Status
Available
Series
Genres
Collection
Publication
Signet (2002), 752 pages
Description
Fantasy. Fiction. Literature. Thriller. HTML:The fourth volume in the brilliant Dark Tower Series is "splendidly tense...rip-roaring" (Publishers Weekly)â??a #1 national bestseller about an epic quest to save the universe. In Wizard and Glass, Stephen King is "at his most ebullient...sweeping readers up in...swells of passion" (Publishers Weekly) as Roland the Gunslinger, Eddie, Susannah, and Jake survive Blaine the Mono's final crash, only to find themselves stranded in an alternate version of Topeka, Kansas, that has been ravaged by the superflu virus. While following the deserted I-70 toward a distant glass palace, Roland recounts his tragic story about a seaside town called Hambry, where he fell in love with a girl named Susan Delgado, and where he and his old tet-mates Alain and Cuthbert battled the forces of John Farson, the harrier whoâ??with a little help from a seeing sphere called Maerlyn's Grapefruitâ??ignited Mid-World's final war. Filled with "blazing action" (Booklist), the fourth installment in the Dark Tower Series "whets the appetite for more" (Bangor Daily News). Wizard and Glass is a thrilling read from "the reigning King of American popular literature" (Los Angeles Daily N… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member Daedalus18
Wizard and Glass.... this is one murderously long book.
I'm a fan of the DT series, and I nearly ditched this 700pg beast at least 3 times while plodding through it. The repetition is almost physically painful. About 300 pages are entirely unnecessary and do nothing to move the story forward, they
Some have recommended reading a synopsis of the flashback section (which is 80% of the book, or so) instead of reading this book - and I tend to agree with them. Its a shame, because a decent story is buried in there, but mining it out is torturous. In the afterward - Stephen King says he lost track of whether it was a good book or not about halfway through writing it. I say: No S#&t.
His editors did him no favors by not pointing out how he was holding his fan's feet in the fire.
All that said - you almost can't skip it in order to continue forward. This book bridges a long time away from the series for SK into the last years of its writing, which were executed in a comparable feverish speed (the author's brush with mortality rearranging his priorities somewhat).
I feel glad to be done with it. Very glad. I'm not happy with the resolutions, either. All involve vague magic and characters reappearing in overly-convenient ways. Please let the last 3 be much much better than this... I've more or less been saving them to enjoy, because I understand it won't last forever. Now I have no interest in parsing them out - because, while reading this book - the notion of the series lasting forever was hell on Earth.
I'm a fan of the DT series, and I nearly ditched this 700pg beast at least 3 times while plodding through it. The repetition is almost physically painful. About 300 pages are entirely unnecessary and do nothing to move the story forward, they
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in fact keep jerking it backwards in a one step forward, two steps back fashion.Some have recommended reading a synopsis of the flashback section (which is 80% of the book, or so) instead of reading this book - and I tend to agree with them. Its a shame, because a decent story is buried in there, but mining it out is torturous. In the afterward - Stephen King says he lost track of whether it was a good book or not about halfway through writing it. I say: No S#&t.
His editors did him no favors by not pointing out how he was holding his fan's feet in the fire.
All that said - you almost can't skip it in order to continue forward. This book bridges a long time away from the series for SK into the last years of its writing, which were executed in a comparable feverish speed (the author's brush with mortality rearranging his priorities somewhat).
I feel glad to be done with it. Very glad. I'm not happy with the resolutions, either. All involve vague magic and characters reappearing in overly-convenient ways. Please let the last 3 be much much better than this... I've more or less been saving them to enjoy, because I understand it won't last forever. Now I have no interest in parsing them out - because, while reading this book - the notion of the series lasting forever was hell on Earth.
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LibraryThing member doggie38
the back story of Roland was necessary but it just dragged on far too long. It was a slow read for me, as I just wasn't captivated by it like I was the past three books. I was relieved when King finally took us back to Kansas.
LibraryThing member andyray
the four stars rather than five comes from SK making this looooooong love story much more complicated than it needs to be. In fact, I cannot, at this time, think of any reason the mass of this whole book, needs to exist. if it was intended it would clarify Roland's nature or person, it failed
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mostly BECAUSE of its complexity and profoundity. This is book four in S's lifelong epic and the harder he works to become a "classic writer" the less chance he gets for that appelation. Isn't it ironic? The thing a writer wants seems to be just beyond his grasp, at least in the writers I have known or have studied.Hemingway is generally acknowledged as THE writer of the 20th century, yet his two plays stunk, and he wanted to be a capable playwright. Whatever, the ka-quet begins in Kansas on the Beam and ends there as well. To the tower,guys. TO THE TOWER!. Show Less
LibraryThing member bragan
Four books and at least a couple of thousand pages in, and I'm still not at all sure what to make of the Dark Tower series.
