This took me a while to read, but I really don't mind that. I savored every bit of it. I'm at a loss for words on how much I'm loving this series (so far).

This one was quite a bit different, told almost entirely as a flashback to Roland's younger life - a story of Roland's past takes up over 500 pages of the almost 700 in the book - which I wasn't so sure how to feel about at first. It seemed to go on, and on, and on, until I realized at some point, with a bit of confusion, "Wow, does this book really take place almost entirely in the past?" But by the end I really loved it. You could argue that it was overly long, but at the end I could look back and see why it was necessary to be as long as it was. It adds a whole lot to the story - a whole lot to this world, and to Roland in particular - lots of important stuff we needed to know.

Seriously, people that follow me on Goodreads; if you love fantasy, you need to read this series. It's amazing. This one in particular is a mixture of spaghetti westerns, The Lord of the Rings, The Wizard of Oz, Romeo and Juliet, and a hint of our own world - it's dark, and magical, and weird, and mysterious, and romantic, and tragic. The whole series is like that; this really great mash up of genres and ideas and references and characters that goes to some of the most interesting places.

READ THIS SERIES.

I am ditching this audio re-read of Wizard and Glass. This narrator is just not for me. I'm going to go ahead and reserve the next book in the series, because the narration goes back to George Guidall. He did the audiobook of The Gunslinger and I just loved it.
I will leave my rating as it stands, as I did so love this book.

8.5/10

I can understand why people didn’t get a kick out of waiting a number of years for the conclusion of The Waste Lands to then be presented with this massive book of, primarily, back-story. I on the other hand thought this was one of the best in the series. Yes, it was bloated and didn’t progress the story of Roland and his ka-tet’s quest to the dark tower but what it did add was an incredible amount of depth to Roland’s character.

The first section concludes the riddling contest with Blaine and picks up the high tension of the last book with edge of the seat stuff. After that we journey back to Roland as a young lad sent out to distant lands to keep him safe. We meet his original ka-tet and also his first love, Susan.

I wasn’t prepared for this telling of Roland’s youth and was a little bit unsure on how it would play out, but King weaves it together really well and dragged me into this world within a world and made me care what was happening and going to happen. Whilst it was around 700 pages worth it was a breeze to get through.

After this little tale of Roland’s we re-join the gang and then something weird happens and the wizard of oz is thrust upon us. I’ve not read loads of King’s work but I’ve read enough now to know to just go with it as it will more or less make sense further down the line.



So whilst this book didn’t advance the overall quest for the Dark Tower it did firmly advance the series in my opinion and give that extra layer to Roland to make me even more invested in his quest. Bring on the next one!!

The Dark Tower: Wizard and Glass by Stephen King.

As I’ve said in a previous post that this one is complicated for me. This books first 80 pages resolves the cliffhanger ending of the previous by having one of the most memorable scenes in the series. Roland and his companions are using and being held captive by Blaine the Mono while crossing the devastated Waste Lands, an area similar to a section of land that Jack from The Talisman travels through. A land seeming tainted by radiation from some forgotten war or accident, filled with mutant creature. Blaine is a pain, an advanced computer system that’s gone insane after centuries and he/it is determined to commit suicide, killing its last occupants unless they provide a riddle it can’t beat. You can tell this was whispered by the Riddles in the Dark found in The Hobbit, in fact, it’s in this book that the references to other works really pick up. Before there had been subtle references like a strange honky-tone version of Hey, Jude by The Beatles that featured in The Gunslinger but nothing as big as what feature here.

Roland and Jake riddle Blaine only to fail, and in a nice moment for the character it’s Eddie Dean that wins the day using illogical riddles and his sense of humour to do so, one that until that point Roland openly detested, feeling that Eddie’s nature is foolish. No longer. In a rage Blaine loses his mind, the train does derail but nothing the speed it needs to kill its occupants and the Ka - tet find themselves in Topeka, Kansas, only its not of either of their worlds. For the readers this is the second reference, and one the indicates just how connected this series is to King’s other works, as the Ka - tet discover themselves on an Earth ravaged by Captain Trips from King’s own novel The Stand. And it’s here that the story really begins, or doesn’t depending on how you look at it. Because the rest of the novel becomes about Roland telling his companions of his first mission after defeating Cort, his old teacher, at fourteen and the only woman he ever loved.

