The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass: 4 - Softcover

King, Stephen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1501143557 ISBN 13: 9781501143557

Publisher: Scribner Book Company, 2016

Synopsis

Now a major motion picture starring Matthew McConaughey and Idris Elba

The fourth volume in the brilliant Dark Tower Series is "splendidly tense...rip-roaring" (Publishers Weekly)--a #1 national bestseller about an epic quest to save the universe.

In Wizard and Glass, Stephen King is "at his most ebullient...sweeping readers up in...swells of passion" (Publishers Weekly) as Roland the Gunslinger, Eddie, Susannah, and Jake survive Blaine the Mono's final crash, only to find themselves stranded in an alternate version of Topeka, Kansas, that has been ravaged by the superflu virus. While following the deserted I-70 toward a distant glass palace, Roland recounts his tragic story about a seaside town called Hambry, where he fell in love with a girl named Susan Delgado, and where he and his old tet-mates Alain and Cuthbert battled the forces of John Farson, the harrier who--with a little help from a seeing sphere called Maerlyn's Grapefruit--ignited Mid-World's final war.

Filled with "blazing action" (Booklist), the fourth installment in the Dark Tower Series "whets the appetite for more" (Bangor Daily News). Wizard and Glass is a thrilling read from "the reigning King of American popular literature" (Los Angeles Daily News).

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 on 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:

"King at his most ebullient...sweeps readers up in and swells of passion."--Publishers Weekly

"Blazing action."--Booklist

"As compelling as ever."--Kirkus

About this edition

• Publisher: Scribner Book Company
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1501143557
• ISBN 13: 9781501143557
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 928