Προσοχή! Ακολουθεί κριτική μόνο για όσους έχουν διαβάσει το βιβλίο και θα καταλάβουν την παρακάτω στάντζα! :-P

ΣΤΡΟΦΗ: Έλα-κομάλα-έλα
Πάει το 6ο βιβλίο της σειράς.
Σαν κάτι να χάθηκε σ’ αυτή την πορεία
Και μπλέχτηκαν όλα, συγγραφείς και μαγεία.

ΑΠΑΝΤΗΣΗ: Έλα-κομάλα-έξι!
Το τέλος είναι πλέον πολύ πιο κοντά!
Μακάρι να μην απογοητεύσει του Πύργου η ιστορία
Κι ας χάθηκε κάτι σ’ αυτή την πορεία.


Εν ολίγοις, θεωρώ πως είναι το πιο αδύναμο μέχρι τώρα. Θα μπορούσε να είναι πολύ καλύτερο. Η ιστορία δεν προχώρησε πολύ και ο King αναλώθηκε σε υπερβολές και λεπτομέρειες που δεν χρειαζόταν...

What kind of ending is this supposed to be??? WTF, Mr. King?! Honestly, this series is gonna be the death of me!

The 6th volume of Dark Tower pretty much starts where the 5th left off. Susanna had been taken away via Mia, away from the Ka-tet. They are trying to follow her but since she's taken Black-13 with her, it's a bit more complicated to open the (right) door(s). Add to that the fact that she went to our world, a linear one where you can't visit the same point in time more than once, which is why Father Callahan and Jake can follow Susannah/Mia but Roland and Eddie end up in Maine in some other time instead, meeting ... well, make an educated guess.
Boy, that was a mindfuck and a half - but in a hilarious sort of way that actually worked!
The rest of the book is about Susannah's relationship with Detta and Mia, the pregnancy and finding a way to deliver the child without falling into the Crimson King's hands. It's also about getting more pieces on the board moved in the right position - such as the set-up of the different corporations, finally meeting Mr. Torrin/Tower again to get the contract for the empty ground where the rose grows etc.

Honestly, I LOVED the humorous look SK himself has on his own career and works, the self-depricating humour and snide remarks.
I also loved seeing the ties that bind more of the past events together now that we have yet more details (one such thing being that Torrin and his lawyer friend are the ones who will later save Callahan before he ever travels between worlds).
I had a number of theories, many of which have proven to be correct (such as the involvement of Torrin and his lawyer in Callahan's rescue, what the "wolves" and the "doctor" truly are) and while some things have not yet been confirmed 100%, we have enough pieces to indicate that I was right about the Sombra Corp. and North Central Positronics as well.
What I hadn't seen coming was Roland also being a father of Mordred's. But in a way it makes sense since he is related to Arthur and Arthur obviously is related to the Crimson King. If we go by our real-life mythology, we even know who is related to whom in what way. Yep, it's fucked up.

As you can see, I still love puzzling over the whole mythology and history here. How what came to be and how or when. As far as I can tell (it was confirmed here somewhat), all these worlds our heroes have been visiting are not only along the way TO the Dark Tower but stories IN the Dark Tower itself - stories both as in tales and as in floors - so I bet the highest level will be the final villain just like in any computer game: the Crimson King himself. I do have a theory about why he is there (that Arthur managed to imprison him in it and he's trying to break free which causes the failing of the Tower) but apparently at least part of that can't be true since the Tower had started failing much much earlier which is why the Old Ones started to mess with it via their technological advances.
Yep, one theory after another, many COULD make sense and I can't stop thinking about it, almost obsessing. *lol*

While I was kinda miffy about the Ka-tet getting larger at first, I now find it very moving. Not all members are Gunslingers, but they all play important roles throughout the various timelines. There were also some scenes where I shuddered. Mostly when some world or other bled through into ours as could be witnessed by songs hummed or poems and other lines recited. Very nice atmosphere needed to enable that and King pulled it off brilliantly.

The pace of this book (though the events take place over the course of only about a day each), was much faster than in the previous one which suited me just fine.

Only one more book to go, though it is a big one again. I did and still do fear for some people. I bet not everyone is making it out alive. Only one way to find out.

P.S.: The song the book title most likely is referring to? A bell kept going off in my head whenever Susannah recited some lines and it turns out they are from the lyrics of a song I know (and like) that SK might have had in mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zp8x...

Komischerweise komme ich am Anfang immer nicht ganz so gut rein, aber dann platzt irgendwann der Knoten und ich kann nicht mehr aufhören zu lesen :)

Es gab ein paar Passagen, die sich etwas gezogen haben, die waren aber sehr kurz und fielen nicht wirklich ins Gewicht. Der Schauplatz verlagert sich in diesem Band auf unsere Welt in verschiedenen Zeiten und man spürt dass sich Roland und seine Gefährten dem Turm und dessen Geheimnis gefährlich nähern.

