The Dark Tower, (PtVI), Song of Susannah, book review. (Stephen King)

Well I'll be honest, I'm not really sure what happens in half of this book, the Susannah/Mia half, because when you're with her you're with Odetta Holmes (Detta/Det) and Mia - daughter of none mother of one - because they're all one person, even if they want different things! Of course this gets a little confusing from time to time, especially when they're talking to each other (which is constant) and arguing over who does what.

Susannah/Mia's baby is on its way and whilst the Calla are celebrating the destruction of the Wolves at the end of book five, she has snuck off with Black Thirteen (one of many glass orbs that have been in existence and exerted the Crimson King's bidding for a very long time - Lord of the Rings esk. The very same orb that controlled Rhea of the Coos who betrayed Roland's first and only true love, Susan Delgado in book IV of the series - of which Black Thirteen is the worst of course) and gone through the door in the cave from The Calla in Mid-World, to our world and New York.

The entire book takes place over a single day, with Susannah/Mia being in a park, finding a bewitched turtle trinket, which she uses to persuade people to do her biding - book hotel rooms, sing her songs, taxi her around town - all whilst visiting the Dogan in her mind (this being a room full of panels [I had film-set power station with banks of lights and dials in my mind when I read this] where she is able to control her unborn child's arrival, the pain she feels and weather the baby is asleep or not).

Confused yet?

Inter-spliced with this you have Eddie, Roland, Jake and Father Callahan (of Salam's Lot fame). The latter two are supposed to go to a small Maine town and track down the author of Salem's Lot (guess who) and find out how Callahan became a character in his fictional book when what happened in Salem's Lot was real - the low men, the vampires, all of it - but the door switches them around so Jake and Callahan end up in New York in search of Susannah/Mia, whilst Eddie and Roland find themselves looking for the author - who is of course the author of this book!

Still not confused?

When Eddie and Roland arrive in their 1999 all hell breaks loose and for me, this was the best bit of the book, the part I wanted more of. 'Gunslingers deal in lead' they say, which Andolini and his goons (low life Mafioso types who Eddie and Roland have already killed in the future back in book two) soon find out to their disadvantage when they ambush them - having been tipped off by Mia when she arrived - and the resulting gun battle and subsequent fifty pages or so disappears in a blur.

Where was I?

Oh yeah, so, back to New York with Jake and Callahan, hot on the trail of a very pregnant Susannah/Mia who's heading off to the Low Men to have her baby and . . . 

It ends. That's it.

The book just ends. Susannah/Mia are in the very depths of a downtown skyscraper surrounded by the Crimson King's henchmen (and chimeras) Mia finally realising that she will have no hold over her baby after its born (the child is Roland's by the way, by default - long story) with Jake and Callahan outside, ready to burst in and then . . . that's it!

The last twenty or so pages are a collection of diary entries by the fictional Stephen King about how the area that he lives in is the epicentre of strange sightings of people who may have travelled between worlds (known as Walk-ins) through doors not to dissimilar to those Roland, Eddie, Jake, Callahan and Susannah/Mia have used, and ends with him (the fictional him remember) reported as being killed by a van whilst out walking!!!

I'm so confused that a star rating will have to wait. That's not to say I didn't enjoy the book - it wasn't Kafka - and some of it was all that I love about King but, overall . . . well, maybe I'll know when I've read book seven.

 

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The Dark Tower, (PtVI), Wizard and Glass, book review. (Stephen King)

WOW, wow and er . . . okay then!

In this, the fourth part of Roland's quest for the dark tower, we are treated to possibly the longest flashback in any book I've ever read, and it is here that the wows are aimed. The rest of the book doesn't really move the story on that much hence the er, but it does deal with Blane the Mono from book three - rather poorly in my opinion - as if the author ran out of really tough riddles to fool the Mono and had to result to stupidity. Then there's the Wizard of Oz style ending where our quintet tackle the Emerald City and get back on the beam, but you can ignore all that really because the bones of this book are in the six hundred plus pages of flashback, in Mejis, when Roland was a child and fell in love and . . .

There are gun-toting cowboys guarding oil derricks and tankers full of the black stuff hauled by oxen. There is the witch, Rhea of the Coos, who is bewitched by the wizard's glass and sees all. There is Roland and his ka-tet, Cuthbert, and Alain, who have been sent to the outer reaches of Mid-World on the pretence of counting anything that can be counted, when really they have been sent away to protect them from trouble back home. Then there is Susan Delgado, the most beautiful maiden in all of Mid-World and it doesn't take long for her and Roland to become entwined in a love affair, an affair that will bring death and dishonour to many and haunt Roland for the rest of his days.

As Blood Moon gives way to the Kissing Moon and the world spins, Roland and his ka-tet begin counting, but it isn't long before the suspicions of the sheriff and his lawmen are raised. There is a standoff, which goes in the ka-tet's favour, Rhea sees Susan losing something that had been promised to the Mayor, and there is a suspicious amount of activity in the woods where the crude oil still flows.

Asides from the beginning, where Eddie beats Blane with a riddle that isn't a riddle, you just fall into the narrative and can't wait to get to the Reaping fair. There are a lot of characters in this book but they all differ in ways that keeps the reader entertained and never confused. There is death, dishonour, love, fear, and pain, but the writing is some of the author’s very best so as you speed through the near nine hundred pages, you too fall in love with Susan, fear for Roland, wonder at Alain and Cuthbert's abilities, all whilst wondering how they will ever get the better of the sheriff and his men and survive.

If a book can have you on the edge of your seat, this one can. If a book can have you gasping, biting your nails in anticipation and leave you feeling completely empty, this one can and if it wasn't for the lacklustre beginning and okay ending, it would have been another five star Stephen King classic, as it is though I'll give this one four and a half stars.

The Dark Tower, (Pt1), The Gunslinger, book review. (Stephen King)

So, the beginning – the beginning of the longest story I am ever likely to read!

As Roland Deschain, the last Gunslinger, follows the man in black: death, preacher, shaman, et-al, across unyielding desert, for a purpose we don’t yet know, he meets a corn farmer and we learn about Roland's escape from Tull, (the last town before the world turns to dust). Thirty-nine dead and hardly a scratch!

Then, he meets Jake at a Way Station, and as the desert morphs into mountains and Jake becomes companion, we learn that the man in black killed Jake in modern day New York, brought him here: to use him, weaken the Gunslinger’s hand, give Roland something to care about, something to lose.

On entering the mountains, Roland must face the Oracle, an ancient malevolent force that will not give something for nothing, but the Gunslinger needs answers, he needs all the help he can get, and like the gunfight in Tull, I particularly liked this part. It is slightly surreal, which is the point, and feels like one of the older parts of the book; more honest, less polished maybe.

Before finally settling Ka with the man in black, Roland must let Jake go (for the good of the quest for the Tower), but will he let the boy die a second time? Will he let the slow mutants take him? Does he have a choice?

There are elements to this book that are classic King, but there are parts that feel alien, as if they were written by another author, which is somewhat explained in the introduction and forward of this revised edition. The author was only nineteen when he first started to garnish the idea for this novel, some thirty year before this edition was published.

A short novel then, (it is only a beginning after all) and a slightly surreal one, but with the battle in Tull, the Oracle in the mountain, the slow mutants and the almost biblical showdown with the man in black, a rather good introduction to the quest for The Dark Tower.

Four stars.