The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass: (Volume 4) - Softcover

King, Stephen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0340696621 ISBN 13: 9780340696620

Publisher: Hodder Paperbacks, 1998

Synopsis

In a terrifying journey through the Mid-World, Gunslinger Roland of Gilead and fellow pilgrims Eddie, Susanna, Jake and Oy, determine to reach the Dark Tower. But their quest is rife with confrontation, conflict and sacrifice.

About this title

Review:

Wizard and Glass, the fourth episode in King's white-hot Dark Tower series, is a sci-fi/fantasy novel that contains a post-apocalyptic Western love story twice as long. It begins with the series' star, world-weary Roland, and his world-hopping posse (an ex-junkie, a child, a plucky woman in a wheelchair, and a talking dog-like pet named Oy the Bumbler) trapped aboard a runaway train. The train is a psychotic multiple personality that intends to commit suicide with them at 800 m.p.h.--unless Roland and pals can outwit it in a riddling contest.

It's a great race, for the mind and pulse. Films should be this good. Then comes a 567-page flashback about Roland at age 14. It's a well-marbled but meaty tale. Roland and two teenage friends must rescue his first love from the dirty old drooling mayor of a post-apocalyptic cowboy town, thwart a civil war by blowing up oil tanks, and seize an all-seeing crystal ball from Rhea, a vampire witch. The love scenes are startlingly prominent and earthier than most romance novels (they kiss until blood trickles from her lip).

After an epic battle ending in a box canyon to end all box canyons, we're back with grizzled, grown-up Roland and the train-wreck survivors in a parallel world: Kansas in 1986, after a plague. The finale is a weird fantasy takeoff of The Wizard of Oz. Some readers will feel that the latest novel in King's most ambitious series has too many pages--almost 800--but few will deny it's a page-turner.

Review:

This is King's most personal, engaging work - Express on Sunday Grim, funny and superbly energetic, it's King as his best - Mail on Sunday King at his most ebullient. He s at his best here as a resourceful explorer of humanity s shadow side, as a storyteller who can set pages on fire - Publishers Weekly

About this edition

• Publisher: Hodder Paperbacks
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0340696621
• ISBN 13: 9780340696620
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 640