Wizard and Glass

In a sense this book is the true ending of The Wastelands and as such it is a great thing. It starts right where The Wastelands ended and tied up certain plot lines set up in the final chapters of that book.

However, this is also a book about Roland Deschain’s mysterious past. It is a character exploration as good as any other; it delves on Roland’s teenage love, the immediate events after his rite of passage, it explores the lore of Midworld and the civil war that marked the end of the gunslingers, and more importantly begins to explain Roland’s obsession with the Dark Tower. No longer is the Tower simply a goal of Roland’s, it is something he has already paid dearly for and his mission takes on a whole different meaning. The show more dark Roland we’ve met has a past that if it does not justify some of Roland’s actions at least help inform and explain his mindset.

Whereas The Wastelands expanded the lore of Stephen King’s multiverse Wizard and Glass cemented it and his decision to include all of his great stories within the frame of the Dark Tower series was in my opinion a grand idea that makes readers delve deeper into his works. Looking forward to reading The Stand and Salem’s Lot before moving on the next Dark Tower books.

As a stand-alone this book is quite good too, a mystical western tale of love, lust, greed, intrigue and revenge.

10/10 show less

Stephen King says in the epigraph of Wizard and Glass that he was afraid to write it, and that while writing he lost all sense around page 400. "It's done, and that itself is a miracle," he says. In what I consider a big upset for a story that thus far has felt rich and deep in very thoughtful, purposeful ways, that panicked and ultimately resigned state of mind shows in this book's pacing. For example, Roland's matricide - a big fucking deal, not only for me as a reader but also according to the protagonist himself in previous installments - only gets a couple pages of attention. It took King 6 years to write this 800 page book finally disclosing Roland's backstory and character development, so such a gloss-over was unexpected and show more deeply unsatisfying.

Another example is the easy breezy slaying of Andrew Quick. Based on what went down at the end of the fourth book (Andrew essentially clawing his way out of hell, bent on revenge and working with dark magics at his back), I went into this book assuming he would be a near-insurmountable roadblock for our heroes' journey. This reminds me of how I spent my childhood convinced that quicksand would be a constant and fundamental danger in my adult life, but, much like quicksand, Andrew Quick turned out to be a non-issue, a false-advertisement.

King's writing is fabulous, and the story is undoubtedly important to the series, but I don't think I'll be wearing out the spine of Wizard and Glass when I gift myself the paperbacks. show less

Upon re-reading this novel, I feel like I have become Susan Delgado, trapped behind the glass. Mayhap I'm banging my hands against the walls of the thinny, mayhap I'm rustlin with some of the timbers just whispering to a spark.

I love and hate this book.

The first time I read it when it came out, I was like... GREAT! We get to see what happens to Blaine and the Ka-Tet! How far do they get to the Tower before all turns to Ka-Ka? After 500 pages, I knew. After 700, I despaired. After 1,850 pages, I just wanted to click my heels and go the f*** home. Is this an end? Is this a GOOD end? I leave that determination up to all you good folk on the outer edges of Mid-World.

Me, however, I DID NOT like what I did for the Dark Tower. A little bit, show more yes. Some parts were fantastic and necessary and a real wooo-wooo moment for fans of SK in general. But let's just say you probably should start out a big honker of a tale like this at the BEGINNING of a big honker of a bigger tale. Instead, we have 10% story progression and 90% flashback.

Don't get me wrong, however! The 14-year-old Roland and his youthful Ka-Tet is a great story all on its own, ushering forth a doomed romance, gunslinging, magic, a LoTR Palantir, and enough WWII machinery to burn away Mid-World. This is the time before the World Has Moved On and the conflagration that set this choo-choo a-humping.

For itself, the tale might have been better at the very beginning, or better yet, spread throughout the first book of the DT, giving us a back-and-forth of young-man Roland and Terminator Roland as he hunts down the Man in Black. Yes, the first book would be huge, but at least things would be in their proper places.

As for Roland's later Ka-Tet? Sure, we could have another campfire story, but it would be a LOT shorter and we wouldn't have to rely on the Thinny to spread a week's tale into a single night. And also that... thing... that Baum thing... wouldn't feel like such a fizzled bomb.