Etwas schade fand ich, dass dieses Mal das Vorwort fehlt, in dem Stephen King nochmal die vorhergegangenen Ereignisse zusammenfasst. Dafür gabs aber am Ende einen genialen Clou: in Tagebuchform erzählt der Autor Ausschnitte über die Entstehung zur Geschichte um den Dunklen Turm, was auch direkten - und ich meine das wortwörtlich - Einfluss auf den Verlauf hatte.
Man merkt hier, wie sehr diese Geschichte erzählt werden wollte und dass Autoren manchmal "nur" ein Sprachrohr sind für die Gedanken und Entwicklungen, die die Charaktere vorantreiben. Dieses Zusammenspiel hat diesem Werk eine Note verliehen die mich sehr beeindruckt und berührt hat.
Es ist aber nicht als "Nachwort" zu sehen und sollte zwecks Spoiler also nicht vor dem Buch selbst gelesen werden!

Jetzt bin ich umso gespannter auf den nächsten und abschließenden Teil, in dem die Reise ein Ende finden wird!

Thanks for the earworms, uncle Stevie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08e9k...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipqqE...
RTC once my ka-tet catches up.

2019 - I’ve read this numerous times and my feelings regarding the separation of the Ka-tet will never change however there is one thing about this volume that I love. I know there are mixed feelings from fans regarding King’s insertion of himself into the narrative, but personally, I love it. I love King and any glimpse into who he is as a writer and person thrill me. I’m sure not everything we read on these pages is true to life, but enough of it is that I know he is sharing. Sharing is caring, right?

This time round I really, really felt for Mia. I’ve been watching Jessica Jones so my mind cast Krysten Ritter in the part. Small, black hair, she’s perfect. Perhaps it was adding Ritter’s soulful eyes to my visual that made me sympathize so much. Did she really do anything all that reprehensible for her chap? I mean big picture. She wanted a baby like so many before her, gave up immortality to have one, and was then denied any of the joy that should bring. How was she to know what her chap would become or represent? She didn’t know Susanah Dean, so why would she feel any guilt in that direction?

The fact that Mia was so timid in everything except for her protection, longing, and love for her chap rang true with me as well. I have known women who wouldn’t say shit if they had a mouthful, but be mean to their children? Watch the hell out! Mia is simply one more example of King’s ability to write the “other.” He is so very, very good at it.


2016 -
I am leaving my rating at five stars because I really believe his writing deserves it. Having said that, this is my least favorite of the series. I used to think The Gunslinger was the hardest to love. Maybe it's easier now because I've read it a few times, already love Roland, and know what the hell is up. THIS one though...I just don't like the Ka-tet separated after we've bled with them and gone through so much to get them together.

I don't want to get spoiler-ish, but each page (or in this case disc) I was hoping for a reunion, and having read before, knew I wasn't going to get it. This entire novel inspired a sense of longing in me that was not quenched. Thank God I have the final installment at hand. I know I am in for heartbreak, but I can always start again.

Then again...

Excellent penultimate installment of this brilliant series.
Stephen King pushed all sorts of genre boundaries with this series and that's what makes it so incredible.
I'm looking forward to finishing the series later this month and then again I really don't want it to end.
5*

Man kann Stephen King mögen oder auch nicht, aber es lässt sich auf keinen Fall abstreiten, dass er weiß wie man sein Publikum immer wieder aufs Neue überrascht. Obwohl man bis hierhin schon viel Verrücktes auf dem Weg zum dunklen Turm erlebt und gesehen hat toppt Song of Susannah das alles noch einmal um Welten. Und genau das liebe ich so an dieser Reihe. Man weiß nie was passiert und ist auch gar nicht fähig die Wendungen vorherzusehen, weil die eigenen Gedanken niemals so abgedreht sein können wie das was sich Stephen King hier ausdenkt. Thankee-sai.

This is almost guaranteed to be the most underrated book because it will be the most misunderstood. Unless you're keenly aware of what King's up to, you won't possibly enjoy this. But Tower is something more like a thesis on the nature of creativity, parallel to Lewis's bit in The Seeing Eye, The Surprise, Sayers' The Mind of the Maker, and so on. I read it now primarily because I knew it would connect to my thesis and wasn't disappointed.

The book features primarily the nature of the mind of the author, how a world gives and takes to the real world, how they change one another, and how contingency plays a role. There's a reason that childbirth, warring psychologies within a loci of memory, and the exploitation of books as artifacts make up the main metaphors: all of these, more or less, deal with those very arguments The Mind of the Maker makes so clear. And this is clearly what King has been driving at all of these years with his work — the series he has run towards and away from, the series that grounds his creative work. And it's fundamentally creative work about how creativity works and how you actually work as a creative. He belittles himself often in the forwards and whatnot for how he gets paid to hang out in his imagination, but imagination is (1) real, as Rowling said: of course it's all happening in his mind, but why on earth would that make it not real? And (2) therefore more treacherous and long-lasting than anything else you could possibly do. As telepathy — as author sharing loci to reader — it does invite the worst and best sort into the most intimate parts of you.

