg will ever shoot to something out of The Exorcist. It’s not just a battle of wills, but a battle of faith. As an amoral technocrat worms his way into her memories, her beliefs, her faith, Jane turns the crucifix into a weapon, squeezing it until her hand bleeds when she discovers that a pain response can momentarily push Scanlon out of her head.
Of course, when you put a crucifix and a bloody hand together, it conjures images of stigmata. Screenwriter David Koepp pushes the allusion further by having Scanlon quote Christ on the cross to Jane by way of convincing her that she must be the one to stop Daniel by any means necessary.
It’s easy to see why this is scary, right?
On a very basic level, you have a powerful, wealthy man subduing and assaulting an innocent young woman, which is frightening enough. Then, the layers of the scene kick in. Scanlon doesn’t just assault Jane, but possesses her, seizes her memories, her knowledge, and finally her own free will, all while Jane literally clings to her faith in an effort to fight back. Disclosure Day is, among other things, a story about who has a right to the truth, and Scanlon believes that he should be the arbiter of that truth. Not just the truth as he sees it, but the truth as Jane sees it as well. If they don’t see eye to eye, he’ll make her.
But the possession, as it turns out, cuts both ways. Using the rod to dive is, for a normal human being, an intensely strenuous process. Scanlon admits that previous attempts almost killed him, and for some members of his time, so much as touching the rod results in a near-death experience. Even accessing an unprepared mind like Jane’s takes a lot of Scanlon, and when she kicks him out by squeezing the crucifix – again, so much meaning embedded in the details here – his team holds him back and tries to offer medical intervention. But Scanlon persists, pushing them away, and keeps diving back in.
This means that Jane can’t escape him because he just won’t stop pushing back through her defenses, but it also means that each time Scanlon enters her mind, and thus the safe house, he looks more monstrous. By the end, through a combination of lighting and makeup, Firth barely looks human, conjuring up images of the possessed Father Karras at the end of The Exorcist.
Colin Firth (center, standing) in DISCLOSURE DAY, directed by Steven Spielberg.
On a pure, visceral craft level, all of this is quite frightening, but the real trick to making this scene into Spielberg’s most terrifying lies in the more existential horror surrounding all of this. Disclosure Day is a film about the battle for the truth over extraterrestrials, but it’s also about a fight against an impossibly powerful surveillance state, the devaluing of human and alien lives in favor of some nebulous collection of assets, and the value of the individual in a world that increasingly lumps people into demographic boxes and writes them off.
In this scene, the surveillance state becomes supernatural, a human life is worth less than a piece of information, and an extragovernmental technocrat would rather sacrifice his own humanity than see reason. In 2026, few things could be more terrifying than that. Spielberg knows this and wields it mightily, proving once again that, while he’s not a strictly horror filmmaker, he can direct horror with the best of them.
Disclosure Day is in theaters now.
Eve Hewson (second from left) in DISCLOSURE DAY, directed by Steven Spielberg.
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