WOLVES OF THE CALLA by Stephen King

Wolves of the Calla is the fifth novel in Stephen King’s Dark Tower series. It is also the worst book in the series thus far. There are a ton of small plot holes here, and quite a few things that happen are pretty convenient. King tries to create suspense by hiding the main characters’ knowledge from the reader for hundreds of pages. But this is just tiresome and amateurish.

This book takes about five hundred pages to get going. It’s bogged down by a large amount of back-story and general farting around, much of this having to do with the homoerotic vagabond adventures of Father Callahan, who makes his first appearance since ‘Salem’s Lot, the second book King ever published. And Callahan is written inconsistently. He really doesn’t believe in God much, if at all, yet he staunchly holds to Catholic positions (seemingly for no other reason than the sake of the plot).

King continues his highly derivative, winking-at-the-reader “homages” to various other sources: this time it’s Star Wars, Harry Potter, Marvel Comics, and even King himself. When you combine these (Doctor Doom in the wilderness with the lightsaber and the exploding Harry Potter ball – it sounds like ridiculous Clue), the effect is exponentially worse.

If this were a stand-alone novel, there would be no compelling reason to read it. But those committed to reading the Dark Tower series through don’t have a choice.

TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT

WIZARD AND GLASS by Stephen King

Wizard and Glass is the fourth novel in Stephen King’s Dark Tower series. It picks up precisely where The Waste Lands left off – with the riddling contest with Blaine the mono. This resolution is not completely satisfying, as it borrows noticeably from The Hobbit, down to specific riddles. But it gets the job done. The character then visit King’s own The Stand, then The Wizard of Oz. All of this feels somewhat derivative, and the reader gets the feeling that King is just making it up as he goes (which he likes to do).

The bulk of the novel, however, does not focus on these things. Rather, Roland tells a 500+ page story about his youth, a fantasy, post-apocalyptic western story full of teenage sex and hormones. There’s some attempt at mystery that doesn’t quite work, as there’s just too much sitting around, although the action scenes, when they come, are well done. We get more Cuthbert and Alain, and that’s a good thing. This story is interesting when it gets going, but it’s often slow-paced, and drags at times.

Wizard and Glass does little to advance the overall storyline. Instead, it gives the reader the formative experience of Roland’s life. And this is just fine.

RECOMMENDED

THE WASTE LANDS by Stephen King

The Waste Lands is the third novel in Stephen King’s Dark Tower series. It picks up several months after The Drawing of the Three, with Roland, Eddie and Susannah hiking through Stephen King’s imagination and a Richard Adams homage. Meanwhile, both Roland and Jake, who is back in New York, seem to be going crazy from the paradox Roland created in Drawing.

In the first three hundred pages of The Waste Lands, practically nothing happens. Jake rejoins Roland, and the reader is inundated with foreshadowing of the second half of the book, which seems to have little purpose and is boring. The second half of the book makes up for it, as the group navigates a post-apocalyptic city. Here, Roland tries to rescue Jake and the group tries to find and ride Blaine, the train previously foreshadowed ad nauseum. This latter half of the book is quite exciting, as King is at his best here. His characters are outstanding. And there’s a cliffhanger ending.

This is a very uneven book, but it certainly has its high points.

One complaint: A bear that “stood seventy feet high” would not have an eye socket “nearly the size of a baseball”. That eye is way disproportionately small.

RECOMMENDED

THE DRAWING OF THE THREE by Stephen King

The Drawing of the Three is the second novel in Stephen King’s Dark Tower series. It picks up right where The Gunslinger ended, and chronicles Roland’s efforts to “draw” three people from Earth, from various times in the twentieth century: a drug addict, a legless schizophrenic, and a serial killer. The reader is not told nor do any of the characters know why exactly any of this is taking place.

King is back to his usual style here: well-developed characters, a focus on minute details of personality, and his distinctive foul-mouthed dialogue, all of which make for engaging reading. The Drawing of the Three has plenty of action, including a couple of very well-done gun fights.

The Drawing of the Three is primarily setup for following volumes. There are some new characters, and we spend most of the book getting to know them, and we don’t get the background on Roland that The Gunslinger had (this is an observation, not a criticism). And in the end, Roland isn’t too far from where he started. Ultimately, this is an entertaining, necessary part of the series.

RECOMMENDED