Stephen King considers his Dark Tower series to be his master work, and its roots run through almost every other piece of fiction he's written. While fan sites are plentiful, King's own authoritative new site has been launched as a codex encapsulating the entire Dark Tower mythos, with all the attendant artwork, audiobook excerpts, and plot interconnections that a new or long-time reader could hope for -- and when all else fails, there's even a glossary to light your way.

The original King subsite was in dire need of an overhaul on several fronts, says interactive producer Brian Stark. "The old site was dreadfully outdated in its technology and design. It's been five years since we created the last site and it showed," says Stark, pointing out that the site was incomplete as well. "As it was built before the series was even finished, there were missing elements everywhere. The new site resolved this by offering a comprehensive look at all seven books in the series." Additionally, Marvel's new Dark Tower series emphasized the need for a re-do: "The graphic novels are huge right now," Stark says, "Proper representation on Stephen's web site was a must."

All of this -- which took six or seven weeks to produce -- is really just the beginning, he adds.

"The old site didn't provide opportunities to be interactive with fans other than through the Message Board. It's our intent, as we add new content and mechanisms, for the fans to be a part of the new site." Such as? "The new StephenKing.com (coming soon) will offer users our 'my thoughts on this' comment system," says Stark, "This will give users a chance to voice opinions about all of Stephen's books, audio books, movies, etc. DT fans can check out that system once it goes live later this year."

Some of what's to come, however, is still veiled in secrecy: "I cant really speak freely about what we are cooking up for the Dark Tower flash module," Stark warns, "However, the codename for the project is 'Wally World.'" I'm counting on one of you rabid Tower-ites to come along and tell me what you think that's likely to mean!