Wizard and Glass (Dark Tower)

After an epic battle ending in a box canyon to end all box canyons, we're back with grizzled, grown-up Roland and the train-wreck survivors in a parallel world: Kansas in 1986, after a plague. The finale is a weird fantasy takeoff on The Wizard of Oz Some readers will feel that the latest novel in King's most ambitious series has too many pages--almost 800--but few will deny it's a page-turner.

Reader Reviews:

My but this was boring! (0/0 people found this helpful)

You can actually skip most of this book without missing anything too important. King has already long since explained exactly what happens to Susan at the end, just in case you didnt pick up on it he helpfully spells it out yet again in this tale so youre really just waiting for it to happen.

The flashback which takes up most of the book focuses intently on young Rolands boring romance with Susan Delgado whos place as village beauty is so unquestioned as to make her virtually a cipher.

It would help to flesh the characters out if any of the 1000's of words King uses to describe their relationships tedious encounters explained in any way why they liked eachother so much. "If you love me then love me!" No, not this time? Oh well, maybe a few dozen more pages mithering over it and arranging how to set up another meeting by hanging towels out of windows and passing notes around through intermediaries will do it, and why dont we just make the readers endure every single event.

Susan is young and blonde and beautiful, Roland is handsome and brooding and... have you fallen asleep yet? I almost did - to be fair King does capture the vain single mindedness of teenage love quite well. Its just a shame he doesnt recognise that the heights of obsession teenage romance displays is every bit as tedious for onlookers as it is overwhelming for those caught up in it. By the end of this work I was simply sick of Susan crying, Roland pining, his friends brooding and wondering cluelessly what was going on.

My main problem was the complete waste of opportunity. When you think about the excellent prequel short story King wrote for Everythings Eventual it really seems such a waste that he chose to pour so much porridge intho his flashback tale in the DT series. It would have been incredible to have found out how Gilead fell, what happened on Jericho Hill and who the Good Man was, but instead we're forced to endure page after page about how Susan and Roland passed messages to one another by writing on bricks. What a shame.

Wizard and Glass (0/0 people found this helpful)

This book has a big fat disappointment nestling in it. I'm hoping that, if I tell you about it now, you will enjoy it a little more than I did, and perhaps give it the four stars it really deserves rather than the three I've settled with.

This is a flash-back novel. It's not a bad thing in itself, but when you've read the first three instalments and left on a cliff hanger, you'd better hope that the momentum keeps up! It does - we get the resolution of the story segment truncated in "The Waste Lands", and it's a good one too. We get a little more as well. And then we get about five hundred pages of flashback, returning to Roland's youth and his - don't get me wrong - very interesting adventures. But these aren't the characters we've come to invest our hopes and emotions in; it's barely even the same Roland, the period of time between them is so great. So you're not reading Dark Tower 4, you're reading that tie-in novel that you probably would have picked up anyway, provided it's second-hand and in good condition. King shamefully weaves it into the fourth novel - or more accurately, plonks it right in the middle - so that the frame of the story, in which the adventures of Roland, Odetta (or Suzanna), Eddie and Jake continue, is something that we have to read so that we're not missing stuff. Really, he should have put the opening on the end of the last book, and the ending on the start of the next, and let us in on the secret that this is not entirely relevant to the story we're reading. It's like cruising at 90mph only to have to take a little detour around a school at 20mph before you can start picking up speed again.

Don't misunderstand - it's a good book. It's worth reading. But it feels a little like filler and doesn't have enough of the characters we really want. Should you buy it after completing "The Waste Lands"? Of course you should! It's great! Just be forewarned that this is a different story to the one you've been reading, and the main characters, the one's you're really interested in, take a back seat to Roland's back story.

Wow (0/0 people found this helpful)

What ever people say about this book being bad in any way. They are completly wrong, its a masterfully beautifull book by itself. It doesnt loose the plot at all. This is the plot, this is the history of Roland, why he is like he is.

King excells himself this book is amazing, beautifull and tear jerking. Go out and buy it its a fabulous book.

Best in the series so far (0/0 people found this helpful)

I read at the end of the third book that this one would be all about Roland's past, and I thought to myself, that doesn't sound very interesting! but it turns out I was wrong, Hearing about Roland's past is fantastic, this is the best book in the series so far!
Gripping to the end

My favourite so far.... (0/0 people found this helpful)

I only just started reading the prologue to Wolves of the Calla and to this point The Wizard & The Glass has been the most gripping of the four novels.
Obviously it starts where The Waste Lands finished aboard Blaine. The tale begins showing the new land where the five travellers have reached. When they hear a thinny whining in the air it causes Roland to remember the time he spent in a place called Barony in Mejis while he was 14. The bulk of the book is taken up by this flashback.
The pluses first: one thing that defenitely made this book nearly impossible to put down was the relationship between Roland and Susan Delgado. King broke every moment between the two down in the minds of each other and thus portrayed a wonderfully complex relationship. We are also met by Roland's friends from Gilead, Cuthbert and Alain. Cuthbert, to me, was a very compelling character and was the kind of person who would cause a stir wherever he goes. Alain was a much less investigated character and in a way seemed much hollower than either Roland or Cuthbert.
On another side, the introduction of a completely new world compared to the baron waste lands the five main characters was quite a challenge. Introducing a number of characters in the opening few chapters made it quite difficult to seperate who was who. For example, I personnally had trouble distinguishing Coral from Olive Thorin, and the Big Coffin Hunters from each other and Sheriff Avery. This overflow in new characters made it difficult to keep up and a slight lapse in concentration could put you behind the tale.
That said, the novel was definitely my favourite, due to the flashback. King's imagination was greatly explored in the first four novels. Here, he creates a very laidback town which makes it much easier to explore characters. By the end, Roland has been very thoroughly explored, and finally gives his character a history. Susan and Cuthbert were also very well explored.
The ending was rather strange, I must say. But it briefly tells us of a time shortly after he returns from Mejis. One vital character I didn't mention is Rhea of the Coos. She is crucial to Roland's tortured mind and is well worth watching throughout.
In the end, I gave the book four stars because at times it seems to linger, such as the parts of the story told from Jonas' point of view. At those times it was rather uninteresting. Those parts came frequently, but simply for the amazing story between Susan and Roland it's worth the money.

Wizard and Glass (Dark Tower)

Stephen King

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