Wizard And Glass

And he blew my mind again. While only about 10% of this book further the plot and the rest is a flashback into Roland's past, I wouldn't have wanted to miss a single page. What an amazing (and surprisingly romantic) story within a story. There was one passage that felt a bit too long but other than that this book was perfect. 9/10 points. Read a full review at the SFF Book Review

Executive Summary: This book to me is by far the best in the series. It's the reason I love the Dark Tower. I've read it more times than I can remember, and I highly recommend it.Audio Book: Another quality reading from Frank Muller. I've gotten used to him the last 3 books, and now I'm sorry this was his last.Full ReviewWhen I first was recommended the Dark Tower I was in high school. This was the most recent book. When I got to it's end I wanted more. There was no more to be had.You could almost read this stand alone if you skip the parts at the beginning and end as most of it is a flashback. I was shocked when I read some people consider this the worst book in the series. I consider it the best, by far. Maybe it's because of when I read it. Or how many times. In fact this is the first time I've read it since the final 3 books came out. I had started it a few times since, but never read the whole thing.This book was a staple of my end table in the living room. It basically became a platform for my remote controls. When I moved into my house in 2008 it got boxed up separately from my other books and along with my living room stuff, and ended right back up on my end table.I finally put it back on the shelf sometime last year, but it still feels odd to not see it there. I worried this book wouldn't stand up to my teen-aged notions of what is good. I had no reason to worry. I love this book just as much now as I did then.So this is a book review, maybe I should say something about the content of the book, rather than rambling on? Sure. Why not?[b:The Waste Lands 34084 The Waste Lands (The Dark Tower, #3) Stephen King https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1389762449s/34084.jpg 1810634] leaves off on one hell of a cliffhanger. The worst by far of any of the books. I feel bad for anyone who had to wait for this book. This book wraps that up in pretty short order.The bulk of this book is a flashback to Roland's childhood. It picks up right where things left off in [b:The Gunslinger 43615 The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower, #1) Stephen King https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1375776480s/43615.jpg 46575].The stories of Roland's childhood fascinate me. Maybe because the world was still in the early parts of “Moving On”. Maybe its because Roland's so young and hasn't experienced all the trials and tribulations to come.Maybe it's because in some ways I like his Original Ka-Tet better than his current one. Or at least Cuthbert. I could read a whole spin-off about Culthbert Allgood.This book has by far the best action sequences in the whole series, including this amazing stand-off with a rival ka-tet. By the last week or so I didn't want to stop listening. I started bring the book in the house with me and finding excuses to listen to it, including in the morning while I was getting read for work. I could probably turn around and start listening to it again, but I have to continue on my journey towards the Dark Tower with [b:Wolves of the Calla 4978 Wolves of the Calla (The Dark Tower, #5) Stephen King https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1419360231s/4978.jpg 2754911]. I've probably hyped it to an ideal it can't live up to, but it should come close.If you actually made it this far in my gushing pretending to be a book review I Say Thankee Sai.

A man can admire a brick wall - the craftsmanship and effort that goes into building it, the quality of the brickwork, the shelter and privacy it provides once it's built.

It's hard to admire a brick wall when you're about to careen into it, though, and that's what Wizard and Glass felt like. The beginning was excellent, the ending fantastic, and by itself the flashback part, telling the story of teenaged Roland and his beloved Susan, was interesting. But dropping a 500-page flashback into the middle of your novel - one that even the other characters interrupt and complain about the length of - completely kills the momentum of the story. Here's to hoping the next book gets back on track.

Well, finally the story starts to feel mature and akin to other Stephen King books I've read and enjoyed. The whole tale within a tale was gripping and the reader of the audiobook version (Frank Muller) really brought it to life. His Cowardly Lion impression towards the end was terrific!

I give it three stars because, like other Stephen King books I've read, it's enjoyable but forgettable. The exception thus far would be The Stand and It, both of which I've read more than once. Although I'm guessing that, by the time I get to the end of the Dark Tower series, I'll be strongly inclined to read the first one again. I've heard that from a lot of people, and I can see why now. The circular references and fluidity of the timeline add a certain something, so it might very well be worth going back to the beginning once the end is reached.

Book 4 in the Dark Tower series is both annoying as loveable.
Obviously the book picked up the story with Blain the mono, where it was left of in the Wastelands.
I liked the resolution of that storyline,although it was spun out a tad too long to my tasting.

Then of course the meat of the book is in the back story of Roland and his friends when they were sent away from Gilead.
Here comes the annoying part, first of all,the language, it irritated me quite a lot...in the end I got used to it, sort off, because, and here is the second nuisance, it is way too long.
For me, that middle part of the book could have been shortened with at least 100 to 150 pages. Yes, we get it, they were in love, yes we get it, they made love...a lot.

Now the good thing, the story puts a fundament under the Roland, Dark Tower, story arch.
It expanded on the world building and brought depth and tantalising connections with other King books.
In the end it was wrapped up quite well, so that lifted the book above the mediocre and it ended up as a 4 star book for me.

I have so many thoughts about this book, and no way to properly organize them. Let's give this a try.

