Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass

This is the best series I've ever read, I love all of the DT books so much. It is such an epic story that spans across so many different genres. The characters are amazingly well written, and you can't help falling in love with all of them. In this fourth book the tet has just gotten off from Blain the pain, and find themselves in a Topeka destroyed by Captain's Trip. That is another thing I really enjoy with these books, how Stephen King manages to tie so many of his books into this universe. Awesome books. Everybody should read them.

Ever since I watched The Stand miniseries, my favorite adaptation of any of King's works, I've had the voice and look of Jamey Sheridan in my head whenever I read or think of Randall Flagg. I think that will always be the case until the day that I die. That's not necessary for this, I just felt like sharing. When I first got Wizard And Glass in 1998 or 99 I was very excited to read the fourth chapter in this story. Waste Lands had ended on a really annoying cliffhanger so long before, and in preparation for the fourth book I reread the previous three (along with The Stand and if memory serves Eyes Of The Dragon). I was ready and couldn't be happier to move forward with Roland, Eddie, Jake, Oy, and Susannah. And then I read those first hundred plus pages, and then I stopped. Spoiler, this is now my favorite of the series to date, but all those years ago when I first started to read it, it wasn't what I wanted. I wanted to move ever onward towards The Tower, not take an unnecessary detour backwards to see beginnings. I did not care what started Roland's quest, and I certainly did not care about his first, only, and lost love Susan. As such, I laid the book down and walked away. Clearly I was dumb. Had I made it another 20-50 pages or so I would have come to the showdown in the bar and I think I would have read to the end. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe I was too young to appreciate this tale for what it is. I don't know, but here I am in 2013 and I loved it. Easily, thus far in the series, this is my favorite part of the Dark Tower series. I fell in love with young Roland, Cuthbert, Alain, Sheemie, and Susan (And Rusher too a bit), and grew to hate Rhea, The Coffin Hunters, Rimer, Mayor Thorin, Avery, and especially Cordelia. When there was the interlude featuring Eddie, Jake, and Susannah again I angrily yelled at Eddie to shut up so I could learn the fate of Mejis and the past. And when the ending of that tale came I was saddened at who we lost and who we would likely never see again. And yet, for some reason, I hold out some sort of hope that one of those lost is maybe not gone from this tale. I hope Ka is kind in this regard. Reading them as they came along, book by solitary book up to Wizard And Glass, I wanted the main tale to move faster, needing to get to the end of the search for The Tower. Reading now, at 41, with the goal in my mind of finishing all 8 books (next up is the newly released 4.5 before I move on to The Wolves Of Calla) I can enjoy this side trip into the past to learn more about Roland and how he started on this journey. I know the journey has already come to an end for so many before me, and I can relax and read the tale as Stephen King meant for me to. I've made it through the first four books in the first four months of 2013, I have no doubt that I will not finish this magnum opus finally, almost thirty years after I started it, by the end of this year. Bird and bear and hare and fish.... QUICK EDIT: I love The Wizard Of Oz bits and I don't know why so many seemed to hate it. It just feels right for this whole book.

I enjoyed this book, another great title in this historic series. Worth the read if you’ve gotten this far in Roland’s quest to reach the Dark Tower. Only draw back is the pacing. It felt like my feet was dragging for a portion of the book, but overall I enjoyed the read.

