Wolves of the Calla

So lately it must seem like I've been sucking Stephen King's dick talking about how great this Dark Tower series is. It's true, I'm enjoying these books much more than I thought I would- it even prompted me to read offshoot novels like The Talisman earlier in the summer. Wolves of the Calla is book number 5 in the series of 7, but not quite as good as the others. But before I start into that, here's a synopsis of the series so far: The Gunslinger, book 1, was written in 1982- one of the first books Stephen King wrote. I read this 2 summers ago, and thought it was alright. The Gunslinger tells the tale of Roland Deschain, the last of a race of gunslingers, essentially knights of the round table who wield guns instead of swords. Roland's world is sort of a post-apocalyptic version of our own, but this is explained later in the series. In the first book, Roland chases after the mysterious man in black, and we get some snippets of Roland's past. The second and third books in the series, The Drawing of the Three and The Waste Lands were published in '87 and '91 respectively, and share a common plot, which is Roland assembling a team that will join him on what becomes his ultimate quest- to reach and defend the Dark Tower, the axis of all universes. I think the make-up of Roland's crew is what makes me not so embarassed to read these books- while Roland is a complete fantasy stereotype, the members of his group are all unwillingly plucked from seperate time periods in New York City, giving the whole series a group of relatable characters. The fourth book, Wizard and Glass was written in 1997 and is almost entirely a flashback to Roland's youth. While most of the time flashbacks seem pointless to me, this book amazed me- I consider it the height of the series. It was not only a beautifully written story good enough to stand on its own, but it really added to the series as a whole.

At this point, you can see that King really took his time developing these stories- 15 years between the first and fourth books. It looked like the series was going to be Stephen King's magnum opus, its mythology encompassing not only 7 books, but his entire body of work. Fans were ravenously awaiting the fifth story, but in 1999 King was hit by a car and was seriously hurt. Sensing his own mortality, shortly after that King decided to finish off Roland's story once and for all. He cranked out the final three books in the series in a matter of 2 years, and the majority of Dark Tower fans felt the series suffered because of this. I've read on message boards people saying to "stop after Wizard and Glass, and just make up your own ending." If only it was that easy, of course. Getting more than halfway through a series and loving it, I couldn't just stop- and so I picked up Wolves of the Calla earlier this week. The book was a monster, coming in at 925 pages, and as I've said before, I agree there was a drop in quality, I still found Wolves good enough to speed through and enjoy. While the differences are huge, one comparison I usually make is to the tv series Lost. There's plenty of moments in the series that left me actually saying out loud "holy shit" and thinking "I can't believe he had this all thought out from the start!" Also, just like how Lost has great moments such as Locke pounding on the hatch not only be moving the first time, but having the moment returned to and given even greater importance a year later; King can return to something written in the 80s decades later and explain how there was more going on than at first glance. While not as good as Drawing of the Three, The Waste Lands, or Wizard and Glass, Wolves of the Calla is still a strong showing. If the last two novels are at least as good as this, then I would hardly say the Dark Tower series had a bad ending. Maybe people just couldn't handle the fact that there were a few Harry Potter references thrown in.