Entertaining the Alien

40. The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla, Stephen King

I am completely unashamed to admit that I have been waiting anxiously for this book ever since I read book 4 of the Dark Tower series, Wizard and Glass. In fact (and I am a little ashamed to admit this), when King was in his car accident a few years back, my first thought was "Please don't let him die before he finishes the Dark Tower books." I have a feeling King may have had similar thoughts. Before the accident, he speculated that he might die before finishing the saga. I have to wonder if his brush with death compelled him to wrap up the series quickly (both of the last two books are coming out next year).

So, all that speculation aside, was it worth the wait? Oh hell yes. Wolves maybe lacks some of the emotional sucker-punch of Wizard and Glass, but it's so damn good to walk with these characters again, to look around at this enormous, mind-blowing world that King has created. A world, as he says in the afterword to Wizard and Glass, that contains all of his other worlds. That in and of itself fascinates me, the way the same characters, themes, places, events, keep cropping up over and over again, some peeking slyly from behind trees, some jumping right out in front of you and saying howdy.

I swear, if I ever get to the point in school where I have to write some sort of enormous paper, if I can get away with it, I'm writing it on King, and in particular, the Dark Tower books. Anyone who says he's a hack clearly just hasn't found the good stuff yet. And these books are as good as the good stuff gets.