A prequel to a sequel or a sequel to a prequel of a previous Dark Tower “review”.

Both women’s hands moved like a blur as they obliterated their targets - moving and stationary. Their pistols were still smoking as they were returned them to their holsters.

“Well met,” said the fat rancher, as he moved towards the taller of the two women, “and mighty impressive.”

“Thankee, Sai”, said the taller of the two blonde katet members and by her calm and authoritative bearing, obviously the group’s dinh.

“I’m known as Quick Draw and this here”, indicating her straight shooting partner, “is the Rootin’ Tootin’ Pistol Packin’ one. Her name used to be longer, but folks got confused, so we narrowed it.”

“I reckon if yer willin’, we could use yer help against them evil clowns, who’ve been rustlin’ our kittens and turnin’ em into six-legged muties that are lazy and can’t bathe themselves.”

“Jenkies! As gunslingers in the Eld tradition, we’d gladly be of service to ya.”

The rancher eyed the snoring lump, sleeping face down in the dirt. “If it do ya, can I see the big cully do some shootin?”

“He’s a decent shot when he’s sober….” Quick Draw’s voice trailed off.

Rootin’ Tootin’ nudged the slumbering figure with her boot, softly at first, but when that didn’t have any effect, she kicked him much harder.

“N-O-O-M. that spells moon backwards”, blubbered the hulking figure as he scrambled to his feet.

“What in tarnation is he goin’ on bout? Is he one of them roont galoots?

"Probably not, sai, he’s sleepin’ off a two day drunk. Or a devil grass bender. We ain’t entirely sure.”

She turned toward the blinking, half-asleep man and said, “Kindly, do some shootin’ for us, Jumpin’. There’s a cactus over yonder you can shoot and remember the face of yer father.”

“Yer confusin’ me! My daddy could ha’ been the stableman or the deputy or a stuffy guy.”

“More than likely the town idjit”, muttered Pistol Packin’.

“Jes pick a cactus and shoot.”

Jumpin’ shakily raised his pistol and let loose a shot. The shot missed the cactus by a wide margin, ricocheted off a nearby boulder and lodged itself in the fat rancher’s left buttock.

“I cry your pardon,” blurted the shooter.

As the group behind the rancher started muttering angrily, the two blondes hurriedly grabbed the big man set him on his horse and galloped quickly away ignoring the furious shouts from behind them.

“Ka?” came out like a belch from Jumpin’.

“I’ll give ya yer fill of ka later,” shouted Quick Draw.

For a long time, this was my favorite book of the series. I love it, the way it just ratchets up the tension, bit by bit, and how we get to know these people, this town and the horror that they have lived with every generation for over 100 years.

This is where the series really becomes amazing. I love Drawing of the Three and The Wastelands, but Wolves of the Calla takes these characters that we've had several books' worth of time to get used to and shows us each of them in a different light.

I love how gentle Roland can be, and is, when he's dealing with the Calla kids. I love how hard Jake is when he learns a secret that could tear a friendship and a family and a community apart. I love how ruthless Eddie is when he stands to protect the weak. These people are no longer just characters that think they could be gunslingers one day, they ARE Gunslingers. They all, each on their own, prove that, and the way they do gives me shivers.

I love progression of the story in this one, and how the threads are all starting to come together. You might think that this is a little late in the game, for things to only start coming together in book 5 of a 7 book series, but believe me, the journey here is as important as where we're going, if not more so. It's the journey, and the traveling companions, that I love more than anything.

I listened to the audio of this book again, and this one was read by George Guidall. In some ways, I preferred his reading to Frank Muller's, but in many others, I thought it was inferior.

I loved, LOVED, Guidall's Roland. I'm not sure just how to explain it, but rather than making Roland sound like Christian Bale's Batman voice, he sounds mature, strong and sure. He sounds like Roland. I always thought that Muller's Roland was a bit too growlly and drawly. But Guidall's was damn near perfect.

Unfortunately, it was quite the opposite with Eddie. Muller's Eddie was perfect. The way Eddie (through Frank) said "Rolund" was perfect, his Brooklyn accent (to my ears anyway) was perfect. Guidall's Eddie sounded like... Joe Pesci almost. High-pitched, nasally, annoying. I got used to it as I went along, but I found myself missing Muller's Eddie. A lot.