This one starts out with the resolution of the previous book's cliffhanger, and... It's silly. Possibly self-consciously silly, but still. Silly. In a way that, I think, really
And in the midst of this ridiculousness, I made a decision. Fine, I told myself. I give in. However weird or nonsensical or disjointed or arbitrary-feeling any of this is, I'm gonna just try to sit back and enjoy the journey for the surreal old road trip/quest narrative it is. And hey, at least it feels like we're finally making progress! I like the feel of that. Let's get on with it! (Or as someone who asked me about the book while I was reading it put it, in a turn of phrase more hilariously apt than she could possibly have known, "Let's see where this crazy train goes!")
And then... And then, the story and the journey just stop completely dead as we abandon it all for a solid 500 pages of flashback to some stuff that happened to our central character when he was fourteen. Eventually, that story becomes fairly interesting and seemingly relevant, at least as far as anything in this story makes sense enough to feel relevant to anything else, but boy, it is slow getting there, and I spent a long, long chunk of this installment fighting a real sense of frustration and wondering why the heck I was expected to care about any of this past history at all.
This is the last volume of the series I had sitting on my To-Read shelves, so now I have to make the decision as to whether I want to seek out the rest of it and finish it. It's a surprisingly hard decision. While it has its moments, and while it does evoke a certain amount of weird fascination, I can't say I'm loving it. On the other hand, having come this far, I really dislike the idea of giving up. I feel like I really do want to finally make it to that damn Tower. It's just that it still seems so very, very far off...
This one starts out with the resolution of the previous book's cliffhanger, and... It's silly. Possibly self-consciously silly, but still. Silly. In a way that, I think, really
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brings home the fact that this whole series, for all its flashes of creepiness or grittiness or interesting weirdness is just ridiculous.And in the midst of this ridiculousness, I made a decision. Fine, I told myself. I give in. However weird or nonsensical or disjointed or arbitrary-feeling any of this is, I'm gonna just try to sit back and enjoy the journey for the surreal old road trip/quest narrative it is. And hey, at least it feels like we're finally making progress! I like the feel of that. Let's get on with it! (Or as someone who asked me about the book while I was reading it put it, in a turn of phrase more hilariously apt than she could possibly have known, "Let's see where this crazy train goes!")
And then... And then, the story and the journey just stop completely dead as we abandon it all for a solid 500 pages of flashback to some stuff that happened to our central character when he was fourteen. Eventually, that story becomes fairly interesting and seemingly relevant, at least as far as anything in this story makes sense enough to feel relevant to anything else, but boy, it is slow getting there, and I spent a long, long chunk of this installment fighting a real sense of frustration and wondering why the heck I was expected to care about any of this past history at all.
This is the last volume of the series I had sitting on my To-Read shelves, so now I have to make the decision as to whether I want to seek out the rest of it and finish it. It's a surprisingly hard decision. While it has its moments, and while it does evoke a certain amount of weird fascination, I can't say I'm loving it. On the other hand, having come this far, I really dislike the idea of giving up. I feel like I really do want to finally make it to that damn Tower. It's just that it still seems so very, very far off...
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LibraryThing member yoyogod
This is the novel that caused me to stop reading the Dark Tower series. I never managed to finish it, because that big hunk of backstory in the middle was so boring.
LibraryThing member badgenome
Mostly told as one big, long flashback, Wizard and Glass gives the reader a glimpse beneath the inscrutable surface of the gunslinger. Roland recounts a story from his youth, one of his first ka-tet: the heretofore frequently alluded-to Alain and Cuthbert. The young friends are dispatched to the
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Barony of Mejis, where they have a run-in with a deadly gang of older gunmen, and which is the setting for Roland's ill-fated romance with Susan Delgado. Similarly to The Gunslinger, Wizard and Glass reads very much like a true Western and, thanks in large part to the genuine lyrical beauty of Roland and Susan's young love, is the pinnacle of the Dark Tower series. However, the strange appearance of the Frank L. Baum's Emerald City toward the end is harbinger of bad, very bad, things to come. Say sorry. Show Less
LibraryThing member capetowncanada
Book 4 is good but I thought it was going to have more to do with the tick-tock man and Marten, who only make a brief appearence at the end. 90% of this book focuses on Rolands youth. If this had been the first book I wouldn't have bothered with the second.