This book is 1010 paperback pages. Around 900 pages in, I was sure I was giving this a three star rating, and was already writing my list of reasons in my head why this book is annoying. The last roughly 100 pages though was some truly all time 5 star material. Not because of what happens- the ending is actually pretty “quiet”- But moreso how the entire novel comes together to redefine everything that came before it, and realign everything that comes after it.

I've seen people talk about how much they love Roland as a character. I've enjoyed the previous three books, but I've never seen Roland as particularly great. This is the book where you learn who he is. Why he's doing what he's doing. What matters to him, and what his fears and traumas are. This book elevated Roland from a 4/10 to a 9/10 pretty quickly for me.

Most of this book is a large flashback to Roland's teenage years, and the first time he fell in love. And I really enjoyed this a lot more than I expected when it began. It was a surprisingly touching love story and I thought the entire thing overall was well done. The end “battle” with the antagonists was pretty refreshing too. I won't spoil it, but it handles this build up in a way that I don't see stories do very often.

So why was I originally going to give it three stars? Well:
-Here's as good a time as any to mention that I absolutely hate, despise, detest, the Mid-world lingo. So much. I like “forgotten the face of your father”, because it's just quirky enough to make sense but also be weird and mysterious. But I hate “Sai”, I hate “I wot”, I hate all the “thee” and “thy”, I dislike “cry your pardon” and I even hate “mayhap” most of the time. But I especially, fully, with my whole entire heart hate “thankee-sai”. Did Stephen King ever say this phrase out loud? Did he ever picture ROLAND saying this phrase? Nobody else said this out loud to him and begged him to reconsider? Truly? I don't believe it. This is the silliest fucking phrase I've ever seen in my life and it's used about 300 times in this book.
There are other “mid-world-isms” I'm probably forgetting. But overall, the dialogue in this book drove me crazy because we usually have Eddie, Jake, and Susannah to talk normal in contrast with Roland's dumb fake-child nonsense.
-I did really enjoy the long flashback, truly. But it needed an editor with a backbone. You could cut 150 pages from this 800 page flashback and lose LITERALLY nothing substantial, and you could cut another 50 and lose barely anything else. I'm all for marinating in a story, but there were entire pages I skimmed and didn't miss a single relevant thing to anything happening. That's not good.
-The book randomly turns into a Wizard of Oz reenactment, complete with magic shoe tapping. What, and I say this with much fervor, the fuck? I know this was King's post-Cocaine days but you wouldn't know it from this sequence. I'm sure this has some literary merit to somebody but I think this is the only full blown mistake in the plot to me.
-This isn't just Wizard and Glass, but something that bothers me about storytelling in general- when a character tells other characters information for the first time and then that information just happens to be super relevant immediately. Roland just basically arrives in Kansas and says, “Well, speaking of Kansas, one time I was in a small town” and talks for LITERALLY days and then 10 minutes after he's done, the story he is telling the group JUST SO HAPPENS OUT OF NOWHERE to be directly relevant to their quest all of a sudden. I understand the narrative impulse, it makes sense to put relevant backstory and info into the book where it's going to be relevant. But oh my god, Roland and the group travel for months on end! Just have him tell the story and then be like “they walked around for another month. Oh and then X happened”. Or something!! Roland just randomly getting an urge to finally open up at this time and place just feels too convenient.
-similar to above, but I also hate when a character tells a bunch of info and then someone asks for additional info and the character says, “I just told you so much, I am so drained, don't you know we are book characters? We can't take a quick water break and press on with the info! Instead, that follow-up info is for a different book! Duh!” People don't talk like this, and pretending they do is frustrating. I can tell friends stories for hours. Even emotionally draining ones. And then if I'm drained, I just wait like 10 minutes or something and then I”ll tell them the rest.
-a previous book made an overt decision to save a certain antagonist from death, and built him up to be a threat. He shows up and is then disposed of permanently within two pages, affecting exactly nothing whatsoever. This is just a problem that happens when you take 20 years to write a series, you don't follow through with buildup effectively, but it was still an odd choice.


So, you see the dilemma. I will never read this book again, most likely. And yet, I think it's the best written of the series so far, and almost the most enjoyable. It made the main character of the series a fully dynamic character, and for that, I applaud it. So, 4 stars.

Onwards on the Path of the Beam!

90/100

I feel like Kings world really starts to take shape with The Wastelands and now Wizard and Glass. I found the story to be well done and I love the back story. I can't give it a perfect score just because it's such a huge flashback that it breaks to pacing of the overall story of the dark tower. It's okay to have flash backs but 500 pages of a 700 book 4 is kinda tough. But King pulls off a nearly perfect novel even with that minor complaint

Disappointed. After the growing progress and excitement from the first three books especially with the cliff hanger, book 4 is a huge let down. I did the 28 hour audio book. After the first few hours where it mixes with King's “the Stand”, it does a reversal and goes into a back story that is so boring. Side note: never heard a book that uses the word “fart” so much. It just drags along. After about 10 hours I checked reviews and learned that the end goes back to the Dark Tower quest. I skipped to the last 2 hours (Part 4) and its back on track. So glad I skipped 14hrs. Hope the last 3 books stay on track.