Compared to other Dark Tower books, the pace of this one is practically blistering. And yet it's also true that this is basically 500+ pages (or 12+ hours, if you prefer) of exposition for the final book. There are very few writers that can do that much exposition, end with little resolved, and yet leave me basically satisfied, except for a need to go on. Not quite sure how King managed that.

I also want to talk about what I think will probably be the single greatest sticking point for most readers: King himself shows up as a character, and an important one. I was prepared for this to be over the top, masturbatory, even. Instead, King has the self awareness to write himself as a tool of Ka, and not necessarily the brightest or most self aware one. I sort of vaguely knew this was coming in the series, and I wasn't exactly looking forward to it. Instead, it became one of the most interesting concepts in the book, making Ka creation and creativity in opposition to the Crimson King's destruction. I guess I should have trusted King a little more.

No, it isn't the best Dark Tower book, but it is a good one, and the brisk pace suits it.

OH. MY. WORD. I cannot even, right now. The last few sentences of this literally took my breath away!!!



I cannot believe I am using this many exclamation points, but seriously, have you read this?!?!

I am so in love with this series. I just want to stare at the gorgeous covers all day and ponder the meaning of it all; its true to the guts meaning.

It's bloody EPIC.



As a continuation of the overall series, this was pure perfection. As a reader, you know the end draws nigh. The pace of the story is like a quickening heartbeat racing towards the ultimate conclusion.

I am so happy that I picked this up and continued on my journey to the Tower. The connections in this one...



n  Sai King truly is a mastern of our world, or any world, for that matter. I doff my cap.

Exceptionally intricate, compelling and extraordinarily told. Nothing short of genius.



A must read for any Constant Reader.
You know who you are...

Earlier:

Announcement:
I am putting this back on the shelf for the moment.



Please know, it has nothing to do with the book.
I repeat, it has NOTHING to do with the book!

It is a great book and I love my journey to the Tower, I am just a little overwhelmed with other things right now. I feel like I am not giving this the attention it deserves so I will come back to it when I can.

Actual letter from me to this book:

Dear Dark Tower Series,

It's not you, it's me.

No, seriously. I love you. I am low-key obsessed with you, I just don't have the time to dedicate to this relationship right now.

I will keep you in my heart until we meet again.

Truly Yours,

Meg

n  Memo from Dark Tower Series to Meg:n

This book is much more wonderful the second time around. Who knows, maybe it'll jump another notch by the third or the fourth. :)

This is a series that only gets better when you're swimming in the massive loads of details that combine Stephen King's life, the amazing worldbuilding of his bibliography, and add the little idea that Stephen King has put his SOUL into the DT.

What do I mean by that? Well, by his own admission, this is his magnum opus, his breathtaking, soul-stealing epic that ties together the grand majority of his separate novels and short stories and gives us a whole cosmology wrapped in an awesomely tight story that not only shits all over anyone's ideas of standard genres, but revels in breaking EVERY genre it can get its greedy little hands on.

In other words: this is a master storyteller's story. Few writers could get away with publishing this OR getting away with all the things he gets away with.

Do you really think that Roland is hoofing it to a huge dark tower in the distance?

Well, yeah, he is, but first, we've got to deal with the multiverse, super high-technology with AI's, multidimensional travel, the forced entropy of every universe, and the fate of a rose, an author, a ball in a bowling bag, and the number 19. Sound strange? Well, add a shootout, car accidents, the trials of motherhood with multiple personalities, and the snickity snack of cutlery and the call for long pork!

Does that sound strange?

This book mostly takes place in modern New York City.

Kinda interesting for a Ka-Tet used to a high-tech/fantasy wasteland that is really just a western, no?

But the most interesting part is something I will not spoil for those who have not read it. This joy is a really, really big joy. The references to King's life, his works, his favorite music, and his fears are all probably the things that gave me the most shivers. The most awe. And definitely the most laughter.

Is this series the most personal of the author's works?

Yes. And we are Well Met. Well Met indeed.

Being one of my favorites of the series, it’s ironic since Susannah is my least favorite character. This is a type of lead-in book to the last one, the big bang finale we all feel is coming book. The book may not solve many riddles of the series but it’s still exciting. All kinds of unsettling things go down, and the story is just fascinating urgency builds and stakes heat up.

There are so many mixed reactions on King inserting himself (or a version of himself anyway) into his books. Some call it egotistical, some call it cheap. I call it none of these things. It’s an unusual gesture, twisted, and while the idea holds flaws, I like it. The whole series remains meshed with the Kingverse; I still get chills remembering he saw IT staring back at him.

It took such a long chunk of his life to write this series, the story swimming around in his head years in between putting it down, inventing legend. It also strikes me that King is writing a younger version of himself when he was an addict to more than writing and that they, in the book, appear to him during these delusional years.

For much of the book, the Ka-tet is divided into twos of a sort.

