Entertaining the Alien

20. The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah, Stephen King

I make no bones about the fact that I think King's Dark Tower series is great literature, and I'm utterly delighted to see my belief reaffirmed in Song of Susannah. King left us on sort of a cliffhanger after Wolves of the Calla, and I will warn you, he does something similar in this one, but with the final DT book coming at Christmas time, it's easy to forgive him.

In Song of Susannah, King not only continues the time- and worlds-warping storyline he's been building all along (now we're currently traveling through NYC of 1999 and Maine of 1977), but he adds some astonishingly self-referential touches, almost to the point of surrealism. Some people will hate it, or cry ego, but I thought it was freaking genius, and spent the last half of the book grinning like a maniac.

There is heroism in this book that will take your breath away; one scene in particular tore my heart out and makes me dread the last book even as I anticipate it. (Yeah, this one has a lot of the emotional pull that Wolves seemed to lack for me.)

Oh yeah, and I said last time that I thought King's accident in 1999 seriously influenced his decision to wrap up this series. After finishing the last page of this book, I feel completely vindicated in that assumption. The last page is a little mindblowing, and it's a doozy.