LibraryThing member trinityofone
This is the fourth book in the Dark Tower series, and while it made me wish that "Wolves of the Calla" would hurry up and come out in paperback (as it now obligingly has), it was far from my favorite. (That, I believe, would be "The Drawing of the Three.") "Wizard" spent, in my opinion, far too
I still want to strangle Susan with her stupid braid, though.
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much time on Roland's back story, and on his "true love"--something that, even King admits, is boring to those not in thrall of it. Still, it was a fairly enjoyable read, and the relief I felt when the plot finally turned back to Eddie, Susannah, and Jake (and Oy!), shows how much I care about them, and want to see where King takes them next.I still want to strangle Susan with her stupid braid, though.
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LibraryThing member KateSherrod
Just as when I read The Drawing of the Three and found that my favorite bit was the sideshow, Roland versus the Lobstrosities, in Wizard and Glass I find that the coolest part is in the beginning, in which the ka-tet matches wits against Blaine the Pain, the Suicidal Riddle-philic Capattack Train
You know BPSRCT would have abracadabra-ed Roland into an immobile blob of flesh if it could have.
I would gladly have read much more of that craziness, but 'twas not to be. Now, I sure have been curious about Roland's backstory, because he's just so capable and mysterious, but I really do have to be careful what I wish for because WOW.
Mostly, the backstory is OK. I am unimpressed with the framing of the narrative -- ostensibly, Roland is telling the story to his companions as they all sit around a campfire, but we get the good old crappy third person omniscient narrator who knows precisely what everyone is thinking and feeling every moment and has to tell us all about it. I wouldn't mind this absurdity so much, except in that King won't allow us to forget it; indeed, seems to delight in rubbing our noses in it, as in an "interlude" exactly halfway through the book, which has Eddie wanting to know how Roland "can know every corner of this story" and Roland's response is a cheap and cheating "I don't think that's what you really want to know, Eddie." Here it's King addressing the reader, basically, and telling her to "let it go, nerd." This ticked me right off, and my constant simmering annoyance at this spoiled my enjoyment of a story that I would probably otherwise like quite a lot.
And the thing is, the thing is... doing this was completely unnecessary. I'm inclined to think that the Dark Tower fans were more than ready, as I was, to get some of Roland's backstory and would have been perfectly happy to just get a straight-up non-sequential novel about Roland's first big adventure, without the hand-waving at framing it as a campfire discussion during which time also just happens conveniently to stretch so that the night is exactly as long as the many, many, many hours it takes for Roland to "tell" his story. Seriously, why bother?
The very cool first 100 pages or so of Wizard and Glass, the BPSRCT joyride through hell, could just as easily have been the very cool first 100 pages or so of Wolves of the Calla, and the rest of the very small amount of overall narrative progress could have been presented in that book, too. At least, I suspect so, not having read Wolves of the Calla yet.
Now, I know the poor souls who were waiting not-quite-GRRM-ian lengths of time for new books might not have been totally pleased to get a non-sequential fourth book for their pains, but then again, they might have appreciated it for having been rendered a better book overall. It's an unanswerable question, possibly, and maybe I don't have any "right" to speculate about it, reading these many years after the fact, with all of them available to me at the same point in time, but as someone who gets annoyed at things like bad narrative framing, my prejudice inclines me to favor this theory.
But enough of my narrative quibbles*, because Roland's backstory, except for all the tiresome teenagers-in-love-and-thinking-sex-is-only-for-them focus, is pretty good, if kind of bloated and slow. Having been manipulated by the forces of evil into earning his guns way too young, Roland and his two best friends get sent to a neighboring Barony to assess what it has to offer the Affiliation (the ragged remnants of civilization in which the boys grew up)'s War Effort, but really just to get them out of harm's way for a while to give them a little more time to grow up. But of course, they uncover dastardly doings as well as forbidden love. We get a trio of Scary Bad Guys, a few Corrupt Politicians (one of whom has made a binding contract with Roland's girlfriend Susan to get to satisfy his Grody Old Man lusts on her Lissome 16-Year-Old Beauty until she is pregnant. He saw her first; Roland is the interloper. But since said politician is a caricature instead of a character, it's all right that Roland steals his girl. Not that I give a damn about any of this. I roll my terrible eyes and gnash my terrible teeth at romances, especially annoying teenage romances, spoiling my quest stories), some Unhappy Aging Women Who Need To Get Laid and, my favorite bit, a Nasty Old Witch who has been engaged to babysit a mysterious sphere that is basically a pink Loc-Nar. Oh, she is awesome. By which I mean ridiculous, ineffective, thwarted, a sacrificial virgin way, way, way past her prime. Which means she is ridiculously entertaining.
