To give birth to her "chap," demon-mother Mia has usurped the body of Susannah Dean and used the power of Black Thirteen to transport to New York City in the summer of 1999. The city is strange to Susannah...and terrifying to the "daughter of none," who shares her body and mind. Saving the Tower depends not only on rescuing Susannah but also on securing the vacant lot Calvin Tower owns before he loses it to the Sombra Corporation. Enlisting the aid of Manni senders, the remaining katet climbs to the Doorway Cave...and discovers that magic has its own mind. It falls to the boy, the billy-bumbler, and the fallen priest to find Susannah-Mia, who, in a struggle to cope with each other and with an alien environment "go todash" to Castle Discordia on the border of End-World. In that forsaken place, Mia reveals her origins, her purpose, and her fierce desire to mother whatever creature the two of them have carried to term. Eddie and Roland, meanwhile, tumble into western Maine in the summer of 1977, a world that should be idyllic but isn't. For one thing, it is real, and the bullets are flying. For another, it is inhabited by the author of a novel called 'Salem's Lot,' a writer who turns out to be as shocked by them as they are by him. These are the simple vectors of a story rich incomplexity and conflict. Its dual climaxes, one at the entrance to a deadly dining establishment and the other appended to the pages of a writer's journal, will leave readers gasping for the saga's final volume (which, Dear Reader, follows soon, say thank ya). |
“I hold to no God," Roland said. "I hold to the Tower, and won't pray to that.”
Being one of my favorites of the series, it’s ironic since Savannah is my least favorite character. This is a type of lead-in book to the last one, the big bang finale we all feel is coming book. The book may not solve many riddles of the series but it’s still exciting. All kinds of unsettling things go down, and the story is just fascinating urgency builds and stakes heat up.
There are so many mixed reactions on King inserting himself (or a version of himself anyway) into his books. Some call it egotistical, some call it cheap. I call it none of these things. It’s an unusual gesture, twisted, and while the idea holds flaws, I like it. The whole series remains meshed with the Kingverse; I still get chills remembering he saw IT staring back at him.
It took such a long chunk of his life to write this series, the story swimming around in his head years in between putting it down, inventing legend. It also strikes me that King is writing a younger version of himself when he was an addict to more than writing and that they, in the book, appear to him during these delusional years.
For much of the book, the Ka-tet is divided into twos of a sort.
As always Roland is an amazing hero to journey with. Eddie’s humor is welcome to break up the breakneck speed. Jake is one of the best again, it’s different with him because the reader has been able to watch him grow up and mature not only as a gunslinger but as a boy growing closer to becoming a man. Savannah is always battling some inner struggle – it makes sense she is the one to battle an inner demon. Father Callahan makes a return appearance.
It’s definitely a book that’s leading to the final one. The stakes are higher, the bar is raised, tension is amped. Onward, forward, whatever, to the finish line. Most Dark Tower fans will likely enjoy Song of Susannah.
Book Quotes:
In the Land of Memory the time is always Now.
In the Kingdom of Ago, the clocks tick... but their hands never move.
“Dead was the gift that kept on giving. Dead, like diamonds, was forever.”
“I think telling stories is like pushing something. Pushing against uncreation itself, maybe.”
“Passage between worlds. Then the gunfire. Then the killing.”
Extras on Author's Website:
Link to Robert Browning's Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came poem that inspired the story
Discordia (Game Based on the Dark Tower series)
Reviews of the Series:
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