Susannah and Jake were OK. I thought that they sounded a bit too similar, and Callahan a little too elderly and feeble, but I can live with those. I did quite like the Calla accents though, especially Rosalita. He voiced her quite differently than I heard her (although I never really gave her much accent in my head, she was just kind of Generic Side-Character Female Voice), but I thought Guidall did pretty well with her accent.

Overall, I thought that Guidell did a good job, but if I could have Guidell's Roland and Muller's Eddie, I could die happy. :)

The fifth in the Dark Tower series provides an interesting trek through the evil wolves to get where they need to go. 6 of 10 stars

That face you make when a book has a horrible cliffhanger:



Why, Stephen King, why?!?!

Well, anyway, no review for this. It's suffice for me to say it's a million times better than book 4 (that one's a mess - I didn't even finish it). The story gets back to the quest to find the Dark Tower, I'm finally warming up to the characters and in few words, I liked it.

A little warning for people who want to read this series: Read King's 'Salem's Lot first. The destiny of one character is told here and you'll have no clue as to who he is. It's not crucial to the plot, but I assure you that even if you don't like SL, you'll go LOL when that character appears.

Also, another LOL for all the Harry Potter amd Star Wars references. They were especially better when the characters were clueless - somehow that made them cute. For example, did you know that according to Eddie HP is probably another Marvil comic from the 1990's?



Anyway, I'm glad I didn't abandon the series in book 4. It's not the best I've read (not even close), but it's entertaining. Let's see when I find the time to read book 6.

I didn't really realize until I'd picked up this book that I was kind of in a reading funk for a bit. Either that, or this book is just that good. Either way, I had a new life of reading when I picked up Wolves of the Calla. I was sucked right back into the path of the Dark Tower, right along one of the 6 beams. And it's not just sucked in, but I was able to pick back up after a year or two with only my rusty memory of the previous 5 (counting Wind through the Keyhole) books.

Wolves is just what I needed and as much as it moves the plot forward, there's plenty more "stories" to be told. It's not quite as much of a stall as in that last book, Wizard and Glass, but it's quite lengthy. But yet again, as in W&G, I loved every minute of it. Back stories have consistently been my favorite parts and King has a gift for backstory and every character has one, that's why they're so rich and why you care so much when they get ripped away from you. In Wolves I was pretty into both the past and the present, you could count them equal.

I'd heard things about this book, that's it's sub-par compared to the previous books, but I didn't find that to be the case. I had a great time and only wanted more. Some commentary on the ending:  I did think the ending was a bit anti-climactic, but then again we were warned previously that when guns get pulled out, it can all be over in a few minutes. I expected, however, a bit more. All the lead up with how terrible the wolves are and then it's over with hardly a casualty. Then again, this just shows how studly the gunslingers are. I also enjoyed that the planning really did pay off for them. All the time researching and listening to stories and they really were able to prepare well.

I can't leave this review without pointing out the dialect. I think that's one of the greatest parts of this book. I wanted to use it with everyone around me, it sets such a great ambiance about the area and brings you right into it, yer bugger!

Well played sai King, I can't wait for more. I'd forgotten the face of my father by waiting so long to reenter the path. Thankee sai for this reminder.

4.5 out of 5 Stars (Just under W&G and TW)

"

My favorite of the Dark Tower books, for the power and simplicity of its story. The gunslingers take a break in their quest for the Tower to help a small farming community with a terrible burden: once in every generation, masked riders called Wolves come out of the darkness and steal half the children. The children come back terribly changed and inevitably die young, and for the first time the town looks to fight against the Wolves. Roland and his band lead the defense, and they've never been more compelling. Eddie turns diplomat, Susannah nurses a secret, Roland shows a softer side, and Jake although only twelve wields a gun as skillfully as any of the others. The farmers, terrified but brave, are heart-breaking in their depiction, and fans of King's previous book "Salem's Lot" will note the appearance of a character long thought dead. The final battle against the Wolves will raise the hair on your neck.

n  “First comes smiles, then lies. Last is gunfire."n
- Roland Deschain, of Gilead



Dark Tower reviews:
#1 n  The Gunslingern
#2 n  The Drawing of the Threen
#3 n  The Waste Landsn
#4 n  Wizard and Glassn
#5 n  Wolves of the Callan
#6 n  Song of Susannahn
#7 n  The Dark Towern

3 stars. I liked it. Mr. King certainly knows how to craft a story that makes me want to read to the end, despite the fact that I'm not sure why he wrote it. It is such an odd mishmash of details, many of which I feel he finally figured out how to tie together here in the fifth volume.