And of course there are Roland's boyhood friends, Cuthbert and Alain, long alluded to but never seen until now. It's hard not to be fond of these lads, for all that they are just so overshadowed by Roland; Cuthbert is a big smartass, Alain kind of mystical and gentle, but they are bothmore than up to the task of keeping their friend on track And yes, they are basically stand-ins for Eddie (Cuthbert) and Susannah (Alain). Which leaves Jake as Susan. Um. Best not follow that line of reasoning too closely.
Redeeming all of this for me, at least, is the setting and the season. King's Old West town by the sea brims and shivers with archetypal power as it simmers through the summer and approaches harvest-time, which is celebrated in a ritual-cum-festival called Reaping that combines all of the fun and excitement of a quality county fair of yesteryear (surely King's own childhood) with all of the god-propitiating dread of ancient ceremonies like the burning of the Wicker Man and every fertility rite ever. But of course this particular year, with our three young strangers in town, a pink Loc-Nar in place, and serious war brewing on the frontiers, no one's going to get to enjoy it much this year. The passages concerning this occasion, preparations for it, anticipation of it, hints at its deeper meaning, are the best bits of Wizard and Glass saving the breathless madness of the train ride, and are the ones that remind me most of what I most love Stephen King for -- his short fiction. Ah, me.
Ah, I should have seen it coming, the pink Loc-Nar. King wasn't going to continue to allow his most fascinating creation ever to go on existing in his cussedly tough and independent way forever. At least Roland's promptings from God are more unusual and interesting than the usual message dreams and unexplainable knowledge. As a way for such an amazing character to suddenly gain a life-consuming obsession, it's fair enough, I suppose.
And so onward, if with a bit of a ragged rather than a lusty and excited cheer go I. Because if nothing else, these books are interesting in that they tie so many of King's others together, sort of the way Heinlein wound up stitching his together, and Greenaway his. Roland Deschains is Stephen King's Tulse Luper. And that's sort of cool.
*But maybe not of my grammatical/philological ones. Because folks, 800 pages of faux archaic dialect is annoying enough (as apparently our author knows, as he has one of his characters muttering to himself about how sick of it he is at one point), but the constant appearance of "thee" being used in the vocative case (i.e. as a form of address) and "ye" being used interchangeably with it ("ye" is in fact acceptable when used in the vocative, but it is a plural pronoun) purt'near drove me up the wall, pilgrims. I should, perhaps, count my freaking blessings that at least no early modern English conjugation errors (e.g. mixing up the second person forms like "hast" with third person "hath" like people so often do) accompany these spurious "thees." And yes, King made up this world and maybe the people with which he populated it just are not keen philologists themselves and would sooner shoot me than discuss with me such niceties, but that doesn't mean it isn't irritating as hell to a certain type of reader.
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(we'll call him BPSRCT for short). There's just something about high-stakes riddling, I guess. Also, BPSRCT is quite seriously, and horrifically fun, threatening and torturing its captive/passengers in a way that reminded me very strongly of AM, the over-the-top malevolent computer in Harlan Ellison's short story "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream." You know BPSRCT would have abracadabra-ed Roland into an immobile blob of flesh if it could have.
I would gladly have read much more of that craziness, but 'twas not to be. Now, I sure have been curious about Roland's backstory, because he's just so capable and mysterious, but I really do have to be careful what I wish for because WOW.
Mostly, the backstory is OK. I am unimpressed with the framing of the narrative -- ostensibly, Roland is telling the story to his companions as they all sit around a campfire, but we get the good old crappy third person omniscient narrator who knows precisely what everyone is thinking and feeling every moment and has to tell us all about it. I wouldn't mind this absurdity so much, except in that King won't allow us to forget it; indeed, seems to delight in rubbing our noses in it, as in an "interlude" exactly halfway through the book, which has Eddie wanting to know how Roland "can know every corner of this story" and Roland's response is a cheap and cheating "I don't think that's what you really want to know, Eddie." Here it's King addressing the reader, basically, and telling her to "let it go, nerd." This ticked me right off, and my constant simmering annoyance at this spoiled my enjoyment of a story that I would probably otherwise like quite a lot.