The writing shifts here, becoming more ornate, something I personally prefer to the more modern writing that has come before hand. The reader is dropped into Roland’s world just before it all collapsed. This is where the book changes from post-apocalyptic to full romantic western, or as western as King will allow as he aids fantasy elements here and there. Out of the entire series this book does this the best. The romantic western element is the main canvas and the extras flourishes such as an all-seeing glass orb, a nod to Lord of the Rings, are splashes of colour.

This Russian doll, story within a story form of storytelling is something King seems to have been trying to do with his novels in the 90s, overfilling them with too many storylines an example being Insomnia, which could easily to be split into three separate novels. Even those that are standalone like Gerald’s Game and Dolores Claiborne were originally supposed to be published together. With Wizard and Glass, however, he gets this form of storytelling right. And in a weird way the story of Roland’s past feels like the western epic he always intended to tell with this series if you read his introduction.

Why does it work for me when the other books that I’ve read so far in the 90s haven’t? Easy because both stories that feature in Wizard and Glass, the post-apocalyptic and the western, are simple. There are no heavy themes about woman experiencing domestic abuse, dying, auras, American racism in the 30s, growing old etc. There is no deeper message. Wizard and Glass is simply a story, and with it King finds a groove that has been absent from a lot of his previous 90s books. That’s not to say that the book is superficial, it isn’t, or those other books don’t have value, they do. It just he doesn’t have to deal with heavy themes here, allowing for the story being told to take centre stage.

The story of Roland and his original Ka - tet, Cuthbert and Alain, are a mission to ‘count’ every thing of note in the Mejis territory in case it is needed for the war against The Good Man. This is just a ruse to get Roland out of Gilead and away from The Man in Black who has been having an affair with Roland’s mother and sees Roland as someone who could oppose him. By chance or Ka the trio discover that The Good Man has plans for the quiet, farming community of Mejis. Though that is only a small part of this story because at its heart Wizard and Glass is a love story, that of Roland and Susan.

The character work in this novel is on bar with some of King’s best. Characters such as Susan Delgado, who is practical and a daydreamer at the same time, the detestable Rhea of the Coo’s, the fearsome yet humanly flawed Big Coffin Hunters, particularly the disgraced Jonas who trained to be a gunslinger only to fail where Roland succeeded, Aunt Cordelia, a character you love to hate, joking Cuthbert and straight man Alain. If you do follow my reviews you know I’m a sucker for an interesting supporting character and I loved seeing all these characters and the others in the book interact.

Picking up where The Wastelands left off, the Wizard and Glass takes us back to the ka-tet's excruciating marathon riddle session with Blaine the Mono. Shortly thereafter, Eddie, Suzannah and Jake are told a crucial story of Roland's youth during his formative years as a young gunslinger.

This was a really hard one to rate. While I loved the first three books, this one abandons the story that King has been building up since the beginning in favor of a long, drawn out back story. I'm not saying that I didn't enjoy Roland's tale of travel with Alain and Cuthbert, it just felt a little bloated at times, leaving me pining for more of Eddie, Jake and Suzannah.

I felt like a lot probably could've been cut out or condensed. For example, Susan's arguments with her Aunt were well written but I could've done with less of them. It felt like they were screaming at each other during every other chapter.

There were however, a lot of awesome scenes written - the brutal battle near the book's climax for one. For someone who has a knack for writing thrillers and horror novels, King has a striking talent for crafting brutal action scenes right out of a multi-million dollar blockbuster movie. While not as intense as the Battle of Tull (and how could it be?), it stands alone as an example of just how destructive and deadly Roland can be.

I settled on three stars because while I enjoyed the majority of it, I couldn't get passed the fact that it felt padded. Like Dan said over in his review, the Wizard of Oz stuff really felt unnecessary. For King to spend so much time on Roland's youth only to jump into something that felt disconnected from everything else was jarring to say the least.

I certainly will not wait as long as I previously did to pick up the next one. From what I've heard, the final 3 books are full of awesomeness. Might as well stay on the path of the beam while the story is still fresh in my head.

*** Oh, and I have to give points to King for bringing the ka-tet into the world created by Captain Trips. I believe I had read something before that foretold the groups journey into this universe but I had forgotten about it by the time they arrived. I couldn't have been happier!

King may be the master of horror and suspense, but his work as a romance novelist is a failure.

