Paperback, 960 pages
English language
Published Sept. 11, 2003 by Scribner.
Wolves of the Calla continues the adventures of Roland, the Last Gunslinger and survivor of a civilized world that has "moved on." Roland's quest is ka, an inevitable destiny -- to reach and perhaps save the Dark Tower, which stands at the center of everywhere and everywhen. This pursuit brings Roland, with the three others who've joined his quest to Calla Bryn Sturgis, a town in the shadow of Thunderclap, beyond which lies the Dark Tower. Before advancing, however, they must face the evil wolves of Thunderclap, who threaten to destroy the Calla by abducting its young.
Listened to audiobook. New narrator, which took a while to get used to.
This one takes the dialects of Midworld to a new level, which also took some getting used to.
However, the book is superb.
It feels more like a mere bridge between entries in the series than a solid novel, but King uses the downtime to full effect, allowing an opportunity for the reader to become even more familiar with the inner workings of his epic, dark fantasy characters and their world(s).
I picked up The Gunslinger in a bookstore on a hunch and a sense of obligation. I can't put my finger on why, but I'd never read a Stephen King book before, though they're certainly in my wheelhouse of interests and I've always had great respect for the man as a writer. When I opened The Gunslinger, I'll never forget the first line or my reaction to it. I read that line, what I still believe to be the greatest first line of any novel, in the graveled voice of Castiel from the TV show Supernatural:
The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.
I read the entire book in Castiel's voice, and that book's been my gateway into not just the Dark Tower series, but all of King's novels. But with The Drawing of the Three, we got a book that was, …
I picked up The Gunslinger in a bookstore on a hunch and a sense of obligation. I can't put my finger on why, but I'd never read a Stephen King book before, though they're certainly in my wheelhouse of interests and I've always had great respect for the man as a writer. When I opened The Gunslinger, I'll never forget the first line or my reaction to it. I read that line, what I still believe to be the greatest first line of any novel, in the graveled voice of Castiel from the TV show Supernatural:
The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.
I read the entire book in Castiel's voice, and that book's been my gateway into not just the Dark Tower series, but all of King's novels. But with The Drawing of the Three, we got a book that was, honestly, mostly set dressing and character movements; the ka-tet must be drawn, and this was a serviceable book to do so. The Waste Lands brought us to the city of Lud and Blaine the mono, a book I thought as barren as its title. Wizard and Glass brought us a story of Roland's old ka-tet, and a fine one at that, but bracketed with incomprehensible Wizard of Oz nonsense, and very little time was spent with the ka-tet of which we Constant Readers care. The Wind Through the Keyhole was a quick fun book, wheels within wheels, stories within stories, but only tangentially related to the matter at hand. As Eddie would say, the series had gone nineteen, and only halfway through.
I find it odd: in Hollywood the middle movies of a series are often the best, but in novels the middle books are often the worst. Movies seem to find themselves, but then run out of ideas before they end the series. Novels, on the other hand, start with great ideas, end with great ideas, but have so much trouble getting from the opening to the end.
With Wolves of the Calla, I feel the series has finally gotten back on track, but how I find it difficult to define. Is it less ridiculous, with fewer Wizard of Oz-ish pop culture plot elements? It is not. But it feels more... lived in. The Calla feels real, in ways that Lud did not, with a fine merging of western aesthetic and decaying technology. The characters, both the ka-tet and the folken of the Calla, seem fuller and more themselves and less plot elements, hear me, I beg. Most importantly, we spend ample time with the ka-tet, and for the first time since they were drawn, I feel I've gotten to know them better.
Spoilers:
I do worry for Song of Susannah. The entire sideplot with Mia and her chap bothered me through and through. Not that it was shoehorned in, clearly this was always the direction the story was going to go, but I've never been a big fan of the "demon pregnancy" trope, and we seem to be playing that tune to the hilt.
Fantastic book. Nowhere near the fourth of the series, but that would be very very hard. Calla and its mysteries is fantastic. Stephen King is totally crazy, mixing real world comics and lots of other referencies.