And the thing is, the thing is... doing this was completely unnecessary. I'm inclined to think that the Dark Tower fans were more than ready, as I was, to get some of Roland's backstory and would have been perfectly happy to just get a straight-up non-sequential novel about Roland's first big adventure, without the hand-waving at framing it as a campfire discussion during which time also just happens conveniently to stretch so that the night is exactly as long as the many, many, many hours it takes for Roland to "tell" his story. Seriously, why bother?
The very cool first 100 pages or so of Wizard and Glass, the BPSRCT joyride through hell, could just as easily have been the very cool first 100 pages or so of Wolves of the Calla, and the rest of the very small amount of overall narrative progress could have been presented in that book, too. At least, I suspect so, not having read Wolves of the Calla yet.
Now, I know the poor souls who were waiting not-quite-GRRM-ian lengths of time for new books might not have been totally pleased to get a non-sequential fourth book for their pains, but then again, they might have appreciated it for having been rendered a better book overall. It's an unanswerable question, possibly, and maybe I don't have any "right" to speculate about it, reading these many years after the fact, with all of them available to me at the same point in time, but as someone who gets annoyed at things like bad narrative framing, my prejudice inclines me to favor this theory.
But enough of my narrative quibbles*, because Roland's backstory, except for all the tiresome teenagers-in-love-and-thinking-sex-is-only-for-them focus, is pretty good, if kind of bloated and slow. Having been manipulated by the forces of evil into earning his guns way too young, Roland and his two best friends get sent to a neighboring Barony to assess what it has to offer the Affiliation (the ragged remnants of civilization in which the boys grew up)'s War Effort, but really just to get them out of harm's way for a while to give them a little more time to grow up. But of course, they uncover dastardly doings as well as forbidden love. We get a trio of Scary Bad Guys, a few Corrupt Politicians (one of whom has made a binding contract with Roland's girlfriend Susan to get to satisfy his Grody Old Man lusts on her Lissome 16-Year-Old Beauty until she is pregnant. He saw her first; Roland is the interloper. But since said politician is a caricature instead of a character, it's all right that Roland steals his girl. Not that I give a damn about any of this. I roll my terrible eyes and gnash my terrible teeth at romances, especially annoying teenage romances, spoiling my quest stories), some Unhappy Aging Women Who Need To Get Laid and, my favorite bit, a Nasty Old Witch who has been engaged to babysit a mysterious sphere that is basically a pink Loc-Nar. Oh, she is awesome. By which I mean ridiculous, ineffective, thwarted, a sacrificial virgin way, way, way past her prime. Which means she is ridiculously entertaining.
And of course there are Roland's boyhood friends, Cuthbert and Alain, long alluded to but never seen until now. It's hard not to be fond of these lads, for all that they are just so overshadowed by Roland; Cuthbert is a big smartass, Alain kind of mystical and gentle, but they are bothmore than up to the task of keeping their friend on track And yes, they are basically stand-ins for Eddie (Cuthbert) and Susannah (Alain). Which leaves Jake as Susan. Um. Best not follow that line of reasoning too closely.
Redeeming all of this for me, at least, is the setting and the season. King's Old West town by the sea brims and shivers with archetypal power as it simmers through the summer and approaches harvest-time, which is celebrated in a ritual-cum-festival called Reaping that combines all of the fun and excitement of a quality county fair of yesteryear (surely King's own childhood) with all of the god-propitiating dread of ancient ceremonies like the burning of the Wicker Man and every fertility rite ever. But of course this particular year, with our three young strangers in town, a pink Loc-Nar in place, and serious war brewing on the frontiers, no one's going to get to enjoy it much this year. The passages concerning this occasion, preparations for it, anticipation of it, hints at its deeper meaning, are the best bits of Wizard and Glass saving the breathless madness of the train ride, and are the ones that remind me most of what I most love Stephen King for -- his short fiction. Ah, me.
Ah, I should have seen it coming, the pink Loc-Nar. King wasn't going to continue to allow his most fascinating creation ever to go on existing in his cussedly tough and independent way forever. At least Roland's promptings from God are more unusual and interesting than the usual message dreams and unexplainable knowledge. As a way for such an amazing character to suddenly gain a life-consuming obsession, it's fair enough, I suppose.