The main story of The Dark Tower goes off the rails (yes, pun intended for those who have read this) and wallows in 500 pages of Roland's backstory - a young-love yarn with a sprinkling of occasional action that just didn't work on any level. King wrote like he was getting paid by the word (He was very frightened. Very frightened indeed.) - and the whole  ridiculous Wizard of Oz story tie-in just smacked of laziness. Had King really run out of ideas and needed to use other's for a book that really didn't do much to move the overall story forward?

But now I am committed to finishing this series because I'm kinda hoping the Dark Tower just wipes out all these jokers. Ka, indeed.

GAWD I LOVE THIS BOOK!

Before I started my re-read I was maybe starting to think I loved Wolves of the Calla more than Wizard and Glass but this just ain't true so it ain't. Wizard and Glass will forever remain my "heart book" of The Dark Tower.

I've said before that Susan's blight in this installment was hitting me harder than even before. By the time I was done with the Mejis section I was in tears for Susan where I haven't felt that invested in previous readings.
*don’t get me wrong, I’ve always loved Susan, it just hit hard as I grow more I think*

The versatility that King displays here in writing a book that is much closer to a romance than he normally writes and doing a splendid job with it just goes to show that Stephen King is the man.

I love this series, it remains my most beloved of all time (and I have read a lot of amazing series in my life and plan to read many more). I am moving forward to The Wind Through the Keyhole with a renewed sense of eagerness as well, as the last several books really ramp up even more than the first four in my humble opinion.

Enthralling and utterly immersive. I felt like I was with Roland, Alain and Cuthbert as they road the windswept plains and desert, could feel the hot sun and the gaze of the demon moon. King not only nails likeable heroes in this, but some incredible villains. Eldred Jonas and the big coffin hunters were pretty intimidating, but Rhea stole the show for me. Probably the best evil hag/witch character I have come across, utterly repulsive and thourghly evil.

I didn't think I would like this one as much as The Wastelands because I knew going in to it that it had a big romance arc and I'm like (ugh!) but actually I found their romance to be kind of sweet and fun to read. Not that I'm some converted romance fan or anything but if it's done well in a book and not the entirety of the plot but rather a part of it I can get behind it I suppose.

If I had one complaint to voice about this book it would be that it was maybe a bit too long for it's own good. Not enough to really affect my rating or enjoyment of it, but I felt like you could trim a solid 100 pages off this bad boy and it would probably be the better for it.

I guess this isn't so much of a review as my rambling thoughts but when a book is so immersive I feel like I'm inside it, and I have a hard time going to sleep because I want to keep reading it then I know it's bound to be an all time favorite, and I just kinda wanna gush to fellow readers about how good it is!

Long days and pleasant nights friends!

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

If you love me, then love me.

My second read of this novel brought me joy and fulfillment in the same way my first read did. I don’t think I’d change much of anything from my initial review. It stands true…

I was wary about this one as I opened its pages. Wary that we would be exiting our journey toward the tower. Wary that stepping back in time would somehow thwart our momentum and leave us languishing in inconsequential past experience. Wary that this love story would make our gunslinger seem less resolved, less unrelenting.

None of that of course is true. In fact, quite the opposite. This somehow completes my picture of Roland and helps snap the puzzle pieces into place. It helps explain his solitude and melancholy. It helps put a name to his aloofness. And our future journeys now have much higher stakes. Failure will not be tolerated and the wind will see us through. Back on the path of the beam and ready for more

Susan's virginity is not worth a whole book. Good lord.

Read this series years ago, great books. Just watched the film with Idris Alba too.

The film is actually quite good.

4.5 ⭐

*Light Spoilers for those that have read nothing of the series*


The nerve of this ”old sonovabitch”! Am I right?!
King, I mean.

Book 3, ‘The Waste Lands’, is published in ’91 and ends on an absolute cliffhanger. Then 6 years later King releases book 4, ‘Wizard and Glass’, quickly tidies up the cliffie and then proceeds to write the greater part of an 850-page novel as a series prequel around 14-yr-old Roland and his original ka-tet, rather than kicking on with the main plot.
For this reason, it’s a bit of a divisive entry, even still without needing to wait 6 years between books, and I went in with pretty low expectations after reading some of the problems others had expressed but I’ve gotta say, there’s a good possibility that these naysayers have forgotten the faces of their fathers! Come gather round the fire, kiddos, ‘cos Uncy Roland’s got a story to tell and it’s a fucking treat!


