The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla: (Volume 5): v. 5 - Hardcover

King, Stephen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0340827157 ISBN 13: 9780340827154

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton, 2003

Synopsis

In the fertile lands of the East, the farming community has been warned the wolves are coming back. Four gunslingers, led by Roland of Gilead, are also coming their way. And the farmers of the Calla want to enlist some hard calibers.

Torn between protecting the innocent community and his urgent quest, Roland faces his most deadly perils as he journey through the Mid-World towards the Dark Tower.

About this title

Review:

In Wolves of the Calla, volume five of Stephen King's epic fantasy western The Dark Tower, coincidence has, as Eddie Dean observes, been cancelled. Everything the gunslinger Roland and his companions encounter has taken on symbolic significance. So when they come to Calla Bryn Sturgis, named after the director of The Magnificent Seven, its clear that King will follow the classic western archetype of a small band of heroes defending peaceable homesteaders. Here, the heroes resist masked raiders who abduct one of each pair of twins (and almost all children are twins), only to return them a month later horribly changed.

Father Callahan from King's Salem's Lot is resident in Calla Bryn Sturgis, and has his own tale of vampires, regulators and the secret highways though alternative Americas. Not coincidentally, the evil Glass Black 13 is hidden in his church. Meanwhile Susannah is again sporting a secondary personality, this time Mia, mother to the inhuman child that Susannah does not know she is carrying, while Roland realises their quest has become a race against the arthritis which will soon leave him crippled.

In this enormously ambitious book, King continues to weave together his back catalogue with the pop culture and literature of America itself, noting in his introduction that if you haven't read the previous Dark Tower volumes this isn't the place to begin. It is, though, a hugely entertaining adventure, rich in allusion; a passing aside to Thomas Wolfe might easily be dismissed, yet his title You Can't Go Home Again, encapsulates this entire spellbinding odyssey as well as five words ever will. --Gary S Dalkin

Review:

'Pulse-poundingly engaging'
Sunday Express

(Sunday Express)

'Join the quest before it's too late'
Independent on Sunday

(Independent on Sunday)

'Classic King, fine characters, compellingly written in a gripping, well-honed plot'
Daily Express on Wolves of the Calla

(Daily Express on Wolves of the Calla)

'Superbly energetic, it's King at his best'
Mail on Sunday on Wizard and Glass

(Mail on Sunday on Wizard and Glass)

About this edition

• Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0340827157
• ISBN 13: 9780340827154
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 640