Review of Wizard and Glass Wizard and Glass is the fourth volume in Stephen King's epic Dark Tower series. To fully appreciate this story, read The Gunslinger, The Drawing of the Three, and The Waste Lands before tackling Wizard and Glass. I am preaching to the choir here, since anyone who has read the first three books is already hooked, like one who stares too long into the Wizard's Glass. The Dark Tower is the story of Roland Deschain, the Gunslinger, a sort of knight whose quest is to find the tower that sits at the center of all the universes. Accompanying Roland on this phase of his journey are former heroin addict Eddy Dean; legless multiple personality Susannah/Odetta; Jake, a boy who died in the first book but who is brought back in the third; and Oy, a talking animal. The first part of Wizard and Glass concludes the riddle contest with Blaine (If you don't know who Blaine is, shame on you! That means you haven't read The Waste Lands.) The group then enters the Topeka, Kansas of an alternate universe, the dead world of another Stephen King novel, The Stand. In this world, Interstate 70 out of Topeka follows the "Path of the Beam" toward the Dark Tower. When the group camps for the night, Roland tells a story from his youth, which forms the main portion of the book. The tale involves the adventures of young Roland and his companions Alain and Cuthbert in a town called Hambry, in the Barony of Mejis. Hambry, like Roland's entire world, is a mixture of medieval, old-western, and post-apocalyptic elements. Palaces, cowboy saloons and long-abandoned oil refineries co-exist in this land. The town is filled with bizarre and menacing characters: Rhea, the wickedest witch in the west; lustful and corrupt Mayor Hartwell Thorin; Jonas and the Big Coffin Hunters, badmen who make Jessee James and his cronies look like boy scouts; and many others. While there is plenty of gunplay and intrigue, a key theme of Wizard and Glass is the romance between Roland and beautiful Susan Delgado. This romance reveals another side of Roland. In the other books of the series, he is mysterious and cold, willing to sacrifice anyone and anything to reach the Dark Tower. In Wizard and Glass, at least we glimpse the human being within the Gunslinger. The Glass of the title is a mystical pink crystal, one of thirteen that form Maerlyn's Rainbow, created ages ago by a malevolent being. Through it, Roland's companions witness the dramatic and tragic conclusion of his story. But beware! The glass is cursed, and can bring only sorrow to its user. The Wizard is Marten Broadcloak, archenemy of Roland, and the reason Stephen Deschain sends his son to Mejis. He has many other names. In the New York of our world, he is Jack Mort, the Pusher, who caused Jake's (first) death and the loss of Odetta's legs. In The Gunslinger he is Walter, the Man in Black. In the world of Hambry, he is John Farson, euphemistically called "The Good Man," who seeks to overthrow the Baronies. Near the end of Wizard and Glass he takes on another, rather fanciful identity, but I don't want to spoil the fun. I'll just hint that, when our heroes encounter him, they're not in Kansas anymore! Roland's tale is too long to be told in a single sitting in our world, but time does not flow smoothly in the worlds that have "moved on." In Roland's world it is feasible to tell a 27-hour story (the length of the audio-CD version of Wizard and Glass) in one evening. Apart from this plot device, the story in this book could not have been exactly the same as what Roland told his companions. The narrative is in the third person, and contains scenes Roland did not witness and could not have known in such detail. Wizard and Glass is one of Stephen King's best works. Any fan who finishes this fourth book of the Dark Tower series will approach the last three volumes with renewed gusto.

It's the longest read in the series, but it is hard to pull back. I am lucky that I can rush immediately to the next tale

I've read the whole series and was very sorry to be done with it. Fascinating reading, sometimes a bit confusing with people hopping in and out of dates and years, but always interesting.

Todo correcto.

Wizard and Glass picks up where the last book left off, with our hero, Roland, and his unlikely band of followers escaping from one world and slipping into the next. And it is there that Roland tells them a story, one that details his discovery of something even more elusive than the Dark Tower: love. But his romance with the beautiful and quixotic Susan Delgado also has its dangers, as her world is tom apart by war. Here is Roland’s journey to his own past, to a time when valuable lessons awaited him, lessons of loyalty and betrayal, love and loss. Book 4 of The Dark Tower and one that is often described as being the best of the lot, a favourite of a lot of Dark Tower fans and having re-read it I can see why quite clearly. That said it is also the least favourite of a fair few. Perhaps therefore, this is the one that divides us, the constant readers. Either way the sheer brilliance of the storytelling remains undiminished. Here we take a break if you like from the path of the beam and head back into Roland’s past and learn a little more about what has led him to this quest. As a glimpse of the boy now a man it is compelling, fascinating and addictive reading. Whilst only a small part of the journey is undertaken in this instalment, in some ways it is the also one of the greatest parts. The main thing I love about this novel is for me, this is where the mythology as a whole started coming into focus. The world that Roland and friends have slipped into here is a world that is very familiar to me, belonging as it does to my favourite King novel. And of course, if you read it all you realise that everything written sits somewhere along the path of the beam..whether you are in a Dark Tower story or not. As an overall body of work, with hopefully a fair bit more to come, I call that pretty amazing. Hey, what can I say. Unapologetic fangirl. When you are re-reading a series like this and reviewing as you go, its hard to find new ways of describing each particluar part within the whole – they are all fantastic. What else is there to say? Perhaps that this one, Wizard and Glass, is like the eye of the storm…because I know whats coming. Happy Reading Folks!

The best book of the series!this is the book about Roland nd Roland only..this book enlighten the past of Roland nd his ka-tet..a very interesting nd also heartbreaking aka tragic story..If you rly love 'epic' fantasy this is a must read!