The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla (5) (Packaging may vary)Audiobook

After the previous book in this series (Wizard and Glass) which is, for the most part, a flashback to Roland's past, Wolves of the Calla picks up with Roland's current quest and ka-tet again. Said quest, however, is almost immediately sidelined by the ka-tet's arrival at Calla Bryn Sturgis, a farming community where they become caught up in a Seven Samurai-style adventure to rescue the small town from the mysterious and terrifying "Wolves" who periodically show up to steal the town's children.

I have to admit that, at first, I was a bit wary that this book, like the previous Dark Tower novel appeared to be setting aside the overall story's main quest. While Wizard and Glass came as a bit of a reprieve from the driving momentum of The Drawing of the Three and The Waste Lands , I wasn't sure if yet another diversion from the quest for the Dark Tower wouldn't just start to feel like literary water-treading. And in the hands of a less gifted and imaginative writer, this would probably have been the case. Fortunately, however, King's world-building, character development, and solid story-telling skills give this book a lot of momentum independent of, but not totally disassociated from, the overall narrative arc of the series.

Like The Gunslinger and Wizard and Glass, Wolves of the Calla hews closely to the tropes of the Western, albeit a Western filtered through Mr. King's dark and rich imagination. Once again, the story focuses on an ensemble cast, giving us a chance to view King's dying world through the eyes of the various members of Roland's ka-tet, as well as through the eyes of Father Callahan, who by strange paths has found his way to Calla Bryn Sturgis from the world of Salem's Lot . Most satisfying in this regard, is the page space given to Jake Chambers, the ka-tet's youngest member who must struggle with the consequences of his loyalty to his ka-tet and its mission.

Wolves of the Calla is a fine continuation of the Dark Tower series, and long-time readers are not likely to be disappointed. King's skills as a writer of horror-fiction are again put to good use as he gives us a story in which bad things are coming, but we find ourselves unable and unwilling to look away.

This is the third time I have read this book. I keep trying to finish the series, I haven’t read the last two books, so I always start over. With this being my third read through and having since read Salem’s Lot this may be my favorite book of the series. Father Callahan’s Tale within the book amazes me. How does Stephen King create multiple stories within a story? The book builds up to the very ending. I would recommend reading Salem’s Lot before this to get a greater depth of what Father Callahan has been through. You will see him in a whole different light.

This book is a masterpiece in so many ways. It is one of Steven King's best books, and by far the best book of the first 5 books in this series. This book has everything one could want in a book, time-travel, time & space dilation, evil "wolves" who prey on twins-destroying the brain of 1, good guys who come to the aid of the children, a talking robot in a primitive land, split-personalities, a traitor, as always a range of different characters, a woman-pregnant with a demon child, star-crossed lovers, a quest to save all worlds, and a big cliff-hanger leading into book 6. Other than the epilogue, I can't imagine anything I would have changed in this book to make it better. The book starts with the gunslinger & his party of 3 nearing the end of their journey to "Thunderclap", where they believe the Dark Tower and the future of all worlds lie. They are sought out by a party from a nearby town Calla Bryn Sturgis who seek their aid in protecting their children. Calla Bryn Sturgis is a subsistance level farming community, other than a walking/talking giant robot who will at times aid them in their physical work or in babysitting their children, and who warns them when the "wolves" are coming. For unknown reasons, almost all births in Calla Bryn Sturgis are of twins, and every few generations the town will be raided by unknown creatures wearing wolf masks who will kidnap one of every set of twins. The twins are then returned by train a few weeks later, but are severely brain-damaged. Efforts to hide the twins or fight the "wolves" in the past have been futile. Roland and group agree to help them. They also meet up with Father Callahan, a main character from another Steven King novel, 'Salem's Lot. We learn the history here, what happened to Father Callahan between the end of the book in Salem's Lot, and to when he ended up in Calla Bryn Sturgis. Father Callahan also has a present for them, Black 13 from the Wizard's Rainbow, which Roland believes can enable them to time/parallel world travel. Which will be definitely needed, because Roland and party have learned that the rose from previous books, located in NY is in great danger, none other then by Eddie's old drug boss, Ballazar. Roland also learns that Susannah is pregnant, and by all indications, the baby is from her encounter with the demon in Book 3, and not from Eddie. Unfortunately, nobody knows how long demon pregnancies last, so in addition to the intense work of figuring how to solve their 2 simultaneous problems of protecting the rose and the twins of Calla Bryn Sturgis, the group must also worry that Susannah will go into labor at an inopportune time. The storylines are thoughtfully interwoven, the ending unpredictable. The book was very hard to put down, as the story was so compelling. Then, the epilogue. It's not that the epilogue was bad, it wasn't. But the epilogue was a set-up for book 6, and I fear from the tone of the epilogue, that Book 6 may be crossing into "jump the shark" territory. Still King very seldom disappoints, so I have hope that my initial thoughts on the epilogue are wrong, and Book 6 will turn out to be every bit as entrancing as Book 5.

Best one yet!

While on their continuing quest for The Dark Tower, Roland and his ka-tet are waylaid by a village in crisis. The gunslingers - because they are all gunslingers in their own right, by now - have to decide whether they can help. And if they can help, they must, and are not allowed to accept any kind of payment, according to the Gunslinger Code.

This book mostly concerns that side quest, but there's a helluva lot of depth, and along the way, they discover much that will aid them in their main quest.

In my review of the last book (Wizard and Glass) in this series, I lamented the long, drawn-out, and somewhat inappropriate backstory. Well, this one ALSO has a significant chunk of backstory to share, but it's nothing like the one in Wizard and Glass. This one's entirely appropriate and perfectly paced, and we're constantly reminded that it is, in fact, a backstory.

In many ways, it forms somewhat of a sequel to 'Salem's Lot. I'll say no more than that, but if you haven't read that book, I strongly suggest you do so before reading Wolves of the Calla.

Back to the main story of this book: the village and its inhabitants are so richly detailed, none of them are "cardboard cutouts" by any means, and their own unique dialect is presented so beautifully, so consistently... I can only call it a literary masterpiece.

Around about 85% of the way through, I started noticing the odd typo here and here. These were clearly things that the editors missed (but in a book this long, who can blame them?). If you know me, you'd know that normally a single typo would be enough to destroy any book's chances of getting a five-star review from me. But in this case, I was so engrossed by the time I spotted the first one, and there are so comparatively few of them, that it didn't matter.

As the author himself advises in his introduction, I wouldn't recommend reading this book if you haven't read the first four (skip the "point fives", though - just read the main story), but if you've been struggling through, I promise you you won't regret sticking with it for this one!