And so onward, if with a bit of a ragged rather than a lusty and excited cheer go I. Because if nothing else, these books are interesting in that they tie so many of King's others together, sort of the way Heinlein wound up stitching his together, and Greenaway his. Roland Deschains is Stephen King's Tulse Luper. And that's sort of cool.
*But maybe not of my grammatical/philological ones. Because folks, 800 pages of faux archaic dialect is annoying enough (as apparently our author knows, as he has one of his characters muttering to himself about how sick of it he is at one point), but the constant appearance of "thee" being used in the vocative case (i.e. as a form of address) and "ye" being used interchangeably with it ("ye" is in fact acceptable when used in the vocative, but it is a plural pronoun) purt'near drove me up the wall, pilgrims. I should, perhaps, count my freaking blessings that at least no early modern English conjugation errors (e.g. mixing up the second person forms like "hast" with third person "hath" like people so often do) accompany these spurious "thees." And yes, King made up this world and maybe the people with which he populated it just are not keen philologists themselves and would sooner shoot me than discuss with me such niceties, but that doesn't mean it isn't irritating as hell to a certain type of reader.
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LibraryThing member pingobarg
great series, i recommend it to anyone who ever had even a nodding acquantance with walt whitman
LibraryThing member paghababian
Wizard and Glass finds Roland and his ka-tet in a world where a plague has demolished the population (sound like The Stand?) Roland feels that it is finally time to give his friends a glimpse into his past, and the bulk of the book is his tale of his time in Mejis, ostensibly counting provisions
This book is long and a little slow, especially when the books on either side have so much more action. The climax, however, is very exciting and screams to be made into a film.
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for the Affiliation. He and his friends, Cuthbert and Alain, end up uncovering a plot to supply John Farson, the Good Man, with what he needs to fight the Affiliation, while Roland finds himself trapped by something more dangerous than war.This book is long and a little slow, especially when the books on either side have so much more action. The climax, however, is very exciting and screams to be made into a film.
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LibraryThing member dragonfairy
It was great to be able to delve into Roland's past and see what it was that pushed him over the edge and made him into the man that he had finally become. Great spell binding storytelling.
LibraryThing member smurfwreck
I really like this book for what it accomplishes, series-wise, but a lot about it also bugs me from a content stance.
As far as the Dark Tower series is concerned, I like that we finally get more back-story on Roland and his original ka-tet. A lot of what makes Roland, Roland comes from the
What I don't like is the connection to another of Kings great works, The Stand. Now outside of The man in black/Randall Flagg/etc. and what might happen with that character, I don't like that the ka-tet passes through the decimated world of the Stand, mostly because it doesn't go anywhere. It has no impact on that book and that world has little to no impact on the Dark Tower world, to a point where it seems more of a red herring. I think the reason this bothers me so much is that these connections to King's other work speak to an idea that the Tower is at the center of his world, but at the end of the day he's going about it a way that makes you think more is going on that what really is. I'm sure a lot of this is due to the fact that he starts and stops this series when the urge hits him and he hasn't planned it out in any major way, but It's frustrating as hell to see what could be rather than what probably will be, and for a writer as prolific as he is it could PROBABLY be.
As far as the Dark Tower series is concerned, I like that we finally get more back-story on Roland and his original ka-tet. A lot of what makes Roland, Roland comes from the
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flashback in this book. So even though it's a very lengthy sidetrack in the quest to the Tower, it's an important one.What I don't like is the connection to another of Kings great works, The Stand. Now outside of The man in black/Randall Flagg/etc. and what might happen with that character, I don't like that the ka-tet passes through the decimated world of the Stand, mostly because it doesn't go anywhere. It has no impact on that book and that world has little to no impact on the Dark Tower world, to a point where it seems more of a red herring. I think the reason this bothers me so much is that these connections to King's other work speak to an idea that the Tower is at the center of his world, but at the end of the day he's going about it a way that makes you think more is going on that what really is. I'm sure a lot of this is due to the fact that he starts and stops this series when the urge hits him and he hasn't planned it out in any major way, but It's frustrating as hell to see what could be rather than what probably will be, and for a writer as prolific as he is it could PROBABLY be.
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LibraryThing member caerulius
Ok, fanatic moment- this book is intercut with color illustration by DAVE MCKEAN, who is brilliant.