As always Roland is an amazing hero to journey with. Eddie’s humor is welcome to break up the breakneck speed. Jake is one of the best again, it’s different with him because the reader has been able to watch him grow up and mature not only as a gunslinger but as a boy growing closer to becoming a man. Susannah is always battling some inner struggle – it makes sense she is the one to battle an inner demon. Father Callahan makes a return appearance.

It’s definitely a book that’s leading to the final one. The stakes are higher, the bar is raised, tension is amped. Onward, forward, whatever, to the finish line. Most Dark Tower fans will likely enjoy Song of Susannah.

Llegar a este punto de la travesía ya es ganancia, hemos leído bastantes hojas y la historia de Roland está a nada de llegar a su fin.
Este tomo fue más entretenido que sus antecesores, la trama como todos los que conforman esta saga es excelente, y el punto en el que nos encontramos aquí es interesantisímo. Imposible dejar de leerlo, sobre todo los capítulos finales, mueres literal por tener en tus manos la Torre Oscura (Por fin) .

I... really liked this book? My immediate reaction is to give it five stars but after looking at the top reviews I’m feeling self-conscious.

Anyway, I feel like my whole “yeah I’m going to space these last few books out” plan was total bullshit so I guess I’ll hit at least one of my reading goals this year. Lol

Proper RTC because I actually have notes.

despues de la batalla en Calla el Kat et tiene que separarse, por un lado esta Susannah compartiendo el cuerpo con Mia y Odeta en plena labor de parto, por otro lado tenemos a Roland y a Eddie que se encuentran con un personaje sorpresa y finalmente el Padre Callahan y Jake.

le doy 3.5 estrellas porque creo que es demasiada información, misma que no queda del todo clara, ya veremos que nos depara en el último libro de esta saga

I've enjoyed this series immensely, all the way up until this book. Now I am reading the last one just to see if he can straighten out the mess he made here. What was he thinking? This is the ultimate in mental masturbation an author can produce. I liked the parts Eddie and Roland right up until they left Tower, and I kind of liked the bits with Jake, but the rest? Crap. It's crap!

I know authors of serials sometimes put themselves in the story (Clive Cussler comes to mind,) but it's usually done in such a brief, tongue-in-cheek way that it's like a little easter egg. This is way over the top, and it pissed me off.

Well... one more book to go before I’m done with this series. This book was my least favorite. It wasn’t badly written, I just despise Mia daughter on none.

This book is quite short compared to the others excluding the first book, ‘ The Gunslinger ‘, and surrounds one event. I can’t speak of the event because that would be a spoiler. This event takes place in 1999 and the Ka-tet have been separated into 3 groups. Eddie and Roland, Jake, Callahan and Oy, and lastly Mia and Susanna. They must go the way of Ka.

Roland and Eddie find themselves in Maine, where a certain famous writer lives. This meet and greet is hard for all parties. They learn a lot, but will the information help them in their quest for the Dark Tower, for that is still the main attraction in Roland’s mind.

Jake, Callahan and Oy are in New York tailing Mia/Susanna and on their side quest, must overcome a certain obstacle.

Mia and Susanna share one body. Can they come to a truce before the event? There is much hatred coming from Susanna. She has a right to this anger. Mia is out of her mind. Believing in lies and not knowing the difference.

The ending is a huge cliffhanger. It is a conclusion to the event, but of course I wanted to know what happens next. Book 7 and the finale to this tale here I come.

I'm going to sit down and write reviews on the whole Dark Tower series after I finish, but I just have to say these books are becoming more and more tiresome. It just seems as if King has lost the vision of Roland the Gunslinger, so he - in order to have something to write about - constantly tinkers with the lore, changes history around, blames things on this multi-timestream concept, or spends whole novels describing an event merely to snap his fingers and change everything the next book so as to move his new plot line along. And the worst part of it all is that I've begun The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower and it appears to be in the same vein as the last two novels and not the great novels from earlier in the series.

To me, The Gunslinger, The Waste Lands and Wizard and Glass were epic works, because King seamlessly combined fantasy, post-apocalyptic, horror, and - dare I say it - western themes to create something fresh and grand. Reading one of those novels was like trying out a new dessert for the first time and savoring this delicious taste you had discovered.

On the other hand, The Drawing of the Three, Wolves of the Calla, and Song of Susannah read like contemporary, horror type novels, played out mainly in modern America rather than the addictive lands of Mid-World. It is just ho-hum fiction, nothing to set it apart from other books of that sort besides the title Dark Tower part whatever.

And if the gradual unraveling of a once great story wasn't progressing fast enough, Stephen King decides to do something that is just unthinkable to me: write himself into the story as a god-creator, almost a Rose Part Deux.

How could he have ever thought that was a good idea?

