Product Description

The eagerly-awaited fifth novel in Stephen King's magnificent fantasy epic, one of the most popular series in publishing history. The first Dark Tower novel to be published as a trade-wide beautifully designed and illustrated hardcover.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #155226 in Books
• Published on: 2003-11-04
• Binding: Hardcover
• 640 pages

Amazon.co.uk 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

Sunday Express
'Pulse-poundingly engaging'
Sunday Express

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

Customer Reviews

Good, but not great
If you've got this far into the series then my guess is in you're in for the long haul. I found this book a real chore until the last 200 pages, which had me thinking of how good the series had been. It moves the story forward, eventually, but you do get the impression Stephen could have done with an editor to chop a good 2-300 pages out of the book to liven up the pace and stop you from nodding off mid page.

The greatest so far
This is without a doubt my favourite of the first five and the last two will have quite a challenge equalling it. For what is possibly the longest of the books (hard to say seeing as it changes size as well as length) it really does its size justice. Where I consider the great length of Wizard and Glass to be a downfall as it dragged on, there was not a page wasted in this and I had to put it down deliberately so I wouldn't read it all too fast!

Wolves of The Calla is essentially a side track story that does not develop a great deal in the search for the Tower but is a welcome story. It encompasses the battle against the wolves of Thunderclap who steal the children of the Calla. It also includes an extended story of Susannahs child and the powers that attempt to ensure its birth. Finally it introduces Father Callahan, a priest inexorably linked to the Ka-Tet, who introduces Black Thirteen, the most powerful of Maerlyns Rainbow to the Ka-Tet - If you do not know of Maerlyns Rainbow, you need to go back to the other books and this is not for you yet!

This story is absolutely fantastic. It is a delight to read as it contains many twists and turns it is just very hard to put down. I would definitely advise this, but obviously if you have read the first four then you probably will read it anyway. If you havent, do!

Brilliant
This book is great i would recommend it to anyone it follows on from wizard and glass really well. This book is so god because it has everything someone wants in an adventure book. Pure class a must getter.