Beyond that, this is a lovely, touching story about young love. A flashback to Roland's youth, and his ill-fated romance with Susan Delgado, the girl in the window. A trifle predictable at points, but
Beyond that, this is a lovely, touching story about young love. A flashback to Roland's youth, and his ill-fated romance with Susan Delgado, the girl in the window. A trifle predictable at points, but
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overall a good read. The Wizard of Oz ending didn't really do it for me, although it did continue the presence of good ol' RF, best known as the beastie from King's penultimate novel, The Stand. Show Less
LibraryThing member Bramwolf
This is my favorite of the series thus far. Without wanting to give too much away, this is the book in which you finally learn just exactly why Roland is willing to give up anything and everything (and clearly has) just to get to the Dark Tower. King mentions that the Dark Tower series is sort of
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like his Middle-Earth, where all of his stories originate in some way from this massive odyssey and world, and you see what he means with this book. Fan's of The Stand will recognize signs of the super flu within the first few hundred pages, and one of my all time favorite King villains comes back to pay his respects. Show Less
LibraryThing member meghayden
Yes indeedy, Stephen King can write a romance! My favorite of the series.
LibraryThing member smitkevi
This book will forever be one of my favorites. Although it is part of the Dark Tower series, it could easily stand alone as a separate novel. This is very unlike the other Dark Towers in that it is set in the world of Roland before it moved on and fell apart. It is as action-packed as the others,
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but also has the elements of a wonderful love story and is much more emotionally gripping than the others. If I could give it more stars, I would. Show Less
LibraryThing member klarsenmd
I love the gunslinger/dark tower books and this was the best of them. The back story and imagery of Mr. King at his best makes this a hauntingly unforgetable book. I've reread it several times since its first publication and no doubt will read it several more. Short of The Stand this was his best
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work ever. Show Less
LibraryThing member etimme
I liked book 3 a lot, but I enjoyed book 4 more. Despite 90% of the book being a flashback I think that King did an excellent job. I enjoyed seeing Susan Delgado and the birth of Roland's quest for the tower, as well as seeing his old friends Cuthbert and Alain, of whom he speaks of so frequently.
The only part I disliked was the final scene in the throne room. The Tick-Tock man was saved from the hell Blaine left behind in Lud by Flagg for some greater purpose, but he is then cast aside in a handful of pages once Roland's ka-tet reached the throne room as if King forgot what that purpose was to be. It was interesting noting that while Flagg holds sway over things of this world, including those of Gilead, he does not enjoy the same power over those of our world. Maybe this is linked to the skin he wears?
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We also got to see Flagg again, which makes me anxious for their showdown. Is he the master of the tower? It seems as though he will be waiting for the travelers in the next stop, either way.The only part I disliked was the final scene in the throne room. The Tick-Tock man was saved from the hell Blaine left behind in Lud by Flagg for some greater purpose, but he is then cast aside in a handful of pages once Roland's ka-tet reached the throne room as if King forgot what that purpose was to be. It was interesting noting that while Flagg holds sway over things of this world, including those of Gilead, he does not enjoy the same power over those of our world. Maybe this is linked to the skin he wears?
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LibraryThing member Spiceca
I was very hesitant about this installment of the Dark Tower as I have heard it is the hardest to get through. It was a nice surprise to find out that not only did I fly through this one but I enjoyed myself immensely. There is the old phrase "You dont know where your going unless you know where
If you have read the first three Dark Tower books- dont let this one dissuade you based on some reviews. This is really the backbone of the entire series and is well worth it. Well done King- I'm only more excited to read the next 3 installments.
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you have been". I think this aptly describes this book. We know very little about Roland before this story but the background we get here not only explains the entire Dark Tower Quest (albeit limitedly) but also helps the reader to fully apprciate Roland's "quirks". I wouldnt look as this book as a romance as some have suggested but rather it is the real beginning of the quest he is on- the romance is simply something that helps define several aspects of who he is. If you have read the first three Dark Tower books- dont let this one dissuade you based on some reviews. This is really the backbone of the entire series and is well worth it. Well done King- I'm only more excited to read the next 3 installments.
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LibraryThing member Blazingice0608
My favorate of the series although not the actual best. This entry is all about Rolands past, which i absolutly loved. The only reason its not perfect is that next to nothing occurs in the main story of Dark Tower.
LibraryThing member skinglist
Probably my least favorite of the Dark Tower Series. Spent too much time on back story and not enough moving forward. That and I don't like the Wizard of Oz
LibraryThing member JohnMunsch
Very long and interesting but not emotionally gripping the way King wants it to be. He wants a grand tragedy but I read this at the same time as "Of Mice and Men" and the contrast could not be greater.