In no way should the novel as a whole work, structurally, but somehow in King’s unhinged, maniacal way, it does. What you get is a Part I that has Roland and his current ka-tet (Eddie, Susannah, Jake, and Oy) in a life-or-death riddle-off with Blaine the Train (who’s a real pain FYI). A Part II (The aforementioned prequel) that showcases a 14-yr-old Roland and his original tet-mate’s (Cuthbert and Alain) harrowing experience in the seaside town of Hambry. A town in which Roland also encounters his first love, Susan Delgado. This Part is a Tragedy masquerading as a slow but intentful, character-driven, Western Fantasy Horror. And, finally, a Part III that brings us back to current events and throws us headlong into a bastardisation of ‘The Wizard of Oz’…. Sorry, cully? No, no, you heard that right, red shoes and all, we’re off to see the Wizard! Don’t try to make sense of it, just give yourself up to the beam and submerge yourself in the troubling but true mind of the madman King!

”I shoot with my mind”

Boredom was a common complaint among those who disliked the entry and while I will say that a savvy editor might’ve been able to shorten the tale a little bit without hurting it considerably, I couldn’t honestly tell you what I’d leave out. In my experience, most books have a bit of a lull at some point but it never came for me here; I was always eager to open it up again.
Not that Roland’s telling of past events is anything exceptional; it’s a tale of all-consuming adolescent love, explored fairly well for a man who was approaching 50. Perhaps with an excess of eroticism given their ages (female characters, in general, are pretty prone to heat between the legs and throbbing in their loins) but, for the most part, palatable and on the money.

”Roland turned over on his other side, closed his eyes, and fell asleep. His rest was thin and lit by the crudely poetic dreams only adolescent boys have, dreams where sexual attraction and romantic love come together and resonate more powerfully than they ever will again”

But it’s also a further exploration on the theme of individual destiny or n  kan, particularly in the way that Roland’s painstaking choices and sacrifices in strict service to his own, have shaped the man we readers now recognise him as. To me, this was absolutely critical in better appreciating Roland’s obsession with the Dark Tower and just how scary his tunnel-vision could be. This is a man who had already made irreversible choices and sacrificed everything in the name of ka, before he was even 16 years old. We’d seen it previously as readers but it’s so much clearer now; nothing means more to Roland than turning his visions into reality in pursuit of The Dark Tower.

"If it's ka, it'll come like a wind, and your plans will stand before it no more than a barn before a cyclone."

"He never had a friend he didn't kill, never had a lover who's not dust in the wind."


So, that’s all good but what really kept this ticking along so seamlessly for me was simply the vivid characterisation and the persistently unsettling atmosphere of the town of Hambry. And I mean, these elements are just vintage King really, aren’t they?
You wanna talk characters? Let’s talk Rhea of the Cöos, the decrepit and hateful crone living in squalor with her 6-legged cat whom she likes to lick clean herself and her mutant pet snake whom she derives an otherwise unforthcoming sexual pleasure from ("no man could do you like Ermot could do you"). A positively vomit-inducing Bruja whose acrid breath and piss-soaked clothes seem to materialise from the pages as vapour to assault your senses. A creature that makes your skin crawl as she lay hands on the ”Oh so young and pretty” Susan Delgado, as though she were laying her hands on you directly.
You wanna talk suffocating atmosphere of wrongness? Let’s talk about the Thinny of Eyebolt Canyon, the whining and ”rotting sore eating through the flesh of reality” or the orange light of the Demon Moon on Reaping night! Or the kind of hypnotised groupthink of the townsfolk. All of these classic King-esque paranormal horror elements culminate in a devastating, maniacal crescendo as Roland’s story comes to an end. Some of the finest, most absorbing King I’ve encountered.


Finally, I have to give a shout out to Frank Muller, not the luxury watch guy but the narrator on the audiobook of which I probably used for about 25-30% of this novel just to keep it chugging along until I could get back to my physical copy. The characters, though most regularly being variations on a kind of Western drawl accent, call for a fair amount of diversity in voicing. You’ve got Rhea the Witch with her kind of “Come here my pretty” tone, then the slightly more delicate characters such as Susan or Olive Thorin and even the inn-boy, Sheemie, who was slightly on the slower side (“If the inn-boy was a halfwit, she'd known a lot of folks in her time who were running on quarters and eighths.”) etc. Etc. But I think Muller was, overall, really great to listen to and I don’t often feel that way about audio narrators so if you're going down that route, even partially as I did, give him a crack!


That’ll do from me. Thankee-sai if you made it this far! I wish you long days and pleasant nights :)

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