I'm also not a big fan of the horrible details, like Susannah/Mia feeding the “chap.” Although I wouldn't call this series horror, it has its gruesome details. I do admit that the references to Harry Potter did make me snigger a bit, though. My other complaint is the length of these books. Surely they could be pared down? However, I know that many people revel in the long reading experience and wallow in all the details, so my view is just my own.

I have two books remaining to read and I hope to get to them in the months to come. I'm stubborn enough that I want to know what happens, what else King has up his sleeve. I recognize his skill, I just wish he wrote about things that I care about more. I kind of wish I was a fan girl—the fans seem to enjoy themselves so much!

Book Number 437 of my Science Fiction & Fantasy Reading Project.

If someone would have told me back in the ‘90s that the way to get Stephen King to finish up the Dark Tower series quickly was to hit him with a minivan, I would have been on my way to Maine to rent a Dodge Caravan before you could say, "Bango Skank was here."

I confess this not to do more complaining about the long suffering years waiting on some advancement in the Dark Tower books, but to illustrate how utterly obsessed and frustrated I was with this goddamn series. Then King nearly came to the clearing at the end of the path but instead recovered and cranked out three books like they came off an assembly line to finish the whole thing. Before that, I had pretty much given up hope on ever getting another book, never mind seeing an end to it, and King wasn’t doing much to make me change my mind with no news about him even working on another DT book.

And then came the minivan.

Ka works in mysterious ways….

Wolves of the Calla had a lot of things to accomplish. It needed to get the story rolling again after years of it laying fallow. It needed to set up the end run of the series. It needed to be a satisfying book aside from moving the overall arc forward. And most importantly, it needed to answer the burning question all Dark Tower fans had: Whatever happened to Father Callahan from ‘Salem’s Lot? Oh, wait. I had never asked that question. Oh, well. I found out anyhow and it turned out to be a pretty good part of the story.

Roland and his crew have been moving along the path of the Beam towards the Tower, but they seem to have been in a kind of timeless funk. (One of the things I love about the series is that the decay of the Tower has caused both time and space in Roland’s world to become soft and drift. It’s also a nice metaphor for the limbo that characters are in between books.) Just before entering the nastiness of End-World, they find Calla Bryn Sturgis, a farming town with a big problem.

Almost all the children born in the Calla are twins. Every twenty years or so, dozens of creatures the townsfolk call Wolves come on horseback and steal one from each set of twins. They take those kids back to Thunderclap, a place the gunslingers have already been warned about, and eventually return them as almost mindless husks who grow to jumbo sizes before dying young. Try to fight or hide your kids, and the Wolves kill everyone who resists instead of just taking half the kids. The Wolves will arrive in a month, but some in the Calla want to fight back this time if the gunslingers will help.

Roland's group has other problems too. They’ve been making dream-like excursions to New York in the 1970s and found that the special rose growing in a vacant lot there is in terrible danger. The rose is a key manifestation of the Tower in that world. Roland is convinced that if the rose is destroyed, the Tower falls in his world, too, and there goes your ballgame for all of existence. They have to find a way to get to New York in person and save the rose from those threatening it by protecting the owner of the lot.

The gunslingers also meet Callahan, a former Catholic priest last seen in the King-verse fighting vampires in ’Salem’s Lot. Callahan has an incredible tale to tell of years spent traveling between worlds and being chased by vampires and other nasty agents of the Crimson King before he wound up in Calla Bryn Sturgis.* Callahan has been hiding an evil object that terrifies him, and he wants Roland to get rid of it by taking it with him when they leave.

*(Anyone reading the series who wants some more info about who was chasing Callahan and other bits that come into play here should check out King’s ‘Low Men in Yellow Coats’ story in his ‘Hearts in Atlantis’ collection.)

If they didn’t have enough on their plate, Susannah’s previous encounter with a demon has left her a little bit pregnant, and her personality is being taken over by the baby’s ‘mother’, Mia. Pregnant women are known for strange food cravings, but let’s just say that Mia’s are even worse than usual.