LibraryThing member samfulton
 This is a very good book, and I believe anyone who likes adventures should read it. It is the fourth installment in the Dark Tower series.
The story takes place in a different world than ours. It is on Earth, but in an alternate version of our Earth. This is after the world has been nearly wiped
It starts off right where the third book left off. I was afraid that they weren't gonna tell you how they got off Blaine the mono, but I was very pleased to see it in the beginning of this book. They stump Blaine at the last second with a surprise trick from Eddie. They escape the monorail and head out into Topeka. They find some scary things including a newspaper talking about a super flu spreading across the country and killing everyone. It is dated two years before Eddie's time and Eddie has no idea what it is. This is their first proof that there really are multiple worlds other than their own. They continue through the town amazed at how Roland's world really was just like their own. Roland starts to tell them a lot more about his history. You get to know what happened to his wife and how they met. The most detail about his past I've heard so far in the series.
 The characters in this book are very unique. Each one is very different, but come together to make a great team. Roland who is from this world and this time is a gunslinger. They are the highest of people in all the known world. They are very well trained and have revolver's (only people with guns). He is the last of his people and is in search of the dark tower. Eddie is a Brooklyn boy. He grew up on the streets with his older brother. He was a heroin addict until his brother was killed. Susannah is a southern girl with rich parents. Her legs are cut off just above the knee. Jake is a 12 year old boy who was brought to this world by a wizard named martin to help Roland with his journey. He was killed in another book. He then returned and is traveling with the three of them.
There are multiple themes of this story, but the main two are probably adventure and survival. These four people are traveling across unknown land in search of a mysterious Dark Tower. This tower controls anything and everything. If you gain control of the tower you will become all powerful and able to do anything you please. It is not an easy journey to travel across unknown land full of surprises and people no one knew about. It will take every ounce of their ability and friendship to make it through this journey.
The story takes place in a different world than ours. It is on Earth, but in an alternate version of our Earth. This is after the world has been nearly wiped
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out by a super flu. It spread rapidly across the world and killed all who got it. They have no idea what we had in our time, but still come across our inventions every so often. They find a crashed World War 2 bomber outside of the city with a monorail that loves riddles and can travel faster than the speed of sound. There are portals between these words, but they come and go mysteriously.It starts off right where the third book left off. I was afraid that they weren't gonna tell you how they got off Blaine the mono, but I was very pleased to see it in the beginning of this book. They stump Blaine at the last second with a surprise trick from Eddie. They escape the monorail and head out into Topeka. They find some scary things including a newspaper talking about a super flu spreading across the country and killing everyone. It is dated two years before Eddie's time and Eddie has no idea what it is. This is their first proof that there really are multiple worlds other than their own. They continue through the town amazed at how Roland's world really was just like their own. Roland starts to tell them a lot more about his history. You get to know what happened to his wife and how they met. The most detail about his past I've heard so far in the series.
 The characters in this book are very unique. Each one is very different, but come together to make a great team. Roland who is from this world and this time is a gunslinger. They are the highest of people in all the known world. They are very well trained and have revolver's (only people with guns). He is the last of his people and is in search of the dark tower. Eddie is a Brooklyn boy. He grew up on the streets with his older brother. He was a heroin addict until his brother was killed. Susannah is a southern girl with rich parents. Her legs are cut off just above the knee. Jake is a 12 year old boy who was brought to this world by a wizard named martin to help Roland with his journey. He was killed in another book. He then returned and is traveling with the three of them.
There are multiple themes of this story, but the main two are probably adventure and survival. These four people are traveling across unknown land in search of a mysterious Dark Tower. This tower controls anything and everything. If you gain control of the tower you will become all powerful and able to do anything you please. It is not an easy journey to travel across unknown land full of surprises and people no one knew about. It will take every ounce of their ability and friendship to make it through this journey.
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LibraryThing member francomega
This book was sittign on my shelf for a while waiting for me to read the three previous books. Finally decided to dive in and re-read The Gunslinger.Probably my favorite book in the series. Real emotional punch at the end.
Awards
Locus Award (Nominee — Fantasy Novel — 1998)
Italia Award (Finalist — 1999)
Prix Ozone (1998)
Locus All-Time Best (Fantasy Novel — 32 — 1987)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1997-11-04
Physical description
752 p.; 4.26 inches
ISBN
9780451194862