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Title: Wolves of the Calla (The Dark Tower, Book 5) by Stephen King, George Guidall ISBN: 0-7435-3351-8 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio Pub. Date: 04 November, 2003 Format: Audio Cassette Volumes: 16 List Price(USD): $75.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (244 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: The quest continues . . .
Comment: J.R.R. Tolkien has Middle Earth. C.S. Lewis has Narnia. Frank Herbert has Dune.
Each of the preceding authors has done something miraculous within the confines of fiction. They have created entire, living, breathing worlds, worlds that exist only on the page, yet through the force of their writing, the worlds somehow exist beyond the white of paper, just next to us, waiting for us to visit if only we could find the key.
They are fully-realized, fully-articulated universes, at once bewilderingly odd yet surprisingly familiar, wholly separate from our reality and yet somehow integral to the way we view ourselves.
Stephen King is slowly evolving his own conception of the world next door. First truly explored in THE TALISMAN, and eventually encompassing almost everything he's written, King is developing his own mythos, an amalgam of almost everything he can think of, a mingling of fantastical monsters, science-fiction robots, feudal England, and Itallian spaghetti westerns. Under the Tolkienesque shadow of a black place of evil called the Dark Tower, King presents a ka-tet (fellowship) of one gunslinger, three apprentices, and a raccoon/beagle hybrid, on a quest to save not their world, but all worlds. King names this land Mid-World, and like the countries and planets of those who have preceded him, it is a marvellous place to visit.
However, unlike his precursors, there is a palpable sense that he's just making it up as he goes along.
King's ka-tet, by now familiar to eager readers, is led by Roland of Gilead, the last gunslinger. On his quest are three apprentices from different worlds, worlds far more familiar to readers than Mid-World. Eddie, Susanna, and Jake are all refugees from New York, although quite possibly not the same New York. There are many worlds, after all.
The ka-tet takes a side journey to the tiny hamlet of Calla. There, in the best tradition of THE SEVEN SAMURAI and THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, they agree to aid the locals in their battle against fearsome creatures, mysterious riders who appear every twenty-three years to kidnap one twin of every pair. As a twin birth is not rare, but rather the norm, the town is almost utterly destroyed as a result.
Very early on in his stories, King made the decision to weave together disparate strands of his multitude of novels, combining characters and themes into one enormous tale. Novels such as THE STAND, ROSE MADDER, and IT have all made appearances in one form or another. The tradition continues in WOLVES, as King reaches decades back to 'SALEM'S LOT, reviving a character long thought lost, becoming an integral element in Roland's quest.
As per usual, king excels in his creation of character and place. His ka-tet, continually evolving throughout the narratives, has become as familiar to readers as the immortal likes of Frodo Baggins and Gandalf. Roland in particular is a magnificent titan, a killing machine who will sacrifice all he loves to complete his search.
Yet there lacks an internal logic to the bizarre goings-on. While LORD OF THE RINGS was nowhere near a perfect piece of literature (the dialogue is laughably bad), it succeeded in its establishment of an entire world, with its own rules and logic. THE DARK TOWER series keeps throwing curve-balls at the reader, keeping them confused. Roland would blame this on time slowly unravelling, or his version of fate, "ka", or on any number of things King keeps inserting to explain his narrative's connivances. But it becomes an irritant, a mosquito buzzing in the ear, as if King is having us on.
Nevertheless, the story is so well told that King manages the ideal purpose of such a story; he leaves the reader craving more, wondering "What's next?" Mid-world is a marvellous land of magic and science, and visiting it is a mature treat. Just don't go looking for rationality.
Oh, well. Maybe the next one . . .
Rating: 3
Summary: Readable.
Comment: Stephen King, Wolves of the Calla (Grant, 2003)
I have been of the tacit understanding, over the past two decades, that when Stephen King uncorked the typewriter for the first Dark Tower story, he had an idea of where he was going to go with the series. Granted, as we all know, this runs counter to everything King has ever said in interviews about how he writes, but this is an epic series, one he had no idea how long it would be when he started. You don't go into something like that without planning.
Well, okay, maybe you do if you're Stephen King. Wolves of the Calla was definitely not in the cards when he wrote the first story. There's too much in here that smacks of obvious attempts to tie in things that have come in between (and hints of tying in other stuff, as well).
Wolves of the Calla continues the adventures of Roland and co., slipping back and forth between Mid-World and our world at three different times. Roland, Eddie, Susannah, Jake, and Oy are on the border between Mid-World and Out-World, about to cross over, when they're approached by a priest from the small town of Calla Bryn Sturgis. The Calla has a problem; every twenty-three years or so, it's raided by masked riders called Wolves, who take one child from every pair of twins between the ages of three and fourteen. (Giving birth to twins is the norm in Calla Bryn Sturgis.) The priest asks Roland and friends to help with the problem of the wolves, and thus a novel is born. Along with this come subplots involving pieces of the other books (Black Thirteen from Wizard and Glass, the vacant lot in New York containing the rose from The Drawing of the Three, etc.). King is beginning the long process of tying it all together. There are even hints of the Low Men in Yellow Coats, the brimstone-filled alternate world from Black House, and various other ties to the other books that touch on the series. (The "other works by" page at the beginning finally gives us the comprehensive list of which books are Tower-related and which aren't.)
I had read all the reviews and knew all the spoilers beforehand, and honestly I walked into this expecting a major disappointment. What I had forgotten is the sheer delight in reading Stephen King's prose, which is as strong as always. When he's talking about nothing, which is often, or going off on a tangent, which is even more often, the prose itself is so simply readable that getting through the book's seven-hundred-plus pages is a pleasure. He never fails to tie in the more odd elements of life in Mid-World to something we earthbound humans can understand, giving us a much clearer picture of what's going on than we might have had otherwise.
And yes, the ending is a pain. No surprise there, if you've read any spoilers about the novel. But there's enough there to keep going, especially if you've got twenty years invested in the Tower already, as most people reading this review already do. We'll keep following the Path of the Beam wherever it leads us till the bitter end. (Which, after twenty years, is finally in sight.) ***
Rating: 3
Summary: Too wordy and long for the story given
Comment: Having waited anxiously for this book, I was really irritated with the writing all the way through. Not to give anything away, but did that part of the story really take 600 pages??? For all the background, I have to say the creatures were not that inventive compared to other books. I am not going to dive into the next book as quickly.
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Title: Song of Susannah (The Dark Tower, Book 6) by Stephen King, Darrel Anderson ISBN: 1880418592 Publisher: Donald M. Grant/Scribner Pub. Date: 08 June, 2004 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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Title: Wizard and Glass (The Dark Tower, Book 4) by Stephen King ISBN: 0670032573 Publisher: Viking Books Pub. Date: 23 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $40.00 |
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Title: The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower, Book 1) by Stephen King, Michael Whelan ISBN: 0670032549 Publisher: Viking Books Pub. Date: 23 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: The Waste Lands (The Dark Tower, Book 3) by Stephen King ISBN: 0670032565 Publisher: Viking Books Pub. Date: 23 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: The Drawing of the Three (The Dark Tower, Book 2) by Stephen King, Phil Hale ISBN: 0670032557 Publisher: Viking Books Pub. Date: 23 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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