It is soon discovered that when Roland saved Jake from being killed by Jack Mort in 1977 (in The Drawing of the Three), he inadvertently created a paradox Jake did not die and thus did not appear in Mid-World and travel with Roland. However, he also remembers passing through the desert alone and never meeting Jake.

Roland remembers meeting Jake Chambers in the way station and letting him fall to his death in the mountains (as depicted in The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger). Roland now reveals to his ka-tet (group of people bound together by fate/destiny) that his mind has become divided and he is slowly losing his sanity.

The three gunslingers follow the Path of the Beam inland to Mid-World. After an encounter with a gigantic cyborg bear named Shardik, they discover one of the six mystical Beams that hold the world together. Roland, Susannah, and Eddie have moved east from the shore of the Western Sea, and into the woods of Out-World. The story begins five weeks after the end of The Drawing of the Three. The Waste Lands was nominated for the 1991 Bram Stoker Award for Novel. In addition, the two main sections of the book ('Jake: Fear in a Handful of Dust' and 'Lud: A Heap of Broken Images') are named after lines in the poem. Eliot 1922 poem The Waste Land, several lines of which are reprinted in the opening pages.

The book was reissued in 2003 to coincide with the publication of The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla. The original limited edition hardcover featuring full-color illustrations by Ned Dameron was published in 1991 by Grant. It is the third book of the Dark Tower series. The Waste Lands (subtitled 'Redemption') is a dark fantasy novel by American writer Stephen King.

The Dark Tower #1-3 by Stephen King