And that, fundamentally, is why he feels so terrible about the good folk he has let in. Characters affect readers and so, quite naturally, readers affect characters — even become characters affected by the power of the mind of the maker, that blissful connection and relationship between thing made and maker — down to the cancer patient who begs him to spoil the ending as her dying wish, Coretta's real letter (and we do know it's real because of other places in his nonfiction that have included it) now immortalized as part of the creative work, giving her if not the ending, at least a minor role along the way as a contributor to the task of childe Roland coming to the Dark Tower.

That's real, of course: readers, if they are reflective readers, become as much characters and (in a way) co-creators with the author as their imaginations do some heavy lifting right alongside us.

All of this deserves more reflection, but suffice to say: anyone that sees this as ego driven, arrogant self indulgence is clearly missing the point. This isn't about King. This is about the nature of creativity. And in a metafictional work like this by King, how could it use any other creative? It only makes the points it makes because King is a character as author.

That's worth more meditation for sure. I've taken copious notes, not merely from entertainment, but because it plays into the exact same thesis that On the Reduction of Arts to Theology plays. It'll take time to digest, but hopefully in years to come I can give King the credit that is his do with this profounds statement that mirrors Sayers's work in detail and scope.

For now, I think the most profound thing King could do is offer that dying woman a role in his story. As if to say, "Coretta, I can't give you the ending because I don't have it myself yet, but I can make sure you'll be there with me, incarnate as I am in the story, and therefore you will no longer be a mere reader. You've now become a character, a co-creator, and someone worthy of an epic tale."

This is no mere tuckerization.

This is transformation.

7/10

Well played Mr. King, well played. Very clever of you to lower my expectations going into the final book with this less than stellar attempt. Clever indeed. Now I’m not going into the final book with my expectations set at “best series finale ever!” and more hoping for “nicely wraps up the series”.

Whilst not the strongest in the series (possibly the weakest, if you can really call it weak) this was still an exciting read in places. Certain parts of the story actually were really good and made for a very quick read overall. The shootout with Roland and Eddie near the beginning was one of the series highlights in fact and was truly gripping.

The parts I didn’t like all that much were the Mia and Susannah parts which did take up over half of the book, I found it hard to pay attention to these parts and was wishing for a quick return to some real “Gunslinging” but they were necessary for the direction of the series (I can only hope/assume).

It’s hard to not put series spoilers in a review of the 6th book in a series but the following may contain mild ones (be warned!). The elephant in the room is clearly the fact that Stephen King writes himself into this story. This normally grates when an author does that, like Clive Cusslar, the egotistical, self-centred prick that he is. I really disliked it when he wrote himself into “Inca Gold” and I just wanted to throw the book in the fire, the smug git. However, rant over, I actually quite liked what King was doing with this and how he met with certain characters and interacted with them in “real life”. I especially liked the Coda at the end where King was writing in a semi-biographical journal about his desire and need to return to the ka-tet for reasons unknown to himself.

In summary, if you’ve read the first 5 then the chances are you will read this and hopefully not be too disappointed with it. Some may even enjoy it and like what King is doing. I liked it but it definitely was not a series high and more a setup for the finale. I also noticed I’ve not rated any of the books in the series higher than 4* individually but the series as a whole is definitely 5*. A series well worth starting if you’ve not as of yet.

If you like this try: “11/22/63” by Stephen King

Conclusion: King is either a genius or crazy, most probably both - "That is the truth"

Re-read September 2016

In Song of Susannah, The Dark Tower goes meta. King suddenly puts himself in the story and becomes a character that plays a major part in the Ka-tet's journey. As for the main plot, not much is happening. It was like, for the number of pages, the story could have moved a bit more. What I personally felt was the major point of this installment, was King's involvement. By using himself in the story, King not only takes his work to a whole other level writing-wise, but he also makes a commentary on how stories are written.

I think it's common among all kinds of artists that a story, a song, a painting, a poem, feels like it's actually there before one puts it to paper. Like it's waiting for the right medium to bring it to the light of day. So, what King actually did there, was state that a story is superior to the one who tells it and bring the Tower's parallel universes theory to a more literal level. I can see why so many people found this egotistic, and they may be right, but I also found it genius. I think that art should be pure even when risking to be deemed pretentious or pompous. So this is the only reason it gets 4 stars from me.

Enough words, though. However good or bad the sixth installment was, what follows is The End which transcends all expectations and gives the whole series a whole different essence. Off to The Dark Tower!

King actually writes himself into this installment. This one was good but not quite as good as previous ones. 3.5 stars but I rounded up.