I honestly don't know, because it did nothing to actually make sense of the growing mess that is the Dark Tower series. Perhaps it will help shape the ending, but if so, I have just went todash and have witnessed the train wreck which will be the end of the Dark Tower series.

These are just my initial thoughts on Song of Susannah and the Dark Tower series as I begin reading the last book. No matter how annoyed I feel at this moment, I've made a commitment to finish the Dark Tower, so I will push forward, even though I cringe to think how bad the ending is going to be.

Después de dos altos en el camino nos volvemos a poner en marcha hacia la Torre Oscura. Volvemos al estilo del segundo libro, con muchos viajes interdimensionales y tomando protagonismo Susannah, el mejor personaje de todos y se agradece el nuevo ritmo que le imprime King a la historia.

Está claro que la Torre Oscura es diferente al resto de libros escritos por King. No me puedo considerar un experto en el autor pero en lo que he leído esta saga es donde más pone de sí, y quien lo haya leído lo entenderá. Se mezclan muchos géneros distintos e incluso hay referencias metaliterarias a otros libros de King.

Esta parte metaliteraria es lo que me impide ponerle las 5 estrellas. Entiendo y me parece muy interesante lo que hace King pero me ha dado la sensación de que tengo que conocer todas las historias a las que hace referencia para disfrutar al 100% de la historia. Y cuando me embarqué en esta saga nunca imaginé que terminaría siendo así. De todas formas, la historia fluye a pesar del enorme caos entre líneas temporales y sucesos que tienen los personajes gracias al buen hacer de King.

Ya solo queda un paso más para llegar a la Torre...

“Would’ee speak a word of prayer first, Roland? To whatever God thee holds?”

“I hold to no God,” Roland said. “I hold to the Tower and won’t pray to that.”

Damn, I love that line. It so perfectly sums up Roland, his quest to find the Tower, what it’s cost him, and how he knows he isn’t done paying yet.

For years, it seemed like Dark Tower had been walking in aimless circles during the long breaks between the third, fourth and fifth books. We knew that King had finished the final three volumes after losing a game of chicken with a minivan, and he’d gotten the story back up and striding briskly in the right direction with Wolves of the Calla including ending that one on a pretty wicked cliffhanger.

Still the pace of this one took me by surprise. It’s like King suddenly pulled out a whip and started cracking it over the heads of the DT fans while screaming, “Run, you bastards! You gotta run if you want to find out what happens! BWAH-HA-HA-HA-HA!”

And he didn’t even let us stretch properly first. That’s how you end up with a pulled hamstring.

Susannah’s demon pregnancy led to her being taken over by the personality of Mia, and she fled Mid-World to New York in 1999 via the Doorway Cave. As Susannah wrestles Mia for control of her own body and learns more about the Crimson King, Roland and Eddie plan to follow and save her while Jake and Callahan also come to our world to protect the rose growing in a vacant lot which is actually a critical incarnation of the Tower. But when things go off the rails, all of the gunslingers will have to scramble to try and save not only Susannah, but their own lives.

This is essentially a set-up book that preps the way for the conclusion in the last one, and it doesn’t resolve a helluva lot on it’s own. Still, I like it for its breakneck pace and the sense of urgency that King worked into this one. The breaking of a beam in Mid-World before the action moves to New York was a great reminder of the stakes here. The lines of force holding reality together are being subverted by the Crimson King’s breakers, and the so-called beamquake when one snaps is a stark warning to Roland and company that they are quickly running out of time.

Unfortunately, while the Susannah pregnancy story makes for a pretty good hook to drive the urgency of the story, it ends up being kind of unsatisfying overall once you know how the whole series ends. Plus, the conflict between Susannah and Mia reminded me a lot of a very similar plot that King had done in Dreamcatcher shortly before this book was released so it didn’t seem all that fresh.

Overall, there’s a feel of desperation in this one that takes us nicely into the final volume, and the cliffhangers here had me on the edge of my seat the first time I read this.

There’s one controversial piece to this part of the DT story.  A lot of fans don’t like that King wrote himself into this, and I was hesitant about it myself the first time through this when I wasn’t sure how the story would end. At the end of Wolves of the Calla and into this one, I was worried that it was going to turn out that the Dark Tower was Stephen King himself and that its fall was his ‘death’ due to the minivan accident.

Knowing the ending now and rereading this, writing himself into the story doesn’t bother me as much. If he’d portrayed himself as some kind of all-knowing creator, I might have hated it too, but he didn‘t. He’s a pawn with a role to play. A role he kind of screws up by not getting off his ass and finishing this series sooner.

I like that the power behind the Tower is the force of creation itself, and that the Crimson King and the other baddies are agents of chaos and destruction. I think of it as the Tower was saving itself by creating a story of a hero on a quest, and it needed someone to write that story. Enter King, who actually made himself look kind of crappy in the process.

It’s not my favorite part of the series, but it didn’t ruin it for me either.