Dark Tower Cycle

The only negative thing about The Gunslinger is that King never managed to equal it, not even in the six successive volumes of The Dark Tower. The prose is stunning and evocative, and the story has a mythic presence that is seldom matched in modern fiction - it is a very tight, streamlined piece, distilled to perfection.

Dark Tower transcends traditional genre boundaries, and Gunslinger goes above and beyond King's other works - if you've ever read King's 'regular' horror novels, and savored the writing but wished for something with more depth, Gunslinger is definitely for you. If you don't like horror, give Gunslinger a try - while the genre of horror can be applied to it, in many ways it is so much more.

But if the ending is right, then it is nonetheless tainted with bitterness. Not a happy ending, only a necessary one. If you've followed the path so far, you'll want to walk the last few steps, and you may well be disappointed... but then again, you may not be. Were it not worth it, you would already have left the path.

As for the journey itself, there is a definite difference to this novel. Over the years since the gunslinger first followed the man in black across the desert, King's voice has changed. The sparseness of the writing in The Gunslinger was one mark of its exceptional quality, conveying by its tone the nature of a world that has moved on.

The more recent novels are much fuller, much better fed, but they are fed on rotten things that prefer the darkness. The world of Roland has moved on, whether desert or forest, and where life and meat still exists it is twisted and wrong. In that corrupted world, only Roland and his ka-tet are the true steel; that is the beauty and the tragedy.

In Song of Susannah, King introduced an unusual element to his story -- one that many would deem the result of ego rather than honest storytelling. I won't name that element any more clearly, but it is present in this novel as well, to an even greater extent. And yes, it is a work of ego; or perhaps, less a sign of hubris than an acknowledgement that the Dark Tower Cycle is only a story to us, but something far, far more than that to its author.

As with the change in authorial voice, some would view this as a mar in the work. Perhaps they are right. And yet the work has the ring of truth and the sense of power regardless. What King has done in this respect defies almost every rule of conventional fantasy novels; yet it is the sign of a skilled author that he knows when to break the rules, as well as when to follow them.

Indeed, that is perhaps the best way to describe the entirety of the Cycle. King breaks the rules with impunity, and he is right to do so, because the story works. And if the reader is left with the understanding that the story is as much a trip through King's own psyche as anything else, it is an understanding that does not make the journey less compelling.

If you've walked with Roland on the path so far, do not fear to finish the journey.

Overall, the Dark Tower series started out very, very cool. The cool factor has been wearing off, and King has been replacing it gradually with his trademark weird factor. This is, I suppose, somewhat inevitable, even if I would have preferred it otherwise. It's hard to retain the same quality of sparse solitary obsession across thousands of pages without it becoming a source of boredom. In light of that, King has retained many of the qualities of the first novel in the sequence, and has managed to keep things interesting and exciting.

Those who have been following the series have a pretty good idea what the plot of this book will consist of. Susannah Dean has, somehow, managed to get herself pregnant, and Wolves of the Calla closed the story when her baby came due.

Thus, Song of Susannah sends the title character off to have the baby, with Jake, Roland, Eddie, and Callahan going after her. Without spoiling the plot, I will say that I enjoyed the book. The weirdness factor remained about the same, with one startling and worthwhile exception. The book was handled well, with no glaring missteps, and has advanced the plot a fair bit. If there's a complaint to be had, it's that the book ends too soon; it's a doozy of a cliffhanger.

If you've been following the series, get the book and read it. It won't disappoint. If you haven't, read the first two, and if you like those, you'll probably like the rest.