Hardcover, 714 pages
English language
Published Nov. 11, 2003 by Donald M. Grant.
From the Flap:
Roland Deschain and his ka-tet are bearing southeast through the forests of Mid-World, the almost timeless landscape that seems to stretch from the wreckage of civility that defined Roland's youth to the crimson chaos that seems the future's only promise. Readers of Stephen King's epic series know Roland well, or as well as this enigmatic hero can be known. They also know the companions who have been drawn to his quest for the DarkTower: Eddie Dean and his wife, Susannah; Jake Chambers, the boy who has come twice through the doorway of death into Roland's world; and Oy, the Billy-Bumbler.
In this long-awaited fifth novel in the saga, their path takes them to the outskirts of Calla Bryn Sturgis, a tranquil valley community of farmers and ranchers on Mid-World's borderlands. Beyond the town, the rocky ground rises toward the hulking darkness of Thunderclap, the source of a …
From the Flap:
Roland Deschain and his ka-tet are bearing southeast through the forests of Mid-World, the almost timeless landscape that seems to stretch from the wreckage of civility that defined Roland's youth to the crimson chaos that seems the future's only promise. Readers of Stephen King's epic series know Roland well, or as well as this enigmatic hero can be known. They also know the companions who have been drawn to his quest for the DarkTower: Eddie Dean and his wife, Susannah; Jake Chambers, the boy who has come twice through the doorway of death into Roland's world; and Oy, the Billy-Bumbler.
In this long-awaited fifth novel in the saga, their path takes them to the outskirts of Calla Bryn Sturgis, a tranquil valley community of farmers and ranchers on Mid-World's borderlands. Beyond the town, the rocky ground rises toward the hulking darkness of Thunderclap, the source of a terrible affliction that is slowly stealing the community's soul. One of the town's residents is Pere Callahan, a ruined priest who, like Susannah, Eddie, and Jake, passed through one of the portals that lead both into and out of Roland's world.
As Father Callahan tells the ka-tet the astonishing story of what happened following his shamed departure from Maine in 1977, his connection to the Dark Tower becomes clear, as does the danger facing a single red rose in a vacant lot off Second Avenue in midtown Manhattan. For Calla Bryn Sturgis, danger gathers in the east like a storm cloud. The Wolves of Thunderclap and their unspeakable depredation are coming. To resist them is to risk all, but these are odds the gunslingers are used to, and they can give the Calla-folken both courage and cunning. Their guns, however, will not be enough.
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.
