Song of Susannah

Disclaimer: This book is far along enough into the Dark Tower series that I doubt my entry will be of any interest to those who aren't going to start it at all. I'll try to keep this as spoiler-free as possible for Trevor and Marissa as well.

After a long hiatus from the Dark Tower series, I jumped back in with part 6: Song of Susannah. Song has been criticized as the worst novel in the series, and after the noticeable drop in quality from books four to five, I feared for the worst. Fortunately, Song Of Susannah was at least as good as Wolves of the Calla and was just as much a page-turner as the rest. Song picks up immediately where Wolves left off- Roland and his ka-tet are stuck in Calla Bryn-Sturgis in Mid-World while a very pregnant and half-delusional Susannah has made her way to New York to have her chap, while literally struggling against some old personal demons. Roland and the rest of the gang eventually make it over to our world, which is where the majority of the book takes place, except they've been sent to different places and times. Jake, Oy and Callahan are hot on the trail of Susannah in 1990s New York City, but Roland and Eddie are stuck in 70s Maine. This leads to an important part of the entire series, but a move that's been widely criticized- King becomes a character in his own book. Roland and Eddie find out about their status as characters and demand answers from King, but all they find out is what Stevie's been saying all along- he doesn't know how the whole journey will end either. This couldn't have been an easy part to write, but I think King did it appropriately and thankfully kept it brief. The focus of the book is not on King, but Susannah. While her troubles with Detta and Odetta Holmes seemed to be taken care of in Drawing of the Three, she's forced again to deal with a few intruders in her mind. While King's decision to bring back Detta seemed a bit unnecessary, the back-story to Mia certainly made up for it. The conclusion wasn't as action-packed as the rest of the Dark Tower books, but it was certainly cathartic and adequately set the stage for book 7: The Dark Tower. I've enjoyed taking my time with the Dark Tower books instead of reading them rapid fire, and I suppose it will be a few more months before I finish off the series. There's still plenty more books to log.