Good, fun writing, all told, never boring, but the structure of this... well... I think Stephen King forgot the face of his father. show less

[Wizard and Glass], the fourth installment in Stephen King’s epic Dark Tower series, is more of an interlude in the narrative, an opportunity to circle back to Roland’s youth and learn what made him who he is. Up until this point in the series, little is known about Roland’s past, other than what he cryptically hints at when he talks to Eddie or Susannah in their travels. .

Though noble and strong, Roland is also cold and hollow, haunted to his very core by events that are only glimpsed darkly. [Wizard and Glass] shines a bright light on those events, detailing how Roland came of age, becoming a gunslinger before passing completely through adolescence. Driven by hatred and revenge, Roland passes his test of manhood and is then show more sent away, largely for his own protection, only to be embroiled in the bloody and treacherous beginnings of civil war. The dark and fatal events of his too-early manhood are what drive Roland so hard in his later life to the Way of the Light.

King has visited this world before, in [The Eyes of the Dragon], [Talisman], and [The Black House]. None of those novels feature Roland of Gilead, but are firmly set in Mid-World, with gunslingers and the like. King also has some of Roland’s other adventures in [Legends], a short fiction collection that features the story, The Little Sisters of Eluria. And, of late, King has been partnering with illustrators to put out graphic novels featuring Roland’s early days. But, [Wizard and Glass] is the single most comprehensive account of Roland and his early days in Mid-World. The narrative is slightly different, a little more patient and slow-moving, which matches the story perfectly. The tone and pace and prose of [Wizard and Glass] is further evidence of King’s nimble pen, his ability to slip into different types of narratives with the same story and never miss a beat.

5 bones!!!!!
An All-Time Favorite show less

Man, just as it was getting good.
I've made it no mystery in my previous reviews that I personally think these books are at their best, when they are at their most pretentiously batshit. Sadly, this particular installment fails to scratch that particular itch, with most of its girth used for a lengthy and boring, yes boring, flashback to Roland's youth. Now, I would be fine, nay, happy if this was used to give us some damn explanations, but instead we get vague notions as usual and Wizard of Oz references of all things( which I can still appreciate, mind you). The bookends are great however, with the portion at the very beginning (which should've been part of the last book, honestly) making me laugh my absolute ass off. So please, next show more time, stop trying to reign yourself in. Go crazy. Show us the real potential. show less

Anyone looking for the fourth instalment of the quest for the Dark Tower can skip straight to volume five. At least I hope we can, as I'll be reading that next. This is the worst book I have read this year. The quest forms a frame story around a long flashback to Roland's youth that does absolutely nothing to advance the story. It was so badly written as to be unreadable, like a terrible fan fiction. Even as a fan of King I'm prepared to admit that the quality of his work is variable, but even something truly dire like From a Buick 8 is readable. That quality is lacking here. I think there are two problems. First, King doesn't know where the story is going but knows he has to serve his fans. You can hear the strain. Secondly, he hasn't show more done his world-building and he's left with a cut-rate fantasy universe where he feels he has to mangle to language to give the world some sort of veracity. It doesn't work and he just ends up obscuring his own voice and that of the characters. show less

The Dark Tower is shaping up to be quite the adventure (although certainly not for the faint of heart as there are quite a few disturbing scenes). Wizard and Glass is DARK - deep, deep dark, but there's beauty and love there as well. It's somewhat incredible to me how authors like King are able to build worlds and characters you fall in love with and then slowly bring destruction upon them.

The story within a story format of this installment took me a bit to get into, but once I did, I was enthralled with Roland's first ka-tet and the insight into how he came to be the man he is. Also, I really appreciated the cross over into the other worlds created by King. I have this burning desire to re-read [b:The Stand|149267|The Stand|Stephen show more King|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1213131305l/149267._SX50_.jpg|1742269] after running into RF.

I can't believe I waited so many years to take this journey but I am so glad I did. I am relishing every moment spent in this world and experiencing it for the first time.

“Go then, there are other worlds than these.” show less