I love this book partly because it’s the one that got the Dark Tower story back on track and set up everything for the end run to the last book. I also love it just because this is Dark Tower at its best for me. It’s a mash-up of westerns, fantasy, horror and sci-fi. It’s like The Magnificent Seven if Yul Brenner and Steve McQueen had to make multi-dimensional trips and deal with robots and vampires as well as protect the town with their six-guns.

Another thing I like about this one is that Eddie, Susannah and Jake are now full-fledged gunslingers and not just apprentices, and King expands on exactly what a gunslinger is. They’re not just killers, although they do that pretty damn well. They’re also diplomats and protectors of the defenseless. It was fun to see Roland’s manipulative political side come out when dealing with the Calla folk. The pregnancy storyline didn’t do much for me in this, but it becomes a key driver of the plot of the next book.

All in all, this is one of my favorite of the DT books, and it was King’s clear statement that he was done screwing around and ready to finish this mother. Too bad it took him nearly getting killed to get it done.

... WTF! Este libro se quedó a mitad de camino a la grandeza

  

El planteamientos de la trama principal y de todas las sub-tramas han estado geniales pero me da la impresión que el autor se queda corto en la resolución de todos los conflictos.

De buenas a primera el lenguaje y estilo han cambiado radicalmente y sin justificación alguna a mi parecer, a partir de este volumen este aspecto de la saga ha sido cambiado y la verdad es que me ha molestado un poco, pero bueno, no es para morirse.

Al inicio del libro aunque me di cuenta que no había señas de ningún gran villano, ni tampoco de ni la continuación de ningún viaje épico la trama de los lobos se me hizo interesante y la estuve esperando con ansias. El hecho de imaginarme el ka-tet en una batalla campal en contra de mas de 50 enemigos se me hacía emocionante, pero cuando eso queda resueltO lo que pienso es "Pfff ¿Eso era todo?".


  

La trama de Mia y su chaval. Aunque nunca he sido muy fan de este personaje de la saga, su problemática de Odetta/detta/Sussanah fue buena en los primeros volúmenes, ha sido bastante molesta y exasperante, pero es que era su intención, así había sido diseñado y estuvo bien. Pero en este caso se ha ido todo el libro en esta intriga y sin resolución alguna. Queda para el siguiente libro me imagino.

  

La trama de Calvin torre. Genial, por primera vez hay una manera concreta y efectiva de viajar entre mundos que pueda ser medianamente controlable (no olviden que las puertas de la llegada de los tres han sido casi que fortuitas), por primera vez se explora el exotransito, ese espacio entre mundos bastante tétrico, los viajes de eddie fueron geniales, me encantaron, pero nuevamente la resolución fue tan simple que molesta.

La trama e inclusión del padre Callaham, lo mejor para mi del libro. Estuvo sencillamente genial esa continuación a Salem´s lot, fue una gran idea de King.

'Salem's Lot

Este volumen es prácticamente la continuación de Salem`s lot pero no recomiendo a nadie que se pase a este libro luego de leerlo, así que los fans de el libro de los vampiros la tienen un poco difícil si quieren continuar la historia del padre Callaham.




El desarrollo de Jake como persona adulta es destacable.

El robot Andy genial, me hubiese gustado mas. Su resolución muy simple, mas smple que la del tren blaine, que fue simple ero genial, en este caso fue tonta.

La referencia a Stars wars fue rara y la de Harry potter bastante innecesaria.

Hasta ahora es el libro que menos me ha gustado de la saga, me parece que fue escrito con apuro, que no se tomó su tiempo en pensar el final, que quiso terminarlo pronto.

Tengo entendido que el accidente que sufrió en 1999 tuvo que ver en este problema. Teniendo en cuenta que entre las tierras baldías y la bola de cristal hubo 5 años de por medio en dos libros que prácticamente son uno solo con un espacio de flashback.

Ahora estoy bastante asustado, solo me restan dos libros para terminar la saga y no quiero terminar decepcionado con lo que ha sido la mejor saga de ciencia fantasía que he leído en mi vida.

A final de cuentas todos esos reviewers que dicen que hay que leer unos 15 libros antes de este son un poco exagerados. No lo considero necesario.

Las ilustraciones un punto y a parte en este libro, simplemente magnificas.
3/5 estrellas.

Im not entirely sure how I felt about this book. At times I thought it was great, at